# Is there an objective way to determine quality of wing chun or My wc is better than yours because I say so!



## hunschuld (Jun 22, 2021)

Reading another thread got me to wonder. Is there an objective way to determine WC quality?  WC is full of mine/ours is better more original. It can be different Yip man students or other WC styles saying theirs is better than YM.

So many things are claimed but then you here other things that refute the claims. For example we hear that Sum Nung WC is better than YM because YKS actually taught YM too but not all the secret stuff he taught Sum Nung. Then the other students of YKS say that what ever SN did was not at all what YKS taught and they don't know where SN got his WC. Every claim seems to have an opposite claim.

So the questionable mine is better than yours goes on everywhere. Is there an objective way to determine the truth?


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## MetalBoar (Jun 22, 2021)

hunschuld said:


> Reading another thread got me to wonder. Is there an objective way to determine WC quality?  WC is full of mine/ours is better more original. It can be different Yip man students or other WC styles saying theirs is better than YM.
> 
> So many things are claimed but then you here other things that refute the claims. For example we hear that Sum Nung WC is better than YM because YKS actually taught YM too but not all the secret stuff he taught Sum Nung. Then the other students of YKS say that what ever SN did was not at all what YKS taught and they don't know where SN got his WC. Every claim seems to have an opposite claim.
> 
> So the questionable mine is better than yours goes on everywhere. Is there an objective way to determine the truth?


My exposure to WC is not extensive, I've had kind of seminar level training and I've watched a few classes at a handful of schools so I'm no expert but I'd think we'd have to define "better" for what and "better" for who at least before we could start to come up with a way to measure the quality. Off the top of my head things I can think of a lot of different ways to be "better" that might all require different metrics.

If someone wants to be competitive in MMA (or some other format, such as Sanda) then competing in MMA or whatever is one measurement. If one lineage is more successful than others and assuming there are enough others to make a reasonable comparison, then it's "better". It might also tell you quite a bit about it's value in self defense but maybe not as much as some of the MMA enthusiasts might claim, depending on how you define self defense. If you care about efficacy against other lineages of WC then you could create a tournament system that's limited to WC and try to get enough participation to be meaningful, which again might tell you something about self defense applications but probably less than competing in MMA and again depending on how you define self defense. Directly and objectively measuring it's value for self defense (unless you accept MMA performance as a direct measure) is a lot harder and may not be possible to do safely or legally and that's true of most all MA.

If you care about authenticity then you have to define that and it's probably going to be fairly subjective. It might be easier to talk about how "complete" a particular lineage is, if you believe that more forms or more drills or whatever is "better" but again whether more is "better" is fairly subjective. 

On the individual level, if you're kind of inflexible it might be "better" than TKD with all it's high kicks. If you've got long limbs and really like to fight from the outside it might be both objectively and subjectively worse for you than some other arts. If there are similar variations between different lineages then there might be objective measurements on the individual level there too.

Speaking for myself I'm not sure how much it matters.  I've been interested in trying WC for years and it's just never worked out. Now that I'm in a new city and looking for a new school I'm limited to what lineages are taught here and the instructors representing them. Phoenix is something of a WC hotbed and off the top of my head I know that there are schools that trace back to Leung Ting, Augustine Fong, Chung Kwok Chow, Garrett Gee, and Samuel Kwok and there are probably others in the area too. That's great, but I'm not training with Ting, or Fong (unless I want to go all the way to Tucson) or whoever, I'm training with someone who trained with them or who is more removed still. My experience tells me that if WC is like other martial arts then the individual instructor is going to make a lot bigger difference than the lineage. So, even if the Hung Fa Yi lineage were actually "better" (setting aside the debates about the truth of it's origins) than Ip Man WC in some absolute sense, it doesn't matter if the local HFY school isn't as good as the local Ip Man school and no matter how good the Pan Nam branch of WC might be it's totally irrelevant to me because there isn't anyone teaching that here (as far as I know).


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## Poppity (Jun 23, 2021)

"What is the Dharma-Body of the Buddha?"

"The hedge at the bottom of the garden." "And the man who realizes this truth,"


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## geezer (Jun 23, 2021)

hunschuld said:


> Reading another thread got me to wonder. Is there an objective way to determine WC quality?  WC is full of mine/ours is better more original. It can be different Yip man students or other WC styles saying theirs is better than YM.


