Continuing on good wingchun.....

Wai Jia: The Kung Fu Forum Wing Chun
1

A popular argument on this forum, and in general is that there are all types of wingchun and most of them can work for someone, BUT, can we agree that there is good wing chun and bad wingchun, regardless of how much out there seems to work?
Have you seen good wingchun? Have you seen bad wingchun?

If it is something you really love, and you are going to be doing it for 10, 20, 30 years, or the rest of your life, wouldnt you, and shouldnt you be out trying to figure out what is good and bad wingchun? Shouldnt you get out, do a little travelling, train with different people and see what it is that is out there and that others have to offer? This recquires more time and effort obviously but then you have to decide how important is it to you? Is it worth it wasting your time learning second best or mediocre wingchun if you can learn better or best wingchun?
What it comes down to is the more clear the path the more progress you will make and in the end isnt this what we should be concerned about as martial artist?

2

I’ve seen good WCK. I’ve seen bad WCK. I’ve seen bad students from good teachers and good students from bad teachers. I’ve seen everyone think they’re the lucky ones doing good WCK while eveyone else is a poor lost sod doing crappy WCK. Human nature, I guess.

In the end, WCK has potential and if you work hard, you can overcome a lot and achieve skill. If you don’t, doesn’t matter how gifted your sifu or anyone else is.

Peace,

RR

3

RR - what does working hard mean to you?

why leave it up to your ego, when obviously you want the
best chance possible to learn and if you are a good learner then would it not make sense that you could learn more from someone that is a better teacher.

Why do we know what good food taste like but we do not know what good wc looks like?

Why would we want to go the best school or college and yet when it comes to our martial art training we settle for 2nd or 3rd or the worst, just because the guy is Chinese or he acts and talks like he is good?

4

Hi Red,

Hopefully working hard doesn’t have too many different meanings :wink:

As to ego, I’m probably the wrong one to ask about that. I’ve been lucky enough to visit quite a few lineages and touch hands and develop an informed opinion as to what I’m learning and where I want to go. Isn’t that how you’ve come to your opinion on what you’re doing?

And people can’t agree on what’s “good” food. I love Sushi with a great passion. My best friend hates it. I wouldn’t touch calamari with a 6.5 pole and he thinks its the best thing in the world. What’s “good food”? Tastes good (fats and sugers), nutritionally good (proteins and simple carbs), looks good (nuvelle cuisine), is said by others to be good (fad restaurant of the month).

What’s the best school? Havard? Yale? McGill? Oxford?

And what other criteria are there? What if you found the most fantastic teacher in the world but he was also the paramount @$$hole? Or what if he charged more than you could ever afford? What if he was an alcholic, drug dealer, organized crime figure, harasser, or just simply had a conflicting personality with yours, like fingernails on a chalk-board? What if he didn’t want to teach you?

Why aren’t you studying with Chung sifu directly? Or with Ho Kam-Ming, or one of the phenomenal teachers in China?

Peace,

RR

5

Can’t a good Sushi chef tell what is or is not good sushi? If you dont like Sushi why would you be eating it? :wink:

Which school has the best Wing Chun program?

You are correct about the atributes of the instructor, they should be someone you can respect and trust.

One of these days I may get to China, but are ALL the phenomenal teachers there?
Next summer Camp I will be meeting Chung sifu.

6

Nope, good chefs in general have their own personal likes and dislikes. And they can be harshly critical of minor differences.

Which school has the best WCK program for who? Is the best program for a beginner the best program for an intermediate? Some teachers are really good for beginners but don’t know enough to help experts. Some teachers can fine tune experts but can’t provide (or can’t be bothered to provide) digestible info for beginners.

I agree sifu should be someone we can respect and trust. That’s one of the hardest things to find, however.

Are Ken Chung sifu and Ho Kam-Ming in China? I listed them too!

Honestly though, Red, why don’t you study with Chung sifu directly if you really feel this way?

Rgds,

RR

7

Well we can all make a general judgement about what is good food and what is bad food. Some of us may not like it but when it comes down to it good food is still generall acknowledged as good food (I am getting hungry for some reason!).

Instructors should be good with both beginners and advanced students, otherwise how do they train these people to thier full potential?

As for training with Ken Chung, I train with Carl because his temperment suits mine and his ideals match mine. He has also made some fantastic warmup sequences that seem to really help our development. these things combine to make me happy with his teaching style.

