Xue Sheng
All weight is underside
Not making fun, not jealous, I trained some Wing Chun and I rather like it
Have a nice day
The fourth internal art
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Have a nice day
I’ve heard of some systema masters who can throw around MMA fighters. But there’s nothing supernatural about it
i Suppose there may be some people who can do amazing things, every culture mentions such people, saints, sages, holy men
but for the most part it’s best to stay within the realm of established physical reality.
Wait, what?
Respectfully, Wong Shun Leung did not train the forms as a way of progressing any internal aspects of the system.
Teapot
Orange Belt
I agree with you that it's best to stay in the realm of established physical reality. My interests in Chinese martial arts are generally in its physical and martially practical side.
While I do not hold a belief in the supernatural, I attempt to not impose that belief onto others.
I had merely asked if Dream had met anyone who could do such things. And I had remarked that among the renowned practitioners of Taijiquan in the family lineages, I have never heard of any one of them doing such a feat.
The reason I do not deny its existence is because of the saying "You can't prove a negative". It's hard to prove that something does not exist. This is why the burden of proof is on the one asserting its existence. The proper path to take is to demand evidence of its existence.
The best I can provide is what's known as "evidence of absence". I can derive a hypothesis from the lack of evidence. I can take a pool of renowned practitioners such as Chen Fa'ke, Feng Zhiqiang, Chen Zhaokui, Yang Luchan, Yang Banhou, Yang Chengfu, etc.... and notice the absence of stories of any of them being able to levitate.
The closest skillset that I can think of would be Qinggong - Qinggong - Wiki which is the skill to be very light on your feet to where you can run up vertical surfaces or steep slopes and jump very high.
I remember hearing about one training method that includes strapping weights to your ankles and then trying to jump out of a pit.
But I don't consider that supernatural.
O'Malley
2nd Black Belt
FWIW I've met people who can do pretty weird things like put pressure on your shoulders through lightly touching your hand, physically move the flesh of their torso around the bones or bound in the air from a kneeling position with no windup. None of them claim it's supernatural, though.
O'Malley
2nd Black Belt
Good point. At what point has one "mastered" a martial art?
It seems to simply be a more advanced control of the bodies functions
Oily Dragon
Senior Master
Oh Dominic Izzo has so not "soared" with boxers. Seriously he's a terrible example of Wing Chun.
You know how you spot these guys? They flood the Web with videos about how to use Wing Chun to defeat X.
Very slowly and without any resistance whatsoever.
Bruce Lee didn't even learn all of Wing Chun, he gave up on it to learn, amongst other things, boxing.
Jeet Kune Do contains a smidge of Wing Chun, and even still that art is also underrepresented in full contact competiton.
Not really. I can talk for hours and hours about not only the history of Wing Chun, but also the fist sets, practical applications, and the recent history of Wing Chun in contact sports.
Guess which one is the shortest convo?
Seriously, Wing Chun talk is cheap in 2023. Either you can post a video of a capable fighter or you can list off a bunch of names and places and that's what gets the "debate" nowhere.
Oily Dragon
Senior Master
It's a very small art compared to say, Five Animal Five Element Fist.
Teapot
Orange Belt
I think the word "master" might be a translation issue:
A lot of people use "master" to mean something like a "Chess master" or a "Chess grandmaster".
But in the context of Chinese martial arts, Shifu refers to a relationship between the teacher and his disciples. The connotation is more like a "master-apprentice" relationship.
If someone is your teacher, but you are not his disciple, then I think "Laoshi" is more appropriate to describe that teacher's relationship with you. If you Baishi to a teacher, then you are officially his disciple, and then you may say that he is your shifu.
But the usage of these terms has been very strange to me. For example, here is a real sentence from a real school website: "Sigung (Master) Richard Clear has studied Tai Chi and Chi Kung in the U.S. and in China."
Doesn't Sigung refer to the teacher of your teacher - or rather... the Shifu for your Shifu?
What does it mean when you call yourself sigung? You are the teacher of your own teacher of yourself? Or, is he trying to say that his students have students? He uses Sigung as if it were... a status of achievement - as if he got a 9th-degree black belt.
I have watched documentaries where the word "sensei" got translated into English subtitles as "master". I don't speak Japanese, but that seems... wrong.
I'm just speculating here, but I feel like a lot of talk on "mastery" is born from a linguistic error from Chinese to English.
_Simon_
Senior Master
That doesn't address your declaration. The length of a given Wing Chun curriculum has little to do with the ability to develop skill.
"Having mastered Wing Chun in its entirety, and beyond", is quite a bold claim. How did you measure that exactly? And what does "beyond" mean in that statement?
Oily Dragon
Senior Master
Well I was half joking but why not.
Mastery of a skill is something pretty easy to measure. You either can or you can't.
I learned that with cooking.
There is really nothing in Wing Chun that I haven't learned. A lot of it is so common to other arts. No surprises left, unless levitation and chi blasts are indeed part of the higher levels.
I view all of the Wing Chun fist sets as basic now, compared to say, Tiger Crane Paired Fist or the Shaolin Iron Wire.
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Yeah, that was my hope. But sometimes I can't tell when you're joking.
To which Wing Chun fist sets are you referring?
Xue Sheng
All weight is underside
Ironically I have had a discussion with some of "Shigong" Clear's students about that title. I even told them it means teachers teacher so by using that he is saying he taught his teacher, who taught him. This discussion when on for about 15 minutes until they told me I didn't understand how he was using it..... to which I responded, I know exactly how he is using it, he is using it wrong..... conversation ended
O'Malley
2nd Black Belt
Meet his evolution: Pikaboo.
Attachments
Oily Dragon
Senior Master
I'm hopeless and honesty this is also how I cook and serve food, with jokes. The best accomplishment to grub is laughter.Yeah, that was my hope. But sometimes I can't tell when you're joking.
Sometimes it upsets people, but I'm always a good sport.
All of them, empty hand sets, dummy. The weapons like Mother Daughter knives, i learned from other styles that spend more time on them.
Actually since we're on that train again, I have to say a lot of the WC schools I've seen don't even touch weapons anymore.
Like, everyone says they can defend themselves with Wing Chun. Good luck if I have double knives on me.
Which I never do, because I prefer to grapple vs bleed people out. But if I did ...
Oily Dragon
Senior Master
This happens to be one of the biggest connections between Wing Chun and Shaolin Temple, the use of shi/si as an honorable salute to a master, his uncle, his cousin, his wife. To this day Shaolin masters use it, the current Abbott is Shi Yongxin.
if you are already Chinese, I don't need to tell you this.
It would be like trying to explain to anyone that Mok Gwai Lan is my great kung fu grandmother (she is). In formal lineage terms, it rolls of the page. So she is just "si gung mo Gwai Lan", gung means "over all" or "universal".
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It's unfortunate. We don't have to look too hard for examples of how the system is getting watered-down the further it gets from the source.
