Re: Good Wing Chun vs student Not ready
Originally posted by planetwc
Take a look at the video clip on the following page:
http://members.tripodasia.com.hk/kungfumaniac/
The link translates to “Wing Chun’s Great Battle against Karate.” I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m a little embarrassed…
Oh, and excellent points planetwc.
Zhuge Liang
Re: lineage matters only as much as the person following it
Aelward,
I agree with you 100% on the lineage thing. It indicates a source and gives reference points, but says NOTHING about what the student within that lineage HAS in the way of hands.
Lineage also has a nasty way of degrading over time, if the students generationally down the line, don’t rediscover the essence and have the skill to demonstrate it.
Just because I am a student of Sifu ___ doesn’t give me the skills of Sifu ______ . It may give me the opportunity to obtain such skills if I have the time, patience and talent to devote to hard work study and practice.
If your teacher has great power, or great root, or great power and root and you have neither. First look to yourself to see that you are putting in enough time. The other thing is to check to make sure that what your teacher has in these things is an acquired skill that is transferrable.
If I study baskeball with Michael Jordan, it doesn’t make ME MJ.
If I study Boxing with Lewis or Tyson (ugh), it doesn’t give me their skill.
Originally posted by aelward
[B]R5A: Your entire assessment on Leung Sheung is based on presumptions about the motivations of a man who has been dead for 30 years. Did you ever have a chance to ask Yip Man first hand? It is no better than someone who might argue in favor of the “later = more refined” outlook; or the arguement that YM would certainly teach his own children all the secrets. Outside of conjecture, can you offer hard evidence? Or are you just trying to sell your lineage off as not only good Wing Chun, but “best” Wing Chun? How does your lineage compare to that of Leung Ting’s WT, which you dismissed in an earlier post? Afterall, Leung Ting first learned with Leung Sheung as well.
IMO, there is no such a thing as “Best Wing Chun.” As for good Wing Chun: it is the approach that optimizes your physical and mental attributes through the personalization of fundamental WC theories.
Lineage is important only to the extent that if somewhere up on your family tree, an ancestor “just didn’t get it,” the principles upon which your lineage is based might be incomplete or off target.
Your skill will derive from half of what you are taught, half of what you do with that teaching. You could have the best teacher in the world, but if you never listen to him, what good is your lineage? On the other hand, your instructor might not be the best in the world, but he was sure to teach you the basic principles and theories, and made sure your forms were good; if you were smart enough, you could probably become a good practitioner and teacher yourself. [/B]
That karate-kungfu video was indeed embarrassing. One of the real problems in unevenness of wing chun traing. The wc young man’s structure and chum kiu was terrible and he was just flailing away in his match. Bad wing chun practitioner versus better karate practitioner…
Rene I think you are closer to the truth of it than most.Look what happened.after a few years of study many many of Yip Mans students did start teaching.
The fast that he may have taught early students to fight well doesnt mean he didnt keep lots of goodies for himself or those who paid more.
ROFLMAO
Now I know what I want my wing chun NOT to look like!!!
zhuge liang or david w
Any idea on
where did that karate- kung fu match took place. mainland, HK…etc?
Curious- what school or lineage was that kung fu guy from?
Any details will be appreciated.
joy
Re: zhuge liang or david w
Originally posted by yuanfen
[B]Any idea on
where did that karate- kung fu match took place. mainland, HK…etc?
Curious- what school or lineage was that kung fu guy from?
Any details will be appreciated.
joy [/B]
I’d love to find out myself. I couldn’t find additional info on that site. If you’ll notice, there were Japanese subtitles in the clip, and the background cheerers were Japanese (“Ora!”). That might be a clue, but David may know more.
I think we’re all curious, but who knows. It reminded me of the style of one of the practioners of the conference vcd. For the well being of the forum, I think we should leave it at that. =)
Zhuge Liang
Re: zhuge liang or david w
Originally posted by yuanfen
[B]Any idea on
where did that karate- kung fu match took place. mainland, HK…etc?
Curious- what school or lineage was that kung fu guy from?
Any details will be appreciated.
joy [/B]
I’m wondering if that was from the infamous “fighting black kings” Oyama tournament, where some newbie type WC guys were used as hors’doevres by the Kyokushinkai. 
I’m guessing it was that tournament in Japan.
Lineage would only be important, if that young gentleman’s teacher did Chum Kiu in the same fashion. :rolleyes:
Originally posted by hunt1
[B]Rene I think you are closer to the truth of it than most.Look what happened.after a few years of study many many of Yip Mans students did start teaching.
The fast that he may have taught early students to fight well doesnt mean he didnt keep lots of goodies for himself or those who paid more. [/B]
The amount of time spent training in that time I think would make a difference. The very early Yip Man students literally LIVED and trained with him for at least 6 years before striking on their own. Nothing like doing some late night chi sao in front of your teacher in a wrong fashion to get him up out of the cot next to you to correct your Wing Chun. (often reputed to be done by Leung Sheung and Lok Yiu, to get even more training time with YM).
For the folks who trained with Leung Sheung, he was teaching 5 days a week 3 times a day. How many of us here or even in HK now have that kind of opportunity to train that often? My teacher was going to WC class 3 times a day. Walk in as a youngster in the mornings and crawl out dead tired like an old man after the final evening class. I think there was a lot more intense training time offered than we have now.
Go ask your current Wing Chun teacher if you can move in with him for the next 6 years.
I imagine his wife might have something to say about that. :rolleyes:
Hi Dave,
One of my “cousins” once asked my sigung what the major difference was between WCK now and WCK back in the day. He replied in a very similar way. When he was learning, he would literally practice as much as possible all day, and give up a lot of sleep to keep practicing. He’d even train while visiting the wash room and while delivering Dim Sum trays (to the extent he lost his job ;). Also, he and his early students would fight all the time against other seasoned martial artists; long bridge, short bridge, shuaijiao, and western imports when they came around.