Metal Boar pretty much nailed it. First thing you have to do is define your terms. What the heck do you mean by _better?_

1. If by _better _you mean_ "more authentic"_ ...as in the oldest, least altered or most original form_ I don't think a meaningful answer is possible._ Every lineage and branch emerged from an earlier version going back centuries to those ancestral styles that gradually gave rise to what we call Wing Chun (Ving Tsun Wing Tsun, etc.) today.

On one hand, as you point out, there is no agreement between lineages regarding purity or antiquity, and there is insufficient historical information to provide a definitive answer.

Interestingly, if you think that "older is better" consider that most lineages preach that the art of _WC is superior to the arts it was derived from_. Whether true or not, that pretty much discounts the "older is better" argument  ...otherwise we would all abandon what we do in favor of whatever we believed was the most ancient form. Maybe some version of Bak Hok, or Southern Shaolin, or something far more ancient ...like _Denisovan mud wrestling?_

2. If by _better _you mean most effective in combat, you need to further define what kind of combat, come up with an appropriate rule set and conduct competition between involving all lineages and branches. If enough people participate, over time the results would speak for themselves as to whose system is best. But this is hypothetical because first, it will never happen, and second I'm certain that over time, the winners would not represent any one system, lineage or branch but would be practicing an evolved composite of the most practical stuff from all branches and a lot of stuff that's not Wing Chun i.e. a WC version of MMA.

3. If by _better _you mean better for the individual_ refer back to Metal Boar's comments._ Each individual has different abilities, needs and motivations. What is better for the student will vary depending on the student. Each lineage, branch and school have something different to offer. While it is possible to spot outright frauds and cheats, beyond that it's really a subjective decision.


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## ShortBridge (Jun 23, 2021)

I think it's an error in logic to assume that "better" is the same as "more original".  

I also think that the concept of "original" is flawed and perhaps western. CMAs have forms and sometimes other things that distinguish them from other CMAs, but I don't think that whenever these systems were at their best they considered that "original". They were training and I believe that they were training for their environment and risks. I doubt that effective "self defense" in 1960 Hong Kong has much much in common with effective "self defense" is 1700s Foshan. But, a good system enables you to train within it in a way that is applicable to your life. 

I don't think that we're supposed to time-capsule this stuff. 

I also don't think that you can "combine the best techniques" of multiple systems that you probably never really learned and relate it back in any way to Wing Chun or any other base system. 

The truth for me is somewhere in the middle. The rub is that I think that IS the actual tradition, not the secret scroll version we (usually westerners) want to it be. 

Is mine better than yours? That's kind of a different riddle, but I don't start out assuming that I know enough about what anyone else does to judge.


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## geezer (Jun 23, 2021)

ShortBridge said:


> ....I don't start out assuming that I know enough about what anyone else does to judge.


That ^^^^ is an _excellent_ attitude!


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## obi_juan_salami (Jun 23, 2021)

i don't know that there is any sure-fire way to determine quality overall as all the various lineages are far removed from the 'source'. Some so different they may as well be different styles of kung fu. What you need is a constant that we all share that we can be measured against. One thing that seems to be fairly universal among wing chun practitioners are the principles.  The differences in how each lineage interprets them can be problematic but to what degree a style adheres to the more basic of them could possibly give us some measure of quality.

for example; do they use force against force? do they over commit? do they telegraph their movements? are they relaxed? are the movements simple and direct? do the arms move simultaneously and work together? are they coordinated?

could also include attributes that all _quality _martial arts should share; speed, power, footwork etc.

That's as close as we could get off the top of my head if we are talking cross-lineage. Within lineages they would obviously have their own individual criteria.

in terms of the last question about 'the truth' id say what i wrote above is again still the closest you will get. Reading into politics gets you no where and 'proof is in the pudding' as one of my seniors likes to say. skilful adherence to the principles and obviously competence.

Side note of my political two cents: Sum Nung was the only disciple of Yuen Kay San. For those that know what that relationship means it can offer some clarity as to who got what from Yuen Kay San.


