As people have stated on the forum and elsewhere, Wing Chun is a puzzle. To understand the beauty of this puzzle is a challenge. That is why it is for the Few not the Many!
Any views out there on this comment?
Go for the corner pieces first. Establish a good foundation/border, then concentrate on the details to fill in the body.
(think I got a piece of Biu Jee’s finger tips over here…)
RR
It can be a puzzle when a Si-Fu leaves his students in the dark or answer questions by fortune cookies lines. Some don’t even care to answer their student’s questions!
When teached right, it is more like a “lego blocks” game where every steps ahead are builded on the precedents.
Anything that supports me in my elitist, holier-than-thou manifest destiny worldview is definitly a good thing in my book.
Puzzle
Wing Chun may be a puzzle, but all the pieces are there for you to see (over time). It may not always be clear what the individual pieces fit in until the connecting pieces have been securely inserted in the jigsaw, but puzzles take time to solve, and with persistence anyone can solve it. Some are much further along to road to completing it, and they have a much clearer view of the final image. While some are just getting the all the pieces on the table.
In the end though, everyone can enjoy the sense of accomplishment as long as they don’t give up. If it is for “the few”, then that is because “the many” have given up at some stage of the game. They have decided not to continue for one reason or another, or they may not have given it their best effort, but not because they did not have the ability to do so.
Matrix
roy
do you consider yourself in the few or the many?
vts
At present it may be for the few rather than the many.
A major reason for this IMHO is the attitude of certain instructors (and posters) who for egotistical reasons want to make the problem solving journey harder for the student than it needs to be through supposedly profound non-answers to reasonable questions.
Old Jong is correct. Elitism is for the small minded.
Wing Chun is not a mystery if your instructor fully understands its aplications and potential, whilst not leaving his/her students in the dark. Wing Chun is actually quite straight forward as all the building blocks are pieced togeather, it is the students responsibility to understand the applications of the piece before progressing. This I think, has a major influence on alot of people, who try to hurry their wing chun skills without fulling understanding its purpose. The instructor can also only do so much, he/she should already know how the system works for them, but it is the journey of all students who learn the wing chun system to also find and understand how the system works for them. Every person being different, the system does not always work for one as it would for another. That is what makes the system so interesting and diverse, and that is what gives people the potential to become some of the greatest martial artists in the world aswell as giving the oportunity for ones martial downfall.
Peace
-Bernard
Yes, I like Old Jong’s analogy of Lego blocks. It removes the element of secrecy that the term “puzzle” implies. That old Jong…he’s one smart cookie
Matrix
To me [an outsider] it seems simpler to understand than other arts, due to its more scientific rules and principles.
Maybe it is harder to learn the subtleties, but it seems to me to be more logical - and therefore easier to learn.
Feel free to tear my thoughts into small pieces.
Picture more than a puzzle
I like the puzzle analogy, though I tell my students that Wing Chun training is more like a picture. I tell them that in the begining of training it is like looking at a picture. You can only see it in a 2 dimemsional way, as you progress in training, it is as if you are able to step a foot into the picture. You are not able to go to far but you are able now to smell the air, flowers and touch what is in the picture, later in advanced training you now can wander through the picture and eventually go over the hills and and experiment with what wasn’t seen 2 dimensionally. Sounds kinda abstract but students seem to like this analogy.
Michel,
I like the lego idea as well. I always thought of WCK just that way. While some systems want to teach you to make a boat or a car or a house, WCK gives you an assortment of building blocks then shows you the basic rules of building, so you can make pretty much anything you like.
Rgds,
RR
anerlich:
but do realize that if you never learn how to teach yourself; eventually youll reach a plateau
peace
travis
DelicateSound
I doubt that anyone would want to tear your thoughts to pieces, but one can never be too sure.
In fact I appreciate hearing your comments as an “outsider”.
Just a comment…I think that a casual observer may appreciate the simplicity of the art, only because they cannot see the complexities due to their subtle nature. As you’ve correctly pointed out, this makes it harder to learn, and yet easier…once you know.
