Wing Chun the name

Wai Jia: The Kung Fu Forum Wing Chun
1

Yesterday, some one told me he had heard that GM Yip Man is the first one to use the word Wing (praise) Chun and before Yip Man everyone is using the term Weng Chun before that.

I have always honor different perspective from different people. However, I have my own view.

My view is :

1, I dont think Yip Man is the first one who use the term Wing Chun. We can trace into different lineages.

2, According to Yik Kam’s presentation from the red boat era. When Miu Shun created the system, Miu Shun called this new creation Siu Lin Tau. That is how Miu Sun passed to Yim Yee.
So, that is not Weng Chung either. This stuffs exist before Gm Yip Man was born. The presentation said that " Siu Lin Tau was created by me (Miu Shun) fusing the White Crane art (White Crane from Fujian as we have found out ) and my own art (Emei 12 zhuang as we have found out by evident), Thus, the art I have taugh you (Yim Yee) is not the same with the White Crane art."

In more details, some of The DNA of SLT consist of There are 8 points in SLT’s kuen kuit which is uniquely diffferent compare with general Nam Kuen. SLT has inherit White Crane’s Suck Spit float sink, also the Emei’s Open Close ascend (raise) and descend (drop), or Tun Too Fou Chen, Kai Her Sen Chiang in madarin. while using a NON Broken arrow platform.

IE:
as the Kuen Kuit of SLT said,

a, Hui Her Dan Dien Du Mai Chiang… b, Tun Too Ru Hoong Fa Li Kang (madarin)

or

a, Meeting and combine in the Dan Dien, the Du Mai (Du Medirian) Descent…

b, Suck Spit similar to Rainbow (spontaneous without flaw) generate the force

a is for internal alchemy cultivation process which deal with breathing, Zhen Qi, medirians, and Spine. Yes, this one link with the Nature Lower Abdorment breathing and handling. This stanza was adapted from Emei 12 zhuang almost word by word.

b, is describing one type of many power generation process in SLT.

3, In the mean time, in my understanding, There is only one wide spread and officially recorded documented Weng chun since 1650 in the history of southern China, that is the White Crane Weng Chun of Fujian.

It will be great if there is official recorded documentary presented similar to the white Crane Weng Chun of Fujian with the trace able identity of every generation and DNA of the art about other Weng Chun, So that we know more about different Weng Chun.

So, Which Weng Chun is the Weng Chun the rumous said others were using before Gm Yip Man?

What is the agenda I post this post?

1, is for discussion.

2, is I concern about the DNA and platform of SLT being biasedly distorted. When that happen, we cannot restore SLT and we cannot turn on the Enginee. and all our training go down to drain and become useless. So, here I present a different view quoting the Red Boat Era kuen kuit. I can be wrong however at least we have another view and different perspectives.

Hope that with the above 2 more kuen kuits, one can see more into SLT in 1800’s. and remember, the sequence of the training process is that the internal archemy has to be done before the power generation cultivation…Enjoy.

2

Yuen Kay-San used Wing Chun.

I believe there was also a story from Foshan that, following Chan Wah-Shun’s death, and argument ensued between his students with most of them maintaining that Wing Chun was the character set for their art, but Chan Yiu-Min maintaining that Weng Chun were the correct characters.

Literacy was not always high in China, however, Yuen Kay-San, Ng Chung-So, Yip Man, and others were wealthy and had education, and were probably very knowledgeable about which character they used for their systems.

Likewise, with Leung Jan being an apothecary, he probably had an idea as well.

Rgds,

3

HS,

Yip Man’s teachers and grandteachers all called their art “Wing” Chun!

Leung Jan called his stuff Wing in Futshan and Koo Lo.

99% of his students in Futshan call their stuff Wing. The only ones calling it Weng are the ones who trained in some Weng and or combined some Weng into their Wing.

Yuen Kay San’s lineage, another one from Wong Wah Bo, called his stuff Wing even tho he did do some training with Fung Siu Ching the Weng guy.

Yik Kam called their stuff Wing.

Leung Jan first set was called “Siu Lin Tau”!

Yuen Kay San first set was called “Siu Lin Tau”!

Yik Kam first set was called “Siu Lin Tau”!

My big question about the modern “Weng” that was on the Red Boat coming thru Dai Fa Min Kam is what was combined into their Weng to create the Som Bai Fut based art versus the San Chin based art of most Weng?

Regards,

4

I’m not much of a Wing Chun historian as some here are but when you say,
Yik Kam’s presentation from the red boat era, do you mean there is a written document for this? If so, where can it be found?
Phil

5

One dont need to be a historian.

One who found the SLT kuen Kuit, one found it. It was a documentation writting about how the art transmitted within the Kuen kuit. When the kuen kuit was copied to the next generation, it always add in another name. IE: Phil passed to June, June passed to John…etc

The one I have seen updated to my late Sigung Cho On and Cho Chun. The next copied will be update to Cho hong Choy…etc

6

Rene,

Yik Kam was literate. He used Wing. As he called his art “Ban Chung Wing Chun Kuen” or Wing Chun kuen from the Opera House.

7

Hendrik is being far to modest again.

Let’s just say we’re all lucky to have a KFO source who inherited the writings of Yik Kam, and who has kindly shared some with us, and much with the other Yik Kam descendants in the world.

8

A thought to share,

Eventhought I am a buddhist,

This is a guy
http://www.padrepio.net/
I bow and respect whole heartedly, a humble model similar to late Chan patriach Ven. Hsuan Hua who taugh about compassionate and loving kindness.

So, I am still far away compare with these great people who had done great job.

Yik Kam Kuen Kuit is a tool.
and we can use it to make war, to make power, to make fame, to make money. However, I decide to make peace and hope and empowerment and set one free with it. It is not for sale but it is free for peace and hope and honesty.

St. Padre Pio above is called a man of hope. Hope is Spring. Love is spring. Praise the Spring is about praise Love or Praise Hope. Peace is about Living in Now. Eternal is about Living in Now. one can fuse the Eternal and Spring with the bridge of Love and Hope and peace.

One doesnt have to be a top fighters to be cruel cold sadistics and evil. Infact Love and hope open up one’s horizon of perspective, peace help one to live in now. These all are qualities upgrading oneself — to be much broader and much down to earth. our next hundred years might call for these qualities..IMHHHO

9

Wong Kiew Kitt said there was a hall called the Weng Chun Dim or Din that a art called Flower kung Fu was practiced in this art is called Hua Quan and is supposed to have been practiced in the Weng Chun Dim or Din . Maybe this is where Weng Chun was developed in the Shaolin Temple the Southern Shaolin Temple , The Hua Quan Art is a Southern version of the Hua Quan Art or Flower Kung Fu .

10

In this KFM thread: http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?t=38689

Tony Jacobs posts a link to another discussion thread: http://hfy108.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=1388

Which in turn links to an interview with Chan Gwok Gei, the great grandson of Chan Wah Shun. The character used is “Weng”.

11

With regards to the Yim Wing Chun element of the legend, consider once more the relevance of secret rebel societies. Yim' can be translated to mean prohibit’ or secret.' The term Wing Chun’ referred to a geographic location - the Siu Lam Wing Chun Tong (Always Spring Hall), where the rebels perhaps practiced martial arts and orchestrated their seditious activities. The use of the term Spring symbolized the rebirth of the Ming Dynasty and Always referred to the reestablished dynasty lasting forever. After the destruction of the Southern Shaolin temple and its Wing Chun Tong, the survivors changed the character of Wing from Always to Praise. The term Praise referred to the fact that the revolutionaries had to spread the word about the revolution after the destruction of their base. Thus, `Yim Wing Chun’ was actually a codename, meaning (protect) the secret art of the Wing Chun Hall.
—VTM research team
The finding of the Ving Tsun Museum on why the character Weng was changed to Wing…

12

Adding roots to characters was not unknown in Guangdong. The Taiping added all sorts of roots to different characters to change their meaning in a positive or nagative or merely proprietary manner.

Others have suggested you can take apart the Wing Chun characters to their componants, thus rendering:

Speak Always of Great Heaven Day (Yan Weng Tai Tien Yat)

Pao Fa Lien that it came from the first two characters and last character of:

[Speak Always] with Determination; Never Forget the Han Nation; Again will Return [Spring]

There are lots of interesting stories out there.

13

Rene,

IMHHO, Chinese from different area has thier “reserve word” which they love to use.

“Weng” is kind of reserve word for the Fujian people in the old time. When the Fujianese open stores… etc they use “weng” this or “weng” that.

Cantonese doesnt use “weng” that much. so seeing “weng” character people will have a tendency of leading to "fujian " related.