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## wckf92 (Jun 24, 2021)

This thread reminds of another thread here once that discussed the older/more complex Tang Yik pole form. Is it "better" because it's older and/or more complex than the (apparently) shorter Yip Man version? Same thing goes for the knife form(s)...and wooden dummy forms etc. 

I suppose it will be a discussion amongst WC practitioners for many years after we are all gone.   haha


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## geezer (Jun 24, 2021)

wckf92 said:


> ...I suppose it will be a discussion amongst WC practitioners for many years after we are all gone.   haha


Assuming Wing Chun continues to be practiced "for many years after we are gone".

WC has always been a bit obscure, having a brief moment of popularity from the mid 70s through the 80s during and after the Bruce Lee/Kung Fu craze. Other fads like ninjutsu replaced WC and got more public attention for a while. Then, BJJ and MMA made all those exotic "fad" arts seem irrelevant and childish.

With the release of the first Ip Man movie in 2008, there was a resurgence of interest for a while. But the Ip Man movie franchise has run it's course, and WC is pretty much the whipping boy of Youtube, being symbolic of all that is perceived to be wrong with traditional martial arts.

Admittedly, over the years, a few decent MMA fighters have integrated WC training and moves into their repertoire, but it often has the feel of novelty ...like an attention grabbing gimmick used by otherwise pretty normally trained MMA fighters. 

Unless things change ....a lot. Maybe more fighters using WC in MMA or some kind of eye-catching competitions ...like if _chi-sau on tables_ makes it big, I have doubts about the long term future of WC.

As for myself ...my own relationship with WC is uncertain. I still love a good session of that old chess game, Chi-Sau, but I'm mature enough and have seen enough not to be taken in by the shiny illusions and almost magical promises of WC and similar arts. I'm reminded of one of Willy Yeat's poems written late in his life, T_he Circus Animals' Desertion. _

Perhaps WC and the traditional martial arts in general have been my circus animals.


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## hunschuld (Jun 24, 2021)

Lot's of great thoughtful answers to a question that may have no answer.


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## ShortBridge (Jun 24, 2021)

wckf92 said:


> This thread reminds of another thread here once that discussed the older/more complex Tang Yik pole form. Is it "better" because it's older and/or more complex than the (apparently) shorter Yip Man version? Same thing goes for the knife form(s)...and wooden dummy forms etc.
> 
> I suppose it will be a discussion amongst WC practitioners for many years after we are all gone.   haha


I think that it's all training. When I used to look at some more, say esoteric kung fu systems' forms, I would think "that would never work in a fight!" Sometimes now I think "they did the flip (or whatever) and then landed in their stance, because they're training themselves to find that ground on their terms...interesting"

Of course I could be wrong. I took some interest in the Tank Yik staff for a bit and if I could do 2 man training with someone on it, I certainly would, but learning forms is pointless unless you understand what you are training while doing them. The staff form I have is plenty for me.


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## Callen (Jun 24, 2021)

geezer said:


> Assuming Wing Chun continues to be practiced "for many years after we are gone".



Like most traditional Chinese gong fu, Wing Chun will most likely continue by way of selection. It has quietly been spreading throughout southern China in its native language for generations, reminding us that its cultural reach is far greater than the familiar lens with which Westerners are used to looking through.



geezer said:


> WC has always been a bit obscure, having a brief moment of popularity from the mid 70s through the 80s during and after the Bruce Lee/Kung Fu craze. Other fads like ninjutsu replaced WC and got more public attention for a while. Then, BJJ and MMA made all those exotic "fad" arts seem irrelevant and childish.
> 
> With the release of the first Ip Man movie in 2008, there was a resurgence of interest for a while. But the Ip Man movie franchise has run it's course, and WC is pretty much the whipping boy of Youtube, being symbolic of all that is perceived to be wrong with traditional martial arts.
> 
> ...



In my opinion, some of the temporary and trendy “popularity” you are referring to could quite possibly be part of the problem.


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## Blindside (Jun 24, 2021)

hunschuld said:


> Reading another thread got me to wonder. Is there an objective way to determine WC quality?  WC is full of mine/ours is better more original. It can be different Yip man students or other WC styles saying theirs is better than YM.
> 
> So many things are claimed but then you here other things that refute the claims. For example we hear that Sum Nung WC is better than YM because YKS actually taught YM too but not all the secret stuff he taught Sum Nung. Then the other students of YKS say that what ever SN did was not at all what YKS taught and they don't know where SN got his WC. Every claim seems to have an opposite claim.
> 
> So the questionable mine is better than yours goes on everywhere. Is there an objective way to determine the truth?



