As for Wing Chun specifically, I think it’s a fantastic art. I have taken classes in it, but more in a cross training fashion than dedicated training. I have however trained with a lot of Wing Chun guys, having a few close friends who studied it as their primary art. While I was teaching Kenpo, I had a regular group with them where we would get together after class and train in modern self defense tactics and sparing.

My experience with this group, as well as others from seminars and various tournaments, were pretty consistent. The main thing I saw in terms of their self defense skills was that newer students were horrible with it, but experienced students were pretty solid. I mean newer as in 1-2 years of training and experienced as around 5 years of training, and anything in-between varied greatly on said student and their own focus.

Wing Chun is one of those arts that by itself is pretty effective for general self defense. If you have a good instructor (does make a big difference), you’ll find very little in wasted movement or energy. Relaxing is a big focus, which is essential to reacting quickly to attacks and generating power. Kicks are usually below the waist, which is a good thing for real defense. It’s also a very fluid, but snappy style which relies on body awareness, making the movements unusual and often deceptive for opponents, as it reacts and changes depending on the motions of the attacker. This also allows it to defend well against attacks regardless of the specific attack, making it rather adaptable.

As I mentioned though it has a bit of a steep learning curve before most people will become decent at general self defense with it. The relaxation thing often messes up beginners, as they either don’t do it enough or too much. Usually the later, which makes their attacks weak an ineffective, and when they try to get more power they become too stiff and rigid. Another thing that makes a huge difference is how they move in general. If you watch a newer student, they move normally until they begin an exercise or after they are attacked. An experienced student moves the same way no matter what they are doing. There is no noticeable change in the basic flow of their movements when they start a form or begin to spar, it’s always there. So when they are attacked they are already flowing, they don’t have to start doing it afterwards.

That said Wing Chun is an example of a martial art that has seen stagnation due to tradition, and thus does have weaknesses when utilized for modern self defense. This is the reason Bruce Lee developed Jeet Kune Do, as he believed any combat effective art had to be constantly growing and changing to meet the times.

The three biggest weaknesses as it’s traditionally taught is lack of ground fighting, trouble with multiple attackers, and possibly taking too long to neutralize a threat. And these actually all tie together. As it relies a lot on reacting to the attacker and building power and advantage over time (even if only a short one), this can lead to multiple attackers as your opponent gets help. Multiple attacks have to be taken down quickly and often brutally to neutralize them, and it will often lead to the ground.

If your instructor focuses a lot on self defense and they are good, the last two things won’t be much of an issue, but you’ll still be boned if you get taken down to the ground. And since Mixed Martial Arts is so popular today, that’s very likely to happen in general.

One way to take care of that is simply cross train in a ground fighting art like Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, Wrestling, or Sambo.

That said, it really depends on what type of self defense you are looking for. If you want to be able to stop a mugger or protect yourself from a gang beating, you’re probably going to need a combat oriented teacher and some manner of cross training.

If you want to be able to handle some A-hole in a bar and look really cool doing it, Wing Chun is great by itself.

Just remember it’ll likely take a few years before you are good enough to be effective, and by that time, you’ll probably be so smooth and relaxed that the guy will be giving you a beer instead of a hard time. ^_^

(PS: Sorry for the length, but you asked! :P)

Yeah, Donnie Yen brought a lot of attention back to Wing Chun, definitely revitalizing the student base.

One thing to note though is that the Wing Chun depicted in those movie isn’t strictly Wing Chun, it’s of course dramatized and there’s little differences in his techniques that would make some WC practitioners say, “That’s not really Wing Chun.” But it’s pretty close really.

As far as cross training in another MA for ground fighting goes, you really don’t need to be an expert in it, as long as you know the basics well enough to have an idea of what to do if you get taken down, that’s all you really need. And once you’ve had a few years of WC training your focus would be to get back to your feet as soon as you could, which is a good idea anyway. Multiple attackers is the weakness of modern MMA as well. They are trained to square off against one opponent and end up doing a lot of ground fighting. Doesn’t really help you if the guy has two mates kicking in your skull while that’s happening.

The best MAs for pure self defense are the modern ones where they train in normal clothing, have no rank system, or a very down played system, and have brutal techniques that end a fight as soon as possible.

That said, I personally wouldn’t want to train exclusively in a combat form like that. That’s more suitable for military purposes, and to a lesser degree police officers, prison guards, and maybe security guards, as they’d get into a lot of trouble if they dealt with people as efficiently as they could.

My primary art is Aikido which these days, as far as self defense goes, focuses on dealing with an attacker in a way that actually does the least damage possible. But that’s a very ideal situation as you have to be an expert in the art to actually manage that. Like WC when a student is new to the art, 1-3 years, they’re pretty terrible at general self defense, and are actually more likely to hurt someone badly if they were successful in an actual fight, as it relies a lot on joint locks and they’d likely break someone’s bone or drop them on their head. It also uses mostly generic attack forms, so until you’re an expert, anything you aren’t used to is going to be trouble.

I trained enough in other arts before I began in Aikido, so that it wasn’t really an issue with me. So once I had the self defense side generally covered, my focus turned to the spiritual well being/fitness side of things, as those aspects are going to be infinitely more beneficial to someone who isn’t in a high risk job, or just looking for trouble.

When I was a late teen, my Kenpo instructor ran his own security firm, so I worked for him, and obviously self defense was something I was definitely more concerned with as a teen dealing with adults. I later used these skills in a medical capacity, dealing with patients who were out of it or psychotic. That’s what drew my attention to Aikido, as I wanted to be able to defend myself without hurting these people, as these are situations you can’t just talk through. Since I was already knowledgeable in self defense, it was a lot easier for me to adapt Aikido techniques in a way that worked without having to study it for years first.

Of course now I have been studying it for years, but I still try to keep my self defense skills up to date, even though I never use them any more.

So yeah, even though reading my posts before, it might seem like I am really self defense focused, I’m actually not, but I have been. As I said, you will reap much more benefits from taking an art that does focus on self defense, but also has a strong if not stronger focus on general well being and fitness. Just avoid being like those that don’t actually focus on self defense, but still believe they are very good at it, because they think any martial arts training will do it. That’s not the case.

So once again I think Wing Chun would be a great art for you, because you already have an interest in it, it does focus a good bit on self defense, but it also has the other benefits that will be much more helpful to you in the long run. And just make sure you realize you aren’t going to be very effective in a fight until you’ve had a few good years of training with some cross training thrown in. And by that time, as I mentioned before, you probably won’t need to fight anyone anyway. The best fight outcome is the one that was avoided in the first place, and a good WC teacher will help greatly with that as well. ^_^