What if Wing Chun remained a concept...

[Nobody Important]

We are not in a fight, we are discussing on a forum.

It is my experience that if anyone needs to analyze during a fight that person is being hit.

But if I don't want to analyze situations on a forum then I would not be able to find new things that I might have missed. In that case why be on the forums? I learn all else a lot more during training. I train when not on the forum mostly.

Also on a phone heading to bed. Will read about the scenario tomorrow earliest.

I understand it's a forum. Only trying to emphasize that it is hard to converse and clarify when there is a continual what if....? thrown in. I'm not saying you do or did this. I was simply making a generalized statement & used your post as an example. Sorry if that caused confusion.

No need to reply to my post, again just an example of a simple discussion expressing approach.

Thank you.

 

[geezer]

...I was only attempting to point out that it was inevitable that WSL's version of Wing Chun (VT) would turn out slightly different from that of YM because if his own interpretations of the system. There are quite a few first hand accounts from early students (or even live-in students like David Peterson) illustrating how WSL had his own flavor of the system.

On the topic of other YM students that understood the system; Leung Seung, Lok Yiu and Chu Shong Tin all made their mark and have proven contributions towards the combat skill of Wing Chun.

A very sensible perspective. I'm also interested to learn that David Peterson was a "live-in" student of WSL. Certain other WSL-VT students here have dismissed him as a mere "seminar student" with an incomplete understanding of the system compared with their sifu. I find this kind of talk discouragingly similar to the kind of back-biting gossip that certain members of my old WT association used to engage in. One reason I'm no longer with that group.

Frankly I find your viewpoint informative and refreshingly apolitical. Are you a student of WSL-VT, Callen?

 

[geezer]

- You should not use right Bong Shou to deal with a right punch.
- If both you and your opponent have right leg forward (uniform stance), your leading right hand will have to contact your opponent's right arm before it can contact his left arm
.

I would agree with this. perhaps in an ideal world. It is always preferable if you can use bong to take the outdoor area. But, that may not always happen. So we do not make such an absolute rule. That is, in our VT, we have no "wrong bong".

At least in my VT lineage, your hands have to respond spontaneously, reacting to the situation and energy received. That means that sometimes you may end up using bong to the indoor area, or going across with your right bong deflecting their right punch, etc. In such a situation you must have good forward intention and flow immediately into the next offensive technique. That is why