Not a WCer here in any way.  Isn't the fundamental purpose of martial art to be able to produce people who can fight?  (I am going to ignore intentionally non-combative martial arts like kyudo for the purposes of this statement.)  Shouldn't the only question be who (which school/lineage/whatever) is producing students who can fight?  It is weird to me that this is even a question.


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## Flying Crane (Jun 24, 2021)

geezer said:


> Assuming Wing Chun continues to be practiced "for many years after we are gone".
> 
> WC has always been a bit obscure, having a brief moment of popularity from the mid 70s through the 80s during and after the Bruce Lee/Kung Fu craze. Other fads like ninjutsu replaced WC and got more public attention for a while. Then, BJJ and MMA made all those exotic "fad" arts seem irrelevant and childish.
> 
> ...


Honestly, I am sorry you feel this way.  I certainly do not.

I think the biggest disservice that TMA folks did themselves was to buy into the notion that MMA is the yardstick against which all things martial must be measured.  It isn’t.

MMA is one path in martial arts.  For those who are interested in it, it’s great.  For those who are not interested in it, it is most definitely NOT great.  Personally, I find it utterly uninteresting and irrelevant.  But that’s just me.  Ones mileage may vary.

I think you need to have love for what you are doing.  If you do, then what other folks may think about it is irrelevant.  I personally find all kinds of value and relevance in my training.  If you don’t find that in what you are doing, then perhaps you should do something else.  But make your own choice about that.  Don’t decide you need to do something else, that what you have been doing has no relevance, simply because you feel like there is some collective pressure to conform to the MMA path.  F**k ‘em.


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## obi_juan_salami (Jun 24, 2021)

Blindside said:


> Not a WCer here in any way.  Isn't the fundamental purpose of martial art to be able to produce people who can fight?  (I am going to ignore intentionally non-combative martial arts like kyudo for the purposes of this statement.)  Shouldn't the only question be who (which school/lineage/whatever) is producing students who can fight?  It is weird to me that this is even a question.


That would be another way to determine quality. But maybe only part of the picture. you can certainly be a good fighter and not know any martial arts at all or know martial arts and be a bad fighter. this paradigm makes a simple question more complicated.

what defines a good fighter?
who are they fighting?

wushu practitioners have agility, strength, precision but i don't think many or the performing ones would make good fighters. does this make wushu bad? what about the wushu practitioners that compete in sanda? same style, different purposes depending on what the 'wielder' is training for.

In wing chun (and any martial art) you can be a very successful fighter with speed, power and aggression alone. But compare them to someone who has those attributes PLUS foundation work and embodiment of the principles, all of a sudden the good fighter is a bad fighter?

i guess what i mean to say is that its a tricky one. what you are suggesting would mean we judge an art purely based on its practitioners. Practitioners should be a living embodiment of the style but when they fail in combat is that a result of the style being no good? or more a reflection of the individuals short comings? or reasons for practice?

good point and i agree to an extent. Fighting is after all the original purpose and any wing chun practitioner that is teaching (and worth their salt) should be able to handle themselves. But i don't think it is the overarching or only factor in determining the quality of an art itself.


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## obi_juan_salami (Jun 24, 2021)

on the subject of producing fighters, living in the world we live in currently doesn't help. Since, by law, we cant go around fighting and 'kobra kai-ing' potentially fraudulent schools, and wing chuns apparently lucrative name (despite its bad reputation) it has left us with a very big mess to say the least. on top of that going off of where i learned it, Wing Chun is also not very easy to learn or understand and takes many years to refine and get good at. With daily training upward of 2-3 hours or more especially in the beginning stages. Perhaps there is no incentive for people to do this amount of hard work? particularly when most people work full-time, come to it through a public school, with a hobby in mind. Many of us in the west also, thankfully, live lives that don't involve fighting for survival each day. One thing that is certainly missing when compared to our ancestors is opportunity for practical experience.


if its producing fighters to compete for sport then that is something completely different. not cause we are too deadly or whatever but any fighter wanting to compete in a sporting environment has to train to that environment. you can't be a 2 times a week wing chun man and expect to defeat an athlete, in a game they have trained for and you haven't. So to modify your training enough to have it work in, lets say the all too popular MMA ring, you may need a 'ground game', you need a different kind of fitness, a different kind of strength, different strategies. Then is it a true expression of wing chun and its quality? again id say its more a reflection of the fighter and the quality of their preparation to compete.


