Leung Ting?

[SFC JeffJ]

It looks like I may have the opprotunity to study under some people who are a part of Leung Tings organization. Can anyone tell me about the quality of that org and/or how it differs from other WC?

Jeff

[yipman_sifu]

Originally Posted by JeffJ

It looks like I may have the opprotunity to study under some people who are a part of Leung Tings organization. Can anyone tell me about the quality of that org and/or how it differs from other WC?

Jeff

Leung Ting organization is considered to be the largest among others. It is known by the IWTA in Asia and the US, and EWTO in Europe and some exceptional asian countries. I personally train in it and it is a very well organized organization.

The organization produced many astonishing fighters such as Sifu Thomas Mannes of Germany (He is the man in the bottom picture), Sifu Jeff Webb in the US, and of course the EBMAS founder Sifu Emin Boztepe.

Leung Ting himself is amazing, he is now like a proffessor in combat, and he conducts many seminars to armies and special forces.

The difference between him and other's organiztions is that his way in teaching and the sequence in forms and drills is well organized and modified. I mean that his system has been modified to deal with all the situations of combat. Taking an example William's Cheung organization, which still teaches the traditional way of Wing Chun.

If you go to Sifu Gary Lam's organization, you will know the difference regarding the sequence in teaching the Wooden dummy in early stages, While it is taught at later stages in Leung Ting's.

Sifu Leung Ting organization is grwoing every day, wanna join him? it is a good idea.

[Phil Elmore]

Structurally I'd consider the Leung Ting lineage inferior to the Cheung lineage. I've heard repeated reports of some sort of culture of unpleasant personal behavior among the Leung Ting lineage, but that's just hearsay.

[WingChun Lawyer]

Originally Posted by Phil Elmore

Structurally I'd consider the Leung Ting lineage inferior to the Cheung lineage. I've heard repeated reports of some sort of culture of unpleasant personal behavior among the Leung Ting lineage, but that's just hearsay.

I heard first person reports of cult-like behaviour among Leung Ting´s organization, as well as cult of personality around Ting himself.

I never practiced it myself, so I will reserve my judgement regarding its technical aspects.

The brazilian branch of the organization is well known for not sparring, practicing instead what they call the "blitzdefense" - essentially one step sparring, which sucks. Personally I would stay away from any place where they won´t allow you to spar hard and regularly, so that´s an important point for you to consider - if they try to sell you their blitzdefense in lieu of true sparring, run like hell.

[SFC JeffJ]

Originally Posted by WingChun Lawyer

I heard first person reports of cult-like behaviour among Leung Ting´s organization, as well as cult of personality around Ting himself.

I never practiced it myself, so I will reserve my judgement regarding its technical aspects.

The brazilian branch of the organization is well known for not sparring, practicing instead what they call the "blitzdefense" - essentially one step sparring, which sucks. Personally I would stay away from any place where they won´t allow you to spar hard and regularly, so that´s an important point for you to consider - if they try to sell you their blitzdefense in lieu of true sparring, run like hell.

In my case, I'm not worried about lack of sparring. My wife and many of our friends teach TKD or Shotokan, so I'll end up sparring regardless. I will even have the benifit of sparring outside of the style. As long as the WC is good and I don't see any cult-like behavior, I'll probably go ahead and train with them. Gotta wonder about that Wing Tsun(tm) thing though.

Jeff

[WingChun Lawyer]

Originally Posted by JeffJ

In my case, I'm not worried about lack of sparring. My wife and many of our friends teach TKD or Shotokan, so I'll end up sparring regardless. I will even have the benifit of sparring outside of the style. As long as the WC is good and I don't see any cult-like behavior, I'll probably go ahead and train with them. Gotta wonder about that Wing Tsun(tm) thing though.

Jeff

That´s good. Please do tell us your experiences there, and do tell us how the Wing Chun they teach fares when sparring people outside the style. Personally I would not go to a martial arts school if I had to seek sparring elsewhere, but if you are so curious about the system, by all means try it.

I´ll send you a PM.

[SFC JeffJ]

Will do. I'm really hoping this works out, only been wanting to study WC for oh, over 10 years now.

Jeff

[yipman_sifu]

Originally Posted by Phil Elmore

Structurally I'd consider the Leung Ting lineage inferior to the Cheung lineage. I've heard repeated reports of some sort of culture of unpleasant personal behavior among the Leung Ting lineage, but that's just hearsay.

So you consider the Cheung lineage Superior in its concepts?!

Let me put it this way. William cheung as we know is an old student of the Grandmaster, he started to learn Wing Chun from Yipman himself and then introduced Lee Jun Fan to the system, in which he left to Australia and began his own teachings, leaving Jun Fan to the Gongsau Wong who was considered to be the Beimo king at that time. William had taught his system by the name of Wing Chun. He considered his system to be the best while others were no match to his system.

Leung Ting was the last student of Yipman, he learned Wing Chun from both Yipman and master Leung Sheung. Leung Ting was taking the name Wing Tsun in order to have his own brand. Then he had to establish with a former german wrestler known by master Keith R.kernspecht the Wing Tsun organization. Master Kernspecht learned Wing Tsun for years and believed that it is a very affective system of self-defence. He then started to teach Europeans in the late 70's and 80's. This caused the old Cheung lineage to believe that they were older and better, and as I heard that they were always challenging the Ting's Kernspecht lineage. Among these challenges was a Chi Sao challenge in which someone from the Cheung lineage challeanged leung Ting while he was giving a seminar, and this guy was able to some extent win the upper hand. Does that mean that Cheung's system is superior?, No. After one year, a young lad from Leung Ting lineage,between ages 18-20, using only some Turkish wrestling technique, Challenged William Cheung and defeated him in a well known incident.