Roy said it quite well in an earlier post:
“overly simplified Wing Chun becomes too mysterious…too complex, simply because many aspects of Wing Chun are missing. Therefore, a more complex Wing Chun actually becomes more simplified, and corelates with these formulas, as evidenced by the movements of the WIng Chun system.”
Regards,
Matrix
Excellent Matrix!!! you’re catching on.
TjD- if you don’t reach plateaus, you never learn!!!
Old Jong, what if the lego’s are trying to be built by Scrabble squares?
Anerlich - Elitism is also for the great minded!!!
and smart posters also lead you through puzzles…LOL
zuxingpogi - The teacher is not the only factor, The students also misinterpret the teacher’s teachings!!! What then?
vts - I’m still learning!!! I consider myself an expert learner…LOL
Actually Matrix, the many that didn’t get it is also because they lack the foresight and understanding. However, in the words of another of my Sifu’s, if the student doesn’t understand , it’s the Sifu’s fault!!!
Rene, I like your painting philosophy. Cheers!!!
cool roy
i consider myself a pathetic begginer who just happens to like fighting & trying to explore my ving tsun.
vts
Cool vts, I was there once too!!!..it’s a great place to be!!
Roy D. Anthony, as I have said, every martial artist is different and therefore must learn to apply the art to themselves, the instructor can only do so much. This allows for martial brilliance and martial downfall. When the student misinterprets the instructor, then many things may happen. The student may then continue to train with such a misinterpretation in mind, this is possibly the hardest to correct for the practitioner must UN-teach themselves, and find themselves a better foundation back in the basics. Or the student may find that what they understood doesn’t work whilst trying to apply the misinterpretation, and hopefully correct their errors. There are many thousands of alternative scenarios. This does not mean that the martial arts are not for the many, it simply means that a misinterpretation has been made perhaps by mistake, lack of experience e.t.c. I never said that everything is up to the instructor, martial arts is a very individual journey, it is about achieving limits for oneself. Unfortunately misinterpretation happens sometimes along the way, which can be both beneficial in the fact that the person learns from their mistakes, or totally catastrophic.
The instructor is simply a guide to helping a student to be able to put the “blocks” as they have been called, in the right place and if the instructor understands the places where this “Lego set” is meant to fit together then it helps greatly. Think of him/her as the manual you get with a new Lego train set, depending on what set you got, there maybe a few typos in the manual due to a manufacturing error, or you may get a perfect manual (but they’re arn’t many). Therefore it is up to the person who is piecing them together to work out how to make this Lego train, also along the way, as you have mentioned, the person may not follow the manual correctly or misinterpret it. Therefore the train will not be properly made and it is up to the person who is building it to fix it. Sometimes however the person building it does not fix it, therefore thinking they have completed a Lego train that infact is not properly complete, a window may be put on wrongly for example and we all know that a piece is the hardest to fix once the train is actually built because the blocks around it also have to be removed (some people don’t even bother). Also I must mention that one particular train does not suite every person, therefore the person must modify the train to suite their personal tastes eg.using red blocks instead of blue, regardless of what the manual says.
I hope that makes some sense.
As to my view on martial arts not being for the many, I agree to some extent, however everyone has the ability to become good martial artists, it is just curcumstance, lifestyle and other thousands of factors that do not allow for one to reach ones martial goals, it could even be said that factors influence people so they stop trying to complete the Lego train set and so they store it in the garage to be done some other time that may never come. Therefore only a few people actually make use of the Lego Train set they got for christmas, one darn hard train set to make, but simple if you can follow the instructions and have the mind to fix up the typos and misinterpretations, only a few have the circumstance to do this. (I could go on but I think this post is already long enough hehe)
Peace
-Bernard
Originally posted by Roy D. Anthony
TjD- if you don’t reach plateaus, you never learn!!!
Read “Mastery” by George Leonard. You will learn to love the plateaus.
in the words of another of my Sifu’s, if the student doesn’t understand , it’s the Sifu’s fault!!!
Hmmmmm…my sifu says the same thing. Small world.
Matrix
give a man a fish, he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, he will eat for life. Unfortunally, there are those men that just refuse to learn.