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## Blindside (Jun 25, 2021)

obi_juan_salami said:


> That would be another way to determine quality. But maybe only part of the picture. you can certainly be a good fighter and not know any martial arts at all or know martial arts and be a bad fighter. this paradigm makes a simple question more complicated.
> 
> what defines a good fighter?
> who are they fighting?



A good fighter wins more fights than they lose.  And this should be in comparison to other trained fighters, your peer group.



obi_juan_salami said:


> wushu practitioners have agility, strength, precision but i don't think many or the performing ones would make good fighters. does this make wushu bad? what about the wushu practitioners that compete in sanda? same style, different purposes depending on what the 'wielder' is training for.


I don't think the performance wushu has a goal of producing fighters, it is quite clearly about visual performance.  That there is a distinct split between in training methodologies between talou and sanda makes the difference apparent.  At this point the training method is the style regardless of name.



obi_juan_salami said:


> In wing chun (and any martial art) you can be a very successful fighter with speed, power and aggression alone. But compare them to someone who has those attributes PLUS foundation work and embodiment of the principles, all of a sudden the good fighter is a bad fighter?



When attributes are equal skill matters, when skill is equal attributes matter.  Good fighters have both because they are compared against good fighters.  No high level fighter is just one or the other.



obi_juan_salami said:


> i guess what i mean to say is that its a tricky one. what you are suggesting would mean we judge an art purely based on its practitioners. Practitioners should be a living embodiment of the style but when they fail in combat is that a result of the style being no good? or more a reflection of the individuals short comings? or reasons for practice?


What else is there to base it on?  In science you test your theories and publish your results.  Fights against other skilled fighters is the process of peer review.


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## Blindside (Jun 25, 2021)

obi_juan_salami said:


> Wing Chun is also not very easy to learn or understand and takes many years to refine and get good at. With daily training upward of 2-3 hours or more especially in the beginning stages. Perhaps there is no incentive for people to do this amount of hard work? particularly when most people work full-time, come to it through a public school, with a hobby in mind. Many of us in the west also, thankfully, live lives that don't involve fighting for survival each day. One thing that is certainly missing when compared to our ancestors is opportunity for practical experience.\



Do you think people in other arts aren't putting in the same amount of hard work? Why can you find in every BJJ gym a couple of mat rats that are there for every session?  Every high school wrestler works harder and longer for their workouts than I do.  The kids at the boxing gym are there for hours every day after school.  Is there something about WC practice that isn't attracting those people?  And I would argue that there is far more opportunity in the modern sporting scene to get practical experience than our ancestors had, you can find a mma or kickboxing smoker (amateur fights) at least monthly in a big city.  



obi_juan_salami said:


> if its producing fighters to compete for sport then that is something completely different. not cause we are too deadly or whatever but any fighter wanting to compete in a sporting environment has to train to that environment. you can't be a 2 times a week wing chun man and expect to defeat an athlete, in a game they have trained for and you haven't. So to modify your training enough to have it work in, lets say the all too popular MMA ring, you may need a 'ground game', you need a different kind of fitness, a different kind of strength, different strategies. Then is it a true expression of wing chun and its quality? again id say its more a reflection of the fighter and the quality of their preparation to compete.


Didn't Wing Chun make part of its reputation in "rooftop fights" in Hong Kong?  Why could they compete against other skilled fighters then and not now?  If your WC is for self-defense and has adapted for the times doesn't it need to address the issue that the most popular combative sporting events are MMA?  And that as a results attackers might have trained or at least have exposure to a ground game?  That isn't altering WC for sport, that is training students against self-defense threats.


