[QUOTE=Wayfaring;1008734]So it sounds like here you just don’t understand what is meant by the word space in the context we are talking. Your head exists in a certain space for example. I’m certain you’ve heard the term “personal space”. But here you’re just being argumentative and refusing to get it despite logical arguments.
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Look,when you cover your head, you’re not covering “space” where your head happens to be but your head – why TRY to make it anything more than it is?
That’s a cop-out answer. Come up with a better synonym since you’re being critical of the one that’s being used..
It’s not a cop-out, it is what it is. But when everything is a “concept” to you . . . .
I don’t know what the h3ll it is exactly that you’re talking about. You seem to think there’s some universal WCK “kuit” like the Holy Grail that exists out in the stratosphere, and that somehow all people teaching WCK from the 1800’s have made a pilgramage to see it and copy it down for all their students. That’s delusional.
WCK is an approach to fighting and a means of training that approach. It comes from one source, right? We may not know for certain what that source is, but all these lineages and branches didn’t all just coincidentally develop the same forms, kuit, drills, etc. By looking across LEGITIMATE lineages in a historical context, and seeing the commonality, we can see that certain movements, certain kuit, certain drills, etc. are “universal” with regard to the WCK curriculum. Those are the things the ancestors/founders left us.
WCK is WCK, and the various lineages/branches are just various peoples ways of teaching the same subject.
Yip Man had a written kuit, his students hence inherited it. Other WCK branches not Yip Man have their own written and oral kuits from their lineages and family teachings. These, by the way, are not unique to WCK. Many other arts have them as well. Other lineages not being from Yip Man wouldn’t have his kuit. Even on this forum for example, Hendrik has posted things from his family’s kuit, which is not Yip Man.
All the kuit were oral, it’s just that Yip wrote them down (since he was literate, unlike most other people in China). Yes, many of the kuit are “generic” – that’s not a big surprise since much of fighting is “generic”.
And, yes, various lineages have adopted other kuit – and other things, including forms, drills,etc. – into their WCK curriculums. However, there is a commonality (things in common) that make up a core curriculum of WCK. For example, YJKYM is part of that core curriculum. So is lai lao hoi soong.
Sifu Gee’s oral kuit has phrases in it that don’t exist in other WCK lineages. This is not some super secret thing, but you can read some of these phrases in his book “Mastering Kung Fu”, which is published, has an ISBN, etc. Different phrases, different application. This is not rocket science, but yet somehow, possibly due to some of your attachments with arguing with HFY people, you just don’t want to get it.
I know that Garrett has added all kinds of things to his curriculum. That doesn’t change what I’m talking about. The core curriculum of WCK is the core curriculum.
At least here you were intellectually honest enough to include the words IMO. Great. Thanks for your opinion. But, I disagree. WCK is not like BJJ, in that everyone can trace back to Helio Gracie, or Carlos Gracie Jr. In HFY people’s opinion, this is a matter of Wong Wa Boh vs. Hung Gun Biu as being who people trace through.
We can reliably trace LEGITIMATE lineages back to the Red Boats (where it is likely that WCK originated). Yes, I know the HFY “opinion” but as I have said before, as you can’t prove HFY existed prior to Garrett, that opinion is merely fantasy/wishful thinking.
Yes, Alan has taken Sifu Chu’s teachings, cross-trained in BJJ, and has a decent small show fight team with 2 or 3 pros and a number of amateurs. While that seems like a huge accomplishment for WCK people, it’s not all that remarkable in the overall context. There are 2 or 3 MMA schools in almost every major city in the US that do the same thing, as well as many other countries. Even in medium sized cities. I’m saying this so you don’t get all worked up and start swinging from the man’s nuts again. It’s embarassing. Why don’t you put together your own team?
Don’t criticize me for bringing him up when you asked: “If you mean by legitimacy the proven soundness of application in a fighting scenario, I’d love to see your evidence of Yip Man lineages having that where HFY people do not.” I also brought up WSL (I guess I’m nuthugging Alan but not Wong?). I was pointing out that there were people in the YM lineage who did have accomplishments that HFY did not.
But I do agree with you that it is not a major accomplishment – except within the WCK community where people do not train like fighters for the most part.
I have noticed that the chatter about kuit has got progressively wierd. Especially since I’ve always felt that the kuit being ‘shared’ here is mostly not what Ip Man would have taught. Just too ‘traditional’ IMHO.
And that is IF Ip Man even had a kuit, let alone teach with it. Most of his more well known students wouldn’t even know what it was IMHO.