hi guys, i reckon my wing chun instructors have been dragging their heels on the teaching front…
the following is lifted DIRECTLY from a website in the uk,
so much for perfecting each part of the art before moving onto the next…
"Wing Chun is perhaps one of the most famous of Chinese Martial Arts. It is a derivative of Shaolin Kung Fu, being a more simplified (it has only 3 basic forms, Sil Lim Tao, Tsum Kil and Bil Jee, whereas Shaolin Kung Fu has 36 basic forms) and vastly more effective fighting system. It is as effective today as it ever was.
Wing Chun Kung Fu is the basis of our Martial Arts combat system.
We teach Wing Chun Kung Fu in 3 levels, which includes all 3 basic forms, as well as Butterfly Knives, 6 1/2 Foot Pole, and Wooden Dummy Techniques. Each level takes 3 months".
you might be able to learn the correct order of the movements in 3 months but you’ll not be able to perform them correctly or understand what your doing or why.
Agreed. Unless you are a serious, full-time student learning one-on-one with a serious, full-time Sifu, and you are an incredibly quick learner with strong, previous martial attributes, It doesn’t seem possible for you, in nine months, to have anything more that a memorized set of movements. Sure, you’d most likely be better prepared for a fight than you were before you started, but knowing the system and all of it’s intricacies? Doesn’t seem realisitc. The best of the best have all required significantly more than that.
LOL. Heck, I am still waiting for some one to tell me what Shaolin IS. 36 forms huh. What shaolin are they speaking of? I don’t think a single art from shaolin has 36 forms.
It is amazing what people will point to as “facts”. It is as if there is universal agreement or somthing.
Wing Chun in 9 months. Then I guess every one else wasted their time with Yip Man. LOL
Tom
My late sigung used to say he could teach a smart person with a good memory the all the choreographed movements of WCK in a single day, but could they use it? Since there was no point in learning if you couldn’t use it, there was no point in learning it in a single day.
There are tapes out nowadays for a couple $100, and many sifu would will sell you their sets for $1000s, so if you really just want to learn the choreographed movements very quickly, its not hard.
Conversely, there’s no point in dragging out the process either. WCK seems to favor the center, even in this.
If you are just looking at the forms, sure, someone could learn all three hand forms in 9 months. 9 weeks even. I daresay, even 9 days. However, that doesn’t say how good the quality will be, or if the student will be able to absorb the meaning behind the forms. Afterall, forms are not everything to WC.
which website is it from?
if they print it on their website you aren’t dissing them so tell us who said this?
how do they define ‘learn’ thats the question. no one ever ‘learned’ chi sao, even Ip Chun is still ‘learning’.
I know a student of wing chun in my area who has spent nine years training in S.N.T. AND C.K. and is just now getting B.J.
Is that a better method of learning or would spending say… 6 months on each form and then 9 years improving it, be just as well?
Originally posted by Ng Mui I know a student of wing chun in my area who has spent nine years training in S.N.T. AND C.K. and is just now getting B.J.
Is that a better method of learning or would spending say… 6 months on each form and then 9 years improving it, be just as well?
If the mentioned student has been training solidly and with excellent instruction and guidance, then I believe his/her Wing Chun should be of a high standard already. How many of the forms one knows is one of the last criteria I’d use for judging the quality of someone’s Wing Chun.
My own teacher has said that in an “ideal” world, a committed and diligent student would practice only SNT for 3 years (to give oneself time to properly build and optimize their foundation for the art). The rest builds on that. In the “real” world we all know there would be virtually no students if we imposed that standard. Thanks to modern day culture and technological advances, we may indeed be the most impatient generations in the course of human history. We live for the climaxes of life, and neglect the value of the plateaus. [This one’s for Matrix. :)]
It’s not entirely unlike building software. Cost of quality studies consistently show that taking the time up front to avoid building errors into the system saves substantial time and cost in the long run. The cost of removing errors in a system rises dramatically the longer the errors remain.
It’s like a business decision. Which is more important, time to market, or long term costs and quality? I can’t make that judgment for anyone but myself. Like any business decision, however well or poorly considered, in the end we each pays our money and takes our chances.
OTOH and back to your original question. If either quality of instruction or sufficient and proper practice for any student is lacking, then it won’t matter much whether 6 months or 9 years, IMHO. Simply counting calendar time in is no assurance of quality or performance either.
Spending one month study all the forms or sets.[/B]
If that somehow makes the student feel they are getting value, at least until they can understand what value is, then great. OTOH, for those who study one month then believe or tout to know or understand the system (or worse, go on to teach others as if they do), then not so great. There is always a dilemma.
But, spending a life time get to know oneself with help of the forms or sets.
One month, 9 years, 90 years, hopefully true for all who continue down the path.
A young boy said “master, how long will it take for me to become Very very good at martial arts?”
“10 years.”
But what if i train day and night, with hardly any sleep, and make my life into training?"
“20 years”
What if i do everything perfectly? Train all the time, harder than any one on the planet, stopping only to sleep and eat? Every thought will be this art? How long will it take me to be very very good?"
“30 years”
Just to preface my question, I do not study WC. I also do NOT mean this to sound like a troll. I am not trying to start a flame war - I’m honestly curious about this: I thought that according to the history of WC, it was based on simple, effective principles that could be mastered in a short time, such as 6 months. If this is true, then why does 9 months sound so unreasonable? And on the other side, if this is not true, then why do so many WC teachers advertise it as such ?
Originally posted by johnv I thought that according to the history of WC, it was based on simple, effective principles that could be mastered in a short time, such as 6 months. If this is true, then why does 9 months sound so unreasonable? And on the other side, if this is not true, then why do so many WC teachers advertise it as such ?
I often wonder about that too. Maybe only 6-9 months worth of understanding to share. “Master” is a highly relative term.
I first became curious about this when I met a WC instructors several years ago, and he told me himself that WC was designed to be mastered in 6 months. Then he told me that he’d been training in it for close to 20 years and still hadn’t mastered it. I wasn’t quite sure what to think at that point, whether his info on WC was incorrect or whether his skill level was unusually poor…
Again, I don’t mean this to sounds like I’m slamming WC…there’s definitely nothing wrong with an art that takes more than 6 months to master. It’s just that I’ve always heard WC was designed for this purpose.
Originally posted by johnv It’s just that I’ve always heard WC was designed for this purpose. [I.e., to be instantly learned and mastered.]
If I had a nickle for every time I’ve heard that too, I might be rich, but I’d still question the validity of the generalization. Just remember, you didn’t hear it from me, LOL.
Learning something useful in relatively short order is entirely feasible with decent instruction and sufficient effort on the part of the student. This may hold in degrees, regardless of near sightedness or far sightedness. Still, false confidence or an unwarranted sense of “mastery” can be very dangerous, and to encourage such a perspective ethically questionable, IMHO.
If it’s “instant,” it isn’t “gung fu” no matter what title is attached to it. IMHO, of course.
johnv-
learning from history? Beware. Better to learn from a competent
teacher. Sure,crash courses in wing chun possibly existed here and there and do now. Because of the richness of wing chun
one can learn bits of it and perfect and adapt it. One of Bruce Lee’s Seattle students has gone far with one or two favorite moves. And Bruce Lee went far with his incomplete but basic kuen.
But wing chun as a martia l art takes a long time to learn well and using it creatively and keeping on learning can be a personal and creative journey up the wing chun mountain.((I am not referring to rice bowl protection and rationing out info with solely money in mind))
“Master” is a highly relative term.