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## Flying Crane (Jun 25, 2021)

Personally, I don’t find it difficult to recognize value when I see it, without the need for someone to “prove” it with a competition win/loss record.  I can look at the methods, understand the logic behind the methods, look at the training intensity, and see where the skill is built.  I can then decide if the training approach is a good match for me and decide if I am interested in pursuing that training.  None of this hinges upon seeing a competition record.

Whether or not someone competes is a personal choice.  The instructor and the students in a school may simply have zero interest in it.  They may be at an age where competition no longer makes sense.  None of that matters to me because I don’t need to see competition, in order to recognize value.  

That’s just me.  One’s mileage may vary.


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## obi_juan_salami (Jun 25, 2021)

obi_juan_salami said:


> ter all the original purp





obi_juan_salami said:


> west also, thankfully, live lives that don't involve fighting for survival each day. One thing that is certainly missing when compared to





Blindside said:


> A good fighter wins more fights than they lose.  And this should be in comparison to other trained fighters, your peer group.
> 
> 
> I don't think the performance wushu has a goal of producing fighters, it is quite clearly about visual performance.  That there is a distinct split between in training methodologies between talou and sanda makes the difference apparent.  At this point the training method is the style regardless of name.
> ...





Blindside said:


> Do you think people in other arts aren't putting in the same amount of hard work? Why can you find in every BJJ gym a couple of mat rats that are there for every session?  Every high school wrestler works harder and longer for their workouts than I do.  The kids at the boxing gym are there for hours every day after school.  Is there something about WC practice that isn't attracting those people?  And I would argue that there is far more opportunity in the modern sporting scene to get practical experience than our ancestors had, you can find a mma or kickboxing smoker (amateur fights) at least monthly in a big city.
> 
> 
> Didn't Wing Chun make part of its reputation in "rooftop fights" in Hong Kong?  Why could they compete against other skilled fighters then and not now?  If your WC is for self-defense and has adapted for the times doesn't it need to address the issue that the most popular combative sporting events are MMA?  And that as a results attackers might have trained or at least have exposure to a ground game?  That isn't altering WC for sport, that is training students against self-defense threats.


i don't doubt practitioners of other arts work hard at all. And there are certainly reasons why wing chun doesnt attract these hard working people. one of these might be that you can be competent in these other arts a lot quicker than in wing chun it seems. it is far from obvious in the foundational stages in wc how it can help you in self defence or how you can move naturally in the akward positions and it takea time to build a solid foundation before you can apply in its *entirety* what you have learned. so unfortunately it does require some faith in the teacher to guide you the right way. i think many chinese martial arts are structured like this, slow uptake with a later pay off. 'why wait when i can get usable skills now' i guess might be the attitude. 

the difference is in sports no one is trying to murder you. your life isnt at stake and I would argue that situations like *that* occured more in history with or without weaponry. And are undoubtedly different. infact even without the intent to kill self defense is different to sport. 

the roof top fights as far as i understand happened between teenagers from yip mans school and other kung fu schools students. Wing chuns world fame came from bruce lee and his teacher yip man and so hong kong style is the most commonly found. There is more than one family of wing chun unrelates to yip man like guangzhou style, fatsan style, gulo style etc.


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## Blindside (Jun 25, 2021)

Flying Crane said:


> Personally, I don’t find it difficult to recognize value when I see it, without the need for someone to “prove” it with a competition win/loss record.  I can look at the methods, understand the logic behind the methods, look at the training intensity, and see where the skill is built.  I can then decide if the training approach is a good match for me and decide if I am interested in pursuing that training.  None of this hinges upon seeing a competition record.
> 
> Whether or not someone competes is a personal choice.  The instructor and the students in a school may simply have zero interest in it.  They may be at an age where competition no longer makes sense.  None of that matters to me because I don’t need to see competition, in order to recognize value.
> 
> That’s just me.  One’s mileage may vary.



You don't, you are also an expert martial artist with a lifetime of experience.  

Not everybody in an art needs to compete, but there better be some regular feedback into the system telling it how other people are fighting, particularly when many participants of that art haven't been in regular street fights.  Participating in the larger marketplace of ideas forces an intellectual honesty about the art, isolating the practice of the art away from others is a great path to delusion and irrelevance.


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## geezer (Jun 25, 2021)

Flying Crane said:


> ...make your own choice about that.  Don’t decide you need to do something else, that what you have been doing has no relevance, simply because you feel like there is some collective pressure to conform to the MMA path.  F**k ‘em.


