DanT
2nd Black Belt
What do you mean exactly?
Master leung Bik
- Thread starter yipman_sifu
- Start date
APL76
Blue Belt
What are these superficial things that I mentioned, all I said were the similarities between Yip Man style and Guangzhou style are superficial. I didn’t single anything in particular out. However I’ll elaborate a little, I can do that because I know both styles well. The fact that the two styles are organised similarly suggests to me a common origin however compared to more core aspects and subtleties these similarities are superficial. The power generation is different, the understanding of efficiency is completely different, understanding of centreline is completely different, understanding of structure is completely different, understanding of trajectory of movements is completely different, understanding of simultaneous attack and defence is completely different. They may be organised in a similar way however that is where the similarities end.
And I’m not making any premise that Fung Sui Ching ever taught two systems, I know he taught Yuen Kay San from what Yuen Kay San told Sum Nung and what he told my sifu, and they all place him as Dai Fa Min Kam’s student, and they say Fok Bo Chun also learned from Dai Fa Min Kam. If Weng Chun people like to claim Fung Sui Ching and Dai Fa Min Kam that’s their business and nothing to do with me, I know nothing about Weng Chun.
All I’m saying is that I have seen a lineage of Guangzhou Wing Chun passed from Yuen Kay San to Sum Nung to my sifu that places both Fok Bo Chun and Fung Sui Ching as Dai Fa Min Kam’s students.
And I’m not making any premise that Fung Sui Ching ever taught two systems, I know he taught Yuen Kay San from what Yuen Kay San told Sum Nung and what he told my sifu, and they all place him as Dai Fa Min Kam’s student, and they say Fok Bo Chun also learned from Dai Fa Min Kam. If Weng Chun people like to claim Fung Sui Ching and Dai Fa Min Kam that’s their business and nothing to do with me, I know nothing about Weng Chun.
All I’m saying is that I have seen a lineage of Guangzhou Wing Chun passed from Yuen Kay San to Sum Nung to my sifu that places both Fok Bo Chun and Fung Sui Ching as Dai Fa Min Kam’s students.
Yes! The first edition in paperback wasn't as expensive, but still expensive! And it shipped to the US from Holland.
APL76
Blue Belt
Hi Nobody Important.
Would you mind if I ask you a question about the bamboo dummy that you do? As far as I can remember my sifu always told me that Sum Nung considered the bamboo dummy lost with Yuen Kay San’s death.
He died quite suddenly. He and sigung were in a restaurant and Yuen Kay San had an altercation with a waiter, something about him telling the waiter off about something and the waiter getting offended and throwing some tea from a teapot in his face. Yuen Kay San became so enraged he seems to have probably had a stroke (he was also quite old by that stage too). Anyway, before he died they got him home and into bed where he told Sum Nung all he could about Wing Chun that he hadn’t had a chance to teach him yet. The bamboo dummy was one of the things he told Sum Nung as he was dying.
When I asked my sifu what the bamboo dummy was about he said that he didn’t, and probably no one, knew anymore but what Sum Nung told him was that if you do the wooden dummy properly that you shouldn’t need to do the Bamboo dummy. So I got the impression that it might have been some sort of corrective thing if one had gotten too hard on the wooden dummy, so using hard force.
From what you were taught about the bamboo dummy does this idea sound familiar? If you would rather not discuss it I totally understand.
Thanks.
A.
Nobody Important
2nd Black Belt
There are 2 versions of Bamboo Dummy, thick arm & thin arm. It is basically a wall mounted board (half the size of a sheet of plywood). Several holes are drilled into the wood where the arms are attached. Thin bamboo arms are for sensitivity & correction training. The thick arm is rare, it reminds me of the peg board in gym class. Thick arm dummy isn't much different than the traditional Wooden Dummy in use, outside the fact that the pegs can be arraigned in any pattern. Sand bags are hung in between arms for striking.
I've seen others comment on the bamboo dummy and even saw a picture of one once. I would guess that if there was an actual form to be practiced on the bamboo dummy it was lost upon YKS's death, and this is what Sum Nung was referring to. But others likely continued to train on the bamboo dummy, probably "freestyle". But I'm just guessing. 
Nobody Important
2nd Black Belt
Correct, I do not know of a Bamboo Dummy form, nor have I ever seen one, everything is freestyle.I've seen others comment on the bamboo dummy and even saw a picture of one once. I would guess that if there was an actual form to be practiced on the bamboo dummy it was lost upon YKS's death, and this is what Sum Nung was referring to. But others likely continued to train on the bamboo dummy, probably "freestyle". But I'm just guessing.
APL76
Blue Belt
thanks for that, the sensitivity and correction training seems to make sense in light of what I was told about it.
Thanks again.
Juany118
Senior Master
Well this wouldn't be surprising given the circumstances. Lets look at what we can prove.
1. YM was a student of WC when he lived on the main land. He studied under Chan Wah-Shun, a student of Leung Jan. He traveled to HK to study and then returned to the Main Land at 24 where he became a police officer. He then fled to HK when the Maoists won the Civil War.
2. He had never planed on being a Sifu and so, as many of us do, made the Art he studied his own art. If the Maoists had lost he would have retired from the Force and simply lived the life of a retiree. It was suggested by friends in HK that he now teach however to make a living. WSL told his personal students of times when they would watch Yip Man working the Mook seemingly trying to remember what he had been taught AND having to modify the form. Remember the wall mounted Mook is a HK invention due to "apartment living", on the mainland they traditionally used free standing Mooks.
3. So what we seem to have is a person who is an INCREDIBLE Martial Artist but who after 30 years or so suddenly has to go from practitioner to Sifu. Clearly his curriculum, NOT the principles but the curriculum, is going to be colored by both his experience as a police officer and simply the passage of time as he remembers and then goes to fill in the gaps.
4. He was not the only person teaching WC in HK but, due to the dynamics of 2 and 3 his WC would clearly be different. Lineage is VERY important to the TCMA world so how do you explain the differences? You create a fiction, in this case Leung Bik the "son" of Leung Jan. Someone with "secret" knowledge to explain the differences.
None of this takes away from the practical effectiveness of the art. When you are a police officer in the Chaos that was China at the time, if you had formal training you would get A LOT of experience using it. However like any art you make it your own. Then decades later when you suddenly change tracks and decide to teach, your life experience, flawed memory etc will create a new curriculum and due to tradition these changes need to be explained. If you are trying to market your Art to make a living that will influence the explanation.
^^^^^ And remember too, that all of these lineage stories are notoriously unreliable. I just recently read a translation of an article published in the 1960's that traced Fung Sui Ching's lineage to Wong Wah Bo and Leung Yi Tai, and traced Leung Jan's lineage NOT through Wong Wah Bo and the Red Boats at all! Seems everyone has a little different story to tell!
...So, there seems to be more information coming out to suggest that Leung Bic was real and lived for a time in Hong Kong. But even if we can factually determine this much, the rest of the story about him .. whether he actually had contact with Yip Man and influenced his Ving Tsun, and so on, will always be debated.
Until further evidence is provided, I'm just going along with the written account left by Grandmaster Yip, but will always be open to hear other points of view.
hkreporting
White Belt
Just FYI, there was a movie and Hong Kong TV series about Leung Jan and Leung Bik. Some of the clips are on Youtube. I think the full movie is there. There are clips of just the fight scenes too if you want to skip all the drama parts. I think if you just google "Wing Chun TV series" a bunch of stuff will come up. Not sure how good the fighting is and if it really represents the Gulao style of really close range fighting.
