Someone brought up on another thread that the ‘ideals’ of wingchun or just that, ideals and that it is up to the student to find his individual interpretation.
While I am a proponent of making wing chun your own, this doesnt to me mean that you can freely interpret what it is suposed to be like or used as. What it means to me is that you locate techniques and tools that work well for you inside the wingchun toolbox, and learn to apply them effectively for you. This obviously recquires a strong and deep understanding of what it is you are studying.
In our time, it seems as if too many people allow thier ego to lead them down the wrong path, many instructors out there who decide they know how to do it better, make a few changes or a whole bunch and continue to call it wing chun.
The ideals of wingchun, the priniciples on which it stands seems to me to be a solid foundation for which you build your wingchun house on. Wingchun has been tested and proven to work over a good amount of time, and with many people. Loose interpretations can do more damage then good and often do. While an art needs to grow to avoid stagnation, often it is not only in technique that it grows but in understanding. Right now I am training and wingchun grows within me. Its like flowers really. A rose has changed from what it was in the beginning, but a while ago roses reached a point where changes were good changes were slight, and massive changes created something new. A good rose has some specific attributes that define whether it is a good rose or not. Now we each take our roses home and we grow them seperately, you might find one color seems to suit you best, or larger leaves and petals might make it look better, but in general our roses will all look similar. If you go off and change your rose so drastically that it now looks like a daisy, why not just grow daisies?
Ultimately the rose hasnt stagnated, and each time we grow them they are fresh and new. The same with wingchun, stagnation can be overexagerated. I feach of us allows the wing chun rose to grow within us then it does not stagnate but is fresh with each new student.
pocket full of posies!!!
Personally red i got a plum flower growing up inside a’ me, why just the other day I shit out a few petals while doing my stance training.
That is deep scatology- shifting from the rose to the plum blossom no less…on the same thread- without starting a new one.
It just seems to me that everyone has an interpretation of what wing chun is out there. Why not just create our own style when we decide we want to fight? Why not just do our own studying and come up with our own system? Possible because there are finite possibilities with the human body as the frame work? Possibly because sometimes someone has already done the studying ahead of us?
What if we were to loosely interpret questions on a test? Or in classes we take?
Learning Leung Sheung lineage, should I assume that he was doing it his way and just showing his students the way he does it, for thier own interpretation?
Seems like an awefully western concept to me, trying to break the mold and form it to match our egos instead of forming our egos to match it?
Eeeeww, I just suddenly got a very different interpretation of Scatman Cruthers’ nickname.
Originally posted by red5angel
Seems like an awefully western concept to me, trying to break the mold and form it to match our egos instead of forming our egos to match it?
Your sifu’s ego? Should we “match our egos” to our sifu’s ego? Yes, we should assume our sifu’s are teaching from their own interpretation. That’s all they have. One can not teach what one does not understand. “Ip Man did it this way, therefore we should do it this way..”???
I’ll say this. If you believe there is only one correct path, than you will spend your time questioning if your path is it, and trying to prove your path is it to others. If you believe there are multiple paths, then you will focus on reaching the goal.
-FJ
EntertheWhip - To a certain degree I agree with you. Of course everything is filtered through our own perceptions but if your instructor is good and was taught well, they can transmit the information as close as possible to the original stuff. Its when ego steps in that you begin to loose original information for new stuff.
Originally posted by red5angel
but if your instructor is good and was taught well
How can one be certain?
Its when ego steps in that you begin to loose original information for new stuff.
You use the word “ego” very loosely. Be careful, you may have to stick your foot in your mouth, before long.
What happens if the original stuff wasn’t as good as the new and improved? Or just so tied into the originators abilities that it’s not usuable by the general public.
Fa_j - you can do anything in several ways, but sometimes there are better ways then others. You should always be searching to find a better path.
Enterthewhip - You should always be challenging it and looking for better ways.
Rogue - I agree with you on the new stuff. even old stuff can be modified and added to, but as things become more refined it becomes harder to make them better, often you end up just going away from the path!
Originally posted by red5angel
Enterthewhip - You should always be challenging it and looking for better ways.
You’re contradicting yourself. Make up your mind before you shoot your mouth off.
I am excited about wing chun. Indeed I am.
I am so glad that many of you are too.
Are you sure you are on the parh. This weekend
you can find out!!!
oddly uncanny and sinister
hi red5angel,
you mention that one should always be searching for a better path…
i feel that 1)knowing your path is the best and blindly following
and
2) always searching for a better path
are both wrong…there both to extreme…that is not wing chun
wing chun is center…apply wing chun principles to life and thinking…
my idea is put time and energy into a version of wc…put the time into it though…and im not talking just 1 or 2 years…give time for development…and than if your skills are not developing open your mind to several possibilites…
A) its you not your style thats the problem
b)perhaps the style does suck find a new one
c)perhaps your sifu sucks not your style
Enterthewhip - No, read it more carefully, I am saying that as you study you must trust your instructors and those teaching you. As time goes on you challenge what it is you are learning, put it to the test? If it passes you know you are on the right path, if it doesnt, then you need to look at what it might be that is hurting you, other then your opponent! 
Byond - exactly, either path is an extreme path. You cant have any fear about what it is you are doing, and somewher ein the middle, trusting and testing, is the truth.
I am excited. I was ina study group for two years and then we had seminars. I am so glad I found the path. I am excited.
Arent you. You should be.
Originally posted by red5angel
As time goes on you challenge what it is you are learning, put it to the test? If it passes you know you are on the right path, if it doesnt, then you need to look at what it might be that is hurting you, other then your opponent!
Few of us- and that’s being very generous- will ever have an opporunity to really put Wing Chun to the test. It’s not very difficult to make Wing Chun (or whatever you want to call it) work in the average situation. That doesn’t mean that what you call Wing Chun is good. That doesn’t mean your teacher knows how to teach Wing Chun.
Originally posted by red5angel
As time goes on you challenge what it is you are learning, put it to the test? If it passes you know you are on the right path, if it doesnt, then you need to look at what it might be that is hurting you, other then your opponent!
LIKE YOURSELF, MAYBE?!?!? 
A rose has changed from what it was in the beginning, but a while ago roses reached a point where changes were good changes were slight, and massive changes created something new.
Sounds like somebody watched “Being There” with Peter Sellers just recently.
If you believe there is only one correct path, than you will spend your time questioning if your path is it, and trying to prove your path is it to others. If you believe there are multiple paths, then you will focus on reaching the goal.
Well said.
Be careful, you may have to stick your foot in your mouth, before long.
In red5angel’s case, your advice comes way too late.
Its when ego steps in that you begin to loose original information for new stuff.
You should always be challenging it and looking for better ways.
So which is it?
Rose gardens are OK, but personally I prefer horticultural diversity.
As usual, the truth lies somewhere between the extremes of blind faith, and relentless following of fashion.
anerlich
I am so excited. Thank you for referring to Peter Sellers and being there- if you root now-its roses in spring. Thank you.
BTW should I root aggressively? If peter Sellers had made it to Minneapolis- he would have done so much better in the Pink Panther.