Sound advice.

Actually, I'm not personally interested in training something like MMA, certainly not when I'm turning 66 in a month. My discouragement is more over what I see as a general decline of TMA into irrelevance ...or In the case of TKD and Karate, as nothing more than a hobby for children ...until they are old enough for "real" sports.

Traditional Chinese martial arts suffer from a different decline. A lot of Wing Chun seems to be moving farther and farther from its fighting roots into a sort of magical way of thinking. I do not want to see this art, that I have spent such a long time practicing, become non-functional and irrelevant ...no more than a cultish form of larping.

Remember: _"If you see the Buddha in the road, kill him"._

Or, _"If your instructor dresses in a long robe like Yip Man, kick his ***!"   _


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## ShortBridge (Jun 25, 2021)

The people who we train work very hard.

Impressed that we made it a page and a half before someone turned this into an MMA/BJJ discussion. That might be a new record.


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## Poppity (Jun 26, 2021)

Aldous Huxley to Sheldon kopp... Unlikely to find that on an MMA page.

Not sure if that's a good thing or not tbh.


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## Flying Crane (Jun 26, 2021)

geezer said:


> Sound advice.
> 
> Actually, I'm not personally interested in training something like MMA, certainly not when I'm turning 66 in a month. My discouragement is more over what I see as a general decline of TMA into irrelevance ...or In the case of TKD and Karate, as nothing more than a hobby for children ...until they are old enough for "real" sports.
> 
> ...


Well there are certainly a lot of schools teaching crap, with very low standards.  This is not new.  All you can really do it take care of your own group and keep the standards high.  I believe there will always be some people who are dedicated to quality, even if the numbers are never high.  I’m ok with that.  Just do your part to make it available to those who want it.


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## Flying Crane (Jun 26, 2021)

Blindside said:


> You don't, you are also an expert martial artist with a lifetime of experience.
> 
> Not everybody in an art needs to compete, but there better be some regular feedback into the system telling it how other people are fighting, particularly when many participants of that art haven't been in regular street fights.  Participating in the larger marketplace of ideas forces an intellectual honesty about the art, isolating the practice of the art away from others is a great path to delusion and irrelevance.


Well ok, so I’ve been training for a few years and I guess that background gives me some insight that not everyone will have.  But I’ve never trained in a school that put a heavy emphasis on sparring or competition.  We did some, but it just wasn’t the big thing.  I would say the one exception would be the roda in capoeira, we did pretty much every single training session.  As I know you are aware, that would be the sparring equivalent within a capoeira context, but is definitely different from the competitive sparring found in most schools and competitions.  I personally enjoyed the playfulness that can be found in the roda much much more than the competitive sparring format that is more typical in other formats.

But at any rate, I don’t think my own insights are particularly difficult to make and I think most thoughtful people with some baseline of experience could make similar observations that don’t need to come down to seeing a win/loss record.  The process itself in the training, is revealing.

As to your comment about needing feedback from outside and intellectual honesty vs. delusion in training.  I understand your point and what you suggest can be a way to get that.  Lots of people seem to enjoy competition and it certainly can be useful.  I don’t argue against that.  

I do argue against the notion that everyone needs to be doing that, or there somehow needs to be a direct link to people who are doing it or else the training is essentially fraudulent and/or delusional.  If you wish to be a successful competitor then you need to train for that and you need to do that. If you have no interest in being a competitor and you are looking for an enjoyable form of exercise and camaraderie in training a method that will give you a distinct and effective advantage in the unlikely event that you will need to defend yourself on the street one day, then you do not need to train like a competitor and you do not need to compete.  I fully understand that a competitive MMA fellow is likely training a lot harder than me, is more fit than I am, and is likely 25 years younger than me.  If that is the guy I end up fighting, then I will most likely lose.  That is ok with me, because that is a very unlikely scenario anyways.  That is unlikely to be the fellow against whom I might need to defend myself one day.  So I don’t waste my time and energy on it.  I don’t worry about how others are training or what they are doing or how they are fighting.  Honestly, I don’t care.  Really and truly.  

there is a real difference between being a successful competitor and being able to successfully defend oneself in what would be a likely scenario on the street.  The two CAN go hand-in-hand, but absolutely do not have to.  You do not need to be the former, in order to be the latter.


