You’ve got to define what is meant by “complete”. I personally don’t believe a good and meaningful definition exists, without being linked to a specific context, which can be meaningless in other context. I certainly do not agree that engagement in competition gives some kind of priority to the definition.
True. "Complete" could mean a lot of things depending on context. It could mean that your style or system has
everything in it. That's not how Leung Ting used the term though. Wing Chun (and Wing Tsun) is selective. It is defined as much by it's relative simplicity as by it's complexities.
Then there is the old saying that all kung fu should encompass "ti da shuai na" or kicking, punching, throwing, and locking ...if it is complete. This is true up to a point with Wing Chun. It has
some techniques addressing of each of those categories ...enough to be a "complete" system in that sense, but you'll notice that
ground-fighting is not really addressed when you say "ti da shuai na".
And then, "complete" could simply mean that your system may be limited, but still
has what is necessary to deal with whatever you will confront (again "ti da shuai na).
Interestingly, a lot of Chinese martial arts don't seem to include ground-fighting in their definition of what is "complete". Could be a cultural thing. One time I brought this up with my old sifu and he implied that such fighting was somehow "primitive" and "low class". Kinda like the way American men from the WWII generation thought of boxing as "the manly art of self-defense" ...like the way my old uncle John (now deceased) dismissed any fighting that had kicks or low blows as being cowardly and just
wrong.
I suppose if you grew up in the late 1800s and early 1900s in southern China like GM Yip Man, when the streets of the working-class areas of crowded cities like Fo'shan were likely filled with
filth and dung, the thought of rolling on the ground was not the proper way to fight, especially for a gentleman.
Anybody have any info on this?