8

Rene asks red 5a about studying with----

Or with Ho Kam-Ming

ho ho ho- he aint in bovine country.

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Red - That’s it in the end dude. If you hated the sifu or what you were learning, what would it matter how good it was? You probably wouldn’t keep it up for long anyway.

RR

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True, but, in this case the guy really was bad! I actually got the chance to see Carl and him touch hands and the guy just couldnt keep up!

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Re: Continuing on good wingchun…

Everyone can see the bad in someone else’s Wing Chun.
How many see the bad in their own?

There is such a large population of practitioners now AND a variety of branches of Wing Chun that it has diverged too much.

Even if one limits down to say Yip Man Wing Chun you have too much divergence there. I would also say that within a particular teaching lineage you will also have divergence.

As that continues over time, with students becoming teachers etc. then it only gets worse.

In other words, I think much of what ends up being called “bad” is from two things: inadequate or incomplete transmission to the student… most of THAT falls on the student. It only gets worse when that student in turn starts teaching others. There is also the fact of individual personal attributes and how they hinder or mutate things to meet the person.

It’s funny though that we can get transmission of oral tradition and writing and science in unaltered form when there is enough rigor applied to that process. Yet in martial arts we haven’t developed the same processes.

What is the real degree to which we can each as students of our respective teachers not only internalize the mental principles of the system, but also the physical manifestations of these principles in the same way that our teachers do?

I wonder why it can be done with music, with dance, with things like figure skating, with flying jet fighters, with mathmatics? Given where we are NOW with an understanding of Quality control, process definition, video and motion capture, why we haven’t made more strides within our respective lineages?

It’s been around 50 years since Foshan style Wing Chun has become publically available… Can’t we do more to insure complete transmission and personal reproduction?

Originally posted by red5angel
[B]A popular argument on this forum, and in general is that there are all types of wingchun and most of them can work for someone, BUT, can we agree that there is good wing chun and bad wingchun, regardless of how much out there seems to work?
Have you seen good wingchun? Have you seen bad wingchun?

If it is something you really love, and you are going to be doing it for 10, 20, 30 years, or the rest of your life, wouldnt you, and shouldnt you be out trying to figure out what is good and bad wingchun? Shouldnt you get out, do a little travelling, train with different people and see what it is that is out there and that others have to offer? This recquires more time and effort obviously but then you have to decide how important is it to you? Is it worth it wasting your time learning second best or mediocre wingchun if you can learn better or best wingchun?
What it comes down to is the more clear the path the more progress you will make and in the end isnt this what we should be concerned about as martial artist? [/B]

12

Re: Re: Continuing on good wingchun…

Originally posted by planetwc
Everyone can see the bad in someone else’s Wing Chun.
How many see the bad in their own?

You hit that nail square on the head.

I know where I need to focus my energy.

Regards,

  • Kathy Jo

P.S. You Wrote

It’s been around 50 years since Foshan style Wing Chun has become publically available… Can’t we do more to insure complete transmission and personal reproduction?]

IMHO, if we were all truly willing to see the bad in our own, and committed to resolve our own shortcomings, that might go a long way toward solving this dilemma also.

13

planetwc - I agree with most of hwat you are saying. In my area however it seems that bad transmission of material is more the instructors faults. We have a lot of “instructors” in the area that have no idea what they are doing but can dupe people who know no better. this can hurt even a good student even if they are able to glean alot of thier own truths from thier practice they can miss out on important and key data that could make or break the way they do it.

14

Originally posted by red5angel
planetwc - I agree with most of hwat you are saying. In my area however it seems that bad transmission of material is more the instructors faults. We have a lot of “instructors” in the area that have no idea what they are doing but can dupe people who know no better. this can hurt even a good student even if they are able to glean alot of thier own truths from thier practice they can miss out on important and key data that could make or break the way they do it.

A practitioner who is invested in continuous improvement can overcome virtually any dilemma, even this one.

There are enough case studies to support my premise. You yourself made a self-correction, no? :slight_smile:

Just some thoughts.

  • Kathy Jo
15

Re: Re: Continuing on good wingchun…

Originally posted by planetwc
Everyone can see the bad in someone else’s Wing Chun.
How many see the bad in their own?