Now we (at least I) live in a world where we (I) work 9 hours a day behind a desk, and have all sorts of other commitments.
Another point to consider is quality vs. quantity. Instead of arguing over who supposedly got the most, how about those that just worked and worked the basics? I remember one of the interviews we did for Complete Wing Chun, with one of the lesser known students of Yip Man, he immediately said he didn’t get everything, but that he was grateful for every bit he got, and worked hard as he could to get it right.
Rgds,
RR
Rene said;(comments in brackets))
Now we (at least I) live in a world where we (I) work 9 hours a day behind a desk, and have all sorts of other commitments.
((Supposedly the advantages of modern life is the possibility of greater leisure for more people. But many have multiple commitments when push comes to shove- we have multiple desires and kung fu is just one of many things. It depends on what we want to do with our time))
Another point to consider is quality vs. quantity.
((Of course quality is much more important than quantity- but they are not always mutually exclusive virtues))
On Yip Man
From many accounts I’ve heard, Yip Man only really bothered with people who tried hard.
That makes sense to me, if you were (are) a teacher wouldn’t you concentarate on the keen students. These are also the studens who deserve to be good and eventually get the most out of it.
Red5
Well I do understand that you are stating your opinion. However, it seems that the opinion is on the margin of insinuating that yours is the only one that is right.
Not good to do!!!
Your enthusiasm is great, but it should be directed to Wing Chun not lineage.
Roy - have to hit other threads to discuss this, there are several out there at the moment discussing my zeal and opinion 
Renee - I would agree that time put into it can be a big factor, especially if you are doing the basics correctly! however the time thing is questionable to me. Most people throughout time have had to work for a living, and some longer and harder then us. Its a matter of finding the time, like you said about the guy who practiced it whenever he could. Alot of our other engagements are often by choice and I would say we have a greater freedom to choose how we use our time, and a lot more option as well!
That is also interesting you mention sifu not giving all of the information over, my only issue with that would be that it could be used as a tool of propogada as well. If you were a later student and people were taking the earlier studets more seriously, what better way to draw some attention away from them!
aelward - "IMO, there is no such a thing as “Best Wing Chun.” I agree! I think that there are better tools though and there are definitely better concepts in some then in others! Also, I would have to say, and agree that sometimes it is the person and not the art. But doing the art right and having the right tools can take you a long way!
RED5ANGEL
Your posts were beginning to pss me off, but then I read something you typed on the main forum. I laughed until I pssed my pants.
You, good sir, are redeemed!
Red5angel wrote: "Also, something Philbert said made me think of something. Way back in my punk/skatin days, I had this friend who was dating this chick. now this chick was a nut and she got mad at him at this party see. So they go back to his room, drunk and hopped up on something or another, she makes a pit stop, meets him there, gets his pants down and before he knows it is given him a hand job with sandpaper! He was so tough, that he screams, pushes her away, tears the sandpaper out of her hands and has sex with her anyways!!!
A week later they are going to have sex, and she goes down on him and jabs him in the balls with a pin!!!"
Hey now
I know I’d be really embarassed if someone were to copy any of the more outrageous things I’ve written in the main forum, and post them for all to see on the Wing Chun Forum!! Perhaps you are paying him back…Anyway, we all want to appear serious and studious here, so that the WC elders among us see fit to divulge their information!!!
LOL B&B! I have a couple of friends who hang out there and they asked about a story so I told them! Glad it made you laugh.
Its funny because I think if we were discussing things in a room or at a bar, most of us wouldnt get half as upset as we seem to on this forum…
to planetWC:
I also agreed with your earlier post 100%. Great way of looking at things. I probably wouldn’t have written my post if had I seen yours first.
13 autumns and widow
just my 2 cents…leung sheung did have many fights as did lok yiu. chu shong tin had several fights but wasnt one of the main guys. yip bo ching was a fighter as well. wsl came into the school slightly before leung sheung and lok yiu left to start there own schools. he obviously was know for becoming the top fighter. william cheung and his younger brothers bruce lee, hawkins cheung and i think duncan leung were the newer generation of fighters. in the 60’s from my understanding ho kam ming was the main fighter. moy yat had several fights . (this info is from students of the grandmasters im talking about, i was not there)
just because you can fight using wing chun tools, does not mean you have good wing chun. ive seen fighters who couldnt chi sao to save there arse but were killers in real fight situations. and the opposite i believe is true..just because you have good chi sao doesnt mean you can fight…hopefully we all work on doing both…
it is imposible to say anyone yip man student is best. yip man was of a unique personality..it is hard to say why he did what he did.. obviously the periods that yip man was activily teaching probably produced the better students. in the early period he was teaching first hand…in the middle period i have heard he didnt take as much of an active role as teacher due to personal problems…the third period i understand he started being more active again. another thing to consider is everyone had a differant educational background as well as martial art background…this may change how they percieved wing chun. leung sheungs method is more like yuen kay san wc than say moy yat wc. but they had the same teacher…do you guys really think that one was taught differant than the other?? or that leung sheung and moy yat are 2 differant people with differant points of referance…and 2 differant understandings of the same thing… brian
“just because you can fight using wing chun tools, does not mean you have good wing chun”
True but if you fight good, using good wingchun tools, then you have good wingchun.
just about anyone can be taught to be a good fighter, whether it is in a martial art or not. UFC type stough are mostly just tough guy contest with a little grappling. If you go home every night, run a few miles and then hit your self, and have someone hit you a lot, take up a little grappling, you can ‘fight good’. But to be able to be a good wingchun guy and a good fighter, that is another story.
There are a lot of people who do taiji, but very few of those people really study it for fighting.