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## Svarog (Jun 26, 2021)

Different people practice for different reasons. Some practice simply because it is a part of their heritage, some because they want to experience  different culture, some because it looks cool, some because they are searching some sort of surrogate religion or more as it is popular to say today, they are on a spiritual journey. Some people genuinely want to learn some fighting skills. For some WCK is just  fitness.  What is "best" or "better" is purely subjective and depends of the practitioner's needs, expectations and of course personality with all the issues that may or may not exist. The arts I am practicing are best for me because they fulfill my needs and expectations.


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## Oily Dragon (Jun 28, 2021)

hunschuld said:


> Reading another thread got me to wonder. Is there an objective way to determine WC quality?  WC is full of mine/ours is better more original. It can be different Yip man students or other WC styles saying theirs is better than YM.
> 
> So many things are claimed but then you here other things that refute the claims. For example we hear that Sum Nung WC is better than YM because YKS actually taught YM too but not all the secret stuff he taught Sum Nung. Then the other students of YKS say that what ever SN did was not at all what YKS taught and they don't know where SN got his WC. Every claim seems to have an opposite claim.
> 
> So the questionable mine is better than yours goes on everywhere. Is there an objective way to determine the truth?


Yes.

If you can move like a snake and crane, but other people just see a dragon, your Wing Chun is proabably pretty good.

Kung fu, secret or not, is self-evident.


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## Tomg8 (Jun 29, 2021)

I don't think the "mine is better than yours" is limited to just WC/WT/VT.  Many martial arts have that mentality.


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## Nobodaddy (Jun 29, 2021)

No two students are the same. Try a bunch of different schools. Don't get married to the first one you try or you'll always wonder what else is out there. Find a Sifu whose expression of the system and whose teaching methods work for you. Whether you've trained for 5 years or 40 years, keep trying other schools and systems. Your Sifu should be cool with that. This is how the system evolves. How do you know what's good? How well does it work?


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## ShortBridge (Jun 29, 2021)

I agree with you on this. The best school is the one that you learn the best in and that is dependent on a lot of things. Some of those things will have to do with the style, some with the club, some with the teacher, and some have to do primarily with the student. 

There is a modern, western idea that the teacher or school should change to accommodate each student's interest and preferences. That doesn't work in TMA. Frankly, I wouldn't expect a modern BJJ/Boxing/MMA gym to work that way either. 



Nobodaddy said:


> No two students are the same. Try a bunch of different schools. Don't get married to the first one you try or you'll always wonder what else is out there. Find a Sifu whose expression of the system and whose teaching methods work for you. Whether you've trained for 5 years or 40 years, keep trying other schools and systems. Your Sifu should be cool with that. This is how the system evolves. How do you know what's good? How well does it work?


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## Eric_H (Jul 7, 2021)

hunschuld said:


> Reading another thread got me to wonder. Is there an objective way to determine WC quality?


For a broad school to school comparison, statistics and measurement. As has already been posited in this thread, people do martial arts for different reasons: Competitive Combat, Self Defense, a Social Activity, a Fitness activity, a cultural reason, an intellectual reason, etc, etc. A school or lineage may be great for one and terrible for another.

Between two trained people, simply touch hands. You know quickly what someone has/doesn't. It doesn't even need to be too rough or competitive unless that's what you're optimizing for. 

If you find someone wanting to prove their WC is better on the basis of someone long dead beating up someone else long dead, it's best to not even talk to them. You can't fix stupid.


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## hunschuld (Jul 15, 2021)

Thanks for the replies, a lot of interesting responses and things I did not expect.

My personal attempt to be objective is to watch how someone performs chi sao or sparring and see if they are trying to follow and use the Kuen Kuit. All wing chun I am familiar with share many of the same operating instructions. In fact one of the most attractive things about WC to me is that it has an " operating manual"

So. Are they receiving what comes ,following what goes, sinking elbows in front of the chest,, Continuous striking, simultaneous attach and defense,combining hard and soft,hands and body working together, strong in the middle attacks the side weak in the middle attack the center,waist and legs  move in unison etc.

Otherwise it is just WC shapes and bad kick boxing


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