One person’s “good Wing Chun” is another person’s “bad Wing
Chun.” People look for, and do, different things in a martial art,
Wing Chun included, and persue that route. Other stuff may
suffer.

Ironically, I see a lot of bad stuff in my Wing Chun, but others
often have good stuff I haven’t seen before.

It’s funny though that we can get transmission of oral tradition and writing and science in unaltered form when there is enough rigor applied to that process. Yet in martial arts we haven’t developed the same processes.

It would be the case if we only had to remember the sayings or
the structuralized rules of Wing Chun. People are shaped
differently (this, to me, does make a difference) and will naturally
do things somewhat differently. Everybody also has their favorite
or at least ingrained technique. This causes a gradual drift, or
evolution, if you will, over time.

Language is very similar to this. It drifts. I think it’s because
language, like Wing Chun, doesn’t done by flat out memorization.
You learn to use the tools in a more fluid way. Use the tools
you need when you need them. Yes these tools have to be used
within the syntax as laid down by Wing Chun, but there’s still
a lot of room for navigation. Certainly more than the regurgitation
of rote that most oral histories are.

It’s been around 50 years since Foshan style Wing Chun has become publically available… Can’t we do more to insure complete transmission and personal reproduction?

This set off a thought in my head. It’s a bit rantish. Sorry about
that:

A lot of people seem to be in a search for the “pure” or sometimes
“original” Wing Chun. Alright, I find it interesting to know, from
a historical point of view, and while I wouldn’t mind learning it, I
by far wouldn’t really want to just drop everything I’ve been doing
for a (perhaps only slightly) “different” Wing Chun than what I’ve
been learning. We, the students of Wing Chun, like our
martial art for a reason. We like our lineages for a reason.
We like our schools for a reason. We like our Sifus for a
reason.

And if we didn’t, we’d go someplace else.

Now, the reasons I like these things of mine may not (and most
likely won’t) be the same as the reasons you like yours and to be
honest, I’m not sure it matters. Perhaps that’s a selfish view on
my part, but so be it.

16

you are going to be doing it for 10, 20, 30 years, or the rest of your life, wouldnt you, and shouldnt you be out trying to figure out what is good and bad wingchun? Shouldnt you get out, do a little travelling, train with different people and see what it is that is out there and that others have to offer? This recquires more time and effort obviously but then you have to decide how important is it to you? Is it worth it wasting your time learning second best or mediocre wingchun if you can learn better or best wingchun?

So you’ve only been doing it for 3 years, but you’ve already decided your Sifu is the ant’s pants. Ever thought of taking your own advice here, before you lecture the internet at large?

And why did we need another thread on “good Wing Chun”? Was something wrong with the old one?

17

Bonzer there mate!

  1. How is someone going to base their judgement on what is good and what is bad?

    a. Everyone uses the same terms, but demonstrates differently.
    b. Others have radically different interpretations of how to do it.

  2. At what point is someone going to qualified to make the judgement call?

    a. Look at Taiji. You have all sorts of people claiming and thinking they are doing the real deal. Yet for Chen style the reference standards are the Chen masters from Chen village, for Yang style the Fu(?) family lineage holders.

There you have a very definate standard of Chen family Taiji. Masters like Chen Xiaowang, Chen Zheng Lei, Wang Xian, etc.

STILL you have wannabees claiming all sorts of crap, without real ability to do the proper fundamentals of Taiji.

  1. So what happens when your be all end all guys are in a different country? What if they were in Australia? Or Germany? Or Bullamanka?

“Ant’s pants” :smiley:

So other than going on either an a$$ kicking world tour to show the “true” way, or setting off in search of the way…

What can students do of their own accord that will get them in touch with the underlying principles which they can execute in an efficient and economic manner especially when under stress?

Most teachers don’t go on tour to other lineages and allow their approach to be questioned and put to the test, because it’s not worth the aggro and secondly because so many schools are too insular in their own approach. And also, more likely than not, occasionally you are going to run across the moron who doesn’t respect the hands unless you HURT him. Losing proposition all around.

Originally posted by anerlich
[B]

So you’ve only been doing it for 3 years, but you’ve already decided your Sifu is the ant’s pants. Ever thought of taking your own advice here, before you lecture the internet at large?

And why did we need another thread on “good Wing Chun”? Was something wrong with the old one? [/B]