Now, Red boat is in Canton, futsan is in Canton, and so, it is not common for Cantonese to use the Fujianese reserve word. So, I think we need to take this into account since the Cantonese and Fujianese are tribal and competators instead of a big happy family.

just some thoughts

14

Rene,

all is true, the Yik Kam has the full set of stanza and salutation as the Tien Tee hui stuffs too.

However, a question needs to be reallly really look into.
IMHO,
the creation of the Art is not equal to the gang or group the practitional join in.
We cannot make that equal sign. and we cannot make a relationship link without any solid data.

It is similar to the Japanese used the Winchester fire arm is not equal to Japanese made Winchester, as in the Movie the last samurai.

So, are we searching about who build Winchester or who use winchester.

Just some thoughts.

15

The word “wing” has nothing to do with “praise”. What are you trying to say?

Actually, without at least one representation of the Chinese characters this whole discussion is meaningless and smells a bit of…nevermind.

Weng…Wing…whatever. They are all just vague attempts at romanization of a Cantonese word. “Weng” and “Wing” could be exactly the same thing. Without a pic or someone who can type the characters onto the thread, there is no way to even hold the discussion.

I’ve seen it (Wing) in print only 2 ways. One with the mouth radical on the side: and one without: . Neither one of these means “praise” or “secret” and it is kind of hard to see what the other version is supposed to mean since “Wing Chun” is hard to separate into separate words. “Chun” meaning “springtime” and “Wing” meaning “eternal”. The alternate “spelling” with the mouth radical is a strange one as it only represents a sound like a chant or something so it doesn’t pair well with “springtime”. “Eternal Springtime” is the standard modern name and is a girls name with some really nice associations and can be construed to be code for something else like “rebellion” or “rebirth and renewal” and so on.

I’d really like to see what this supposed other “spelling” for WC is as I have never heard that before and that would be interesting if true. Is “weng” supposed to represent the version with the little mouth on the side?

Renerichie posted some really interesting stuff though and explains the alternate “spelling” just referred that never made sense to me before. I love that kind fo code:

Speak Always of Great Heaven Day (Yan Weng Tai Tien Yat)

If I may add a visual:

Wing Chun:
[SIZE=“5”][/SIZE]

Speak [SIZE=“5”][/SIZE] always [SIZE=“5”][/SIZE] [of great]heaven [SIZE=“5”][/SIZE] day [SIZE=“5”][/SIZE]

I had a hard time figuring out “great heaven” because the and the are overlapping in the character “spring” .

16

Your wing is the simplified (and ancient) version of [SIZE=“4”][/SIZE]

It means recite, chant, sing …

[SIZE=“4”][/SIZE] means sigh in admiration - praise?

17

The traditional root (Yan) represents ‘words coming from the mouth’ or ‘speak’, the simplified just uses ‘Mouth’ for the root, and once in a rare while I’ve seen the simplified Yan radical as well.

18

Some Chinese characters are a composite of two characters. In other word a main character will have a radical added to it. Like the charater, fuhk is a composite (sp)? of two characters. It represents a man standing over a dog.
If you look at one version of “Wing” it’ll have the radical “gong”, which means to speak, praise, recite, etc. One version only has the character “Wing” (forever) without the radical
Phil

19

Thanks. That works. Are you saying that in this case though the simplified version is actually a return to an older version than what is used as “traditional” in Hong Kong and Taiwan? Because with the “yan” radical attatched the . . .nevermind. I just realized either “yan” or kou both work for “Speak”.

btw,

If you look at one version of “Wing” it’ll have the radical “gong”, which means to speak, praise, recite, etc

is “gong” Cantonese for ¿Ú£¿

I’m having a slight difficulty following this clearly because of the Cantonese pronounciations being used. Traditional characters are no problem for me. I just can’t type them on my computer but it’s always a guessing game for me to know what you mean by your romanizations of Cantonese pronounciations.

20

Yale Cantonese is widely used in books and dictionaries for Standard Cantonese. Developed by Parker Po-fei Huang and Gerald P. Kok, it shares some similarities with Hanyu Pinyin in that unvoiced, unaspirated consonants are represented by letters traditionally used in English and other European languages to represent voiced sounds. For example, [p] is represented as b in Yale, whereas its aspirated counterpart, [p] is represented as p. Because of this and other factors, Yale romanization is usually held to be easy for American English speakers to pronounce without much training. this is what I learned on college. Yes gong in Cantonese means to speak. I don’t speak Mandarin, only Cantonese, some Toishan and I’m learning Chiu Jiao and Haak Ga now.
Phil