What I want to say is, we must not care wheather this lineage is better than that, we must consider more about what we learn for ourselves and what we can get in a case of any street encounter we could have, how we could respond?, what should we do?, and of course, trying to avoid fights as much as we can.

[Kensai]

Originally Posted by yipman_sifu

So you consider the Cheung lineage Superior in its concepts?!

Let me put it this way. William cheung as we know is an old student of the Grandmaster, he started to learn Wing Chun from Yipman himself and then introduced Lee Jun Fan to the system, in which he left to Australia and began his own teachings, leaving Jun Fan to the Gongsau Wong who was considered to be the Beimo king at that time. William had taught his system by the name of Wing Chun. He considered his system to be the best while others were no match to his system.

Leung Ting was the last student of Yipman, he learned Wing Chun from both Yipman and master Leung Sheung. Leung Ting was taking the name Wing Tsun in order to have his own brand. Then he had to establish with a former german wrestler known by master Keith R.kernspecht the Wing Tsun organization. Master Kernspecht learned Wing Tsun for years and believed that it is a very affective system of self-defence. He then started to teach Europeans in the late 70's and 80's. This caused the old Cheung lineage to believe that they were older and better, and as I heard that they were always challenging the Ting's Kernspecht lineage. Among these challenges was a Chi Sao challenge in which someone from the Cheung lineage challeanged leung Ting while he was giving a seminar, and this guy was able to some extent win the upper hand. Does that mean that Cheung's system is superior?, No. After one year, a young lad from Leung Ting lineage,between ages 18-20, using only some Turkish wrestling technique, Challenged William Cheung and defeated him in a well known incident.

What I want to say is, we must not care wheather this lineage is better than that, we must consider more about what we learn for ourselves and what we can get in a case of any street encounter we could have, how we could respond?, what should we do?, and of course, trying to avoid fights as much as we can.

I agree with this. There are documented differences/approachs to Wing Tsun, Ving Tsun, Wing Chun, which on the face of it, may not be as great as initially made to appear. A lot of this stems from marketing, and needing to offer something different to other variants of Wing Chun et al. To go with this is having various masters/senior sifus etc who all, to a greater or lesser extent have egos. Some maybe larger than others, but it's in part down to egos and marketing.

The comment about the ting lineage being structurally inferior to the Cheung version, is a valid and good point. I've not trained in either, so would be unable to comment on that, although, I would add, that with any art, style whatever, there will be people that are better than others. It could be that you could study in the Ting lineage, and be far superior to the Cheung practitioner, or maybe not. So, IMHO perhaps that's also something to consider.

As I've said before, I don't care if my "lineage" trained with Ip Chun, Yip Man, Ip Chuns pet alsation Dave, so long as I get something from what I study, that I both 1. Enjoy 2. Has a good element of realism and 3. I can transfer a few moves to the street to help myself, should the time come that I need it. Try it, check it out. If you like it, great, if not, look elsewhere, but forming your opinion based on experience would perhaps be better for you. Just my tuppence.

Cheers guys.

K

[yipman_sifu]

Originally Posted by Kensai

I agree with this. There are documented differences/approachs to Wing Tsun, Ving Tsun, Wing Chun, which on the face of it, may not be as great as initially made to appear. A lot of this stems from marketing, and needing to offer something different to other variants of Wing Chun et al. To go with this is having various masters/senior sifus etc who all, to a greater or lesser extent have egos. Some maybe larger than others, but it's in part down to egos and marketing.

The comment about the ting lineage being structurally inferior to the Cheung version, is a valid and good point. I've not trained in either, so would be unable to comment on that, although, I would add, that with any art, style whatever, there will be people that are better than others. It could be that you could study in the Ting lineage, and be far superior to the Cheung practitioner, or maybe not. So, IMHO perhaps that's also something to consider.

As I've said before, I don't care if my "lineage" trained with Ip Chun, Yip Man, Ip Chuns pet alsation Dave, so long as I get something from what I study, that I both 1. Enjoy 2. Has a good element of realism and 3. I can transfer a few moves to the street to help myself, should the time come that I need it. Try it, check it out. If you like it, great, if not, look elsewhere, but forming your opinion based on experience would perhaps be better for you. Just my tuppence.

Cheers guys.

K

that's true my friend. It is the individual progress that matters.

[Phil Elmore]

So you consider the Cheung lineage Superior in its concepts?!

Yes, I do. Politics aside I've seen the structural and physical expression of both lineages and Cheung's is (in my opinion, obviously) preferable for practical application. I attended a seminar with Sigung John Crescione, too, and his was superior to what I'd seen of the other two (he's trained with I don't know how many different lineages -- I seem to recall he's studied with all the major branches, but don't hold me to that).

I don't speak for any of these people, however -- I'm not exactly on good terms with Sigung Crescione or his students, as far as I know.

[yipman_sifu]

Originally Posted by Phil Elmore

Yes, I do. Politics aside I've seen the structural and physical expression of both lineages and Cheung's is (in my opinion, obviously) preferable for practical application. I attended a seminar with Sigung John Crescione, too, and his was superior to what I'd seen of the other two (he's trained with I don't know how many different lineages -- I seem to recall he's studied with all the major branches, but don't hold me to that).

I don't speak for any of these people, however -- I'm not exactly on good terms with Sigung Crescione or his students, as far as I know.

Who cares Pal, the important thing is just being able to defend ourselves in street encounters. ( Although it is very rare to be involved in encounters, one should practise and learn the concepts).

[Phil Elmore]

"Pal?"

I'm not trying to pick a fight or offend you. The question was asked about Leung Ting in general and I answered it based on what I've seen.

[Kensai]

Ok guys, let's keep it cool. No bar fights....

[Phil Elmore]

It was not my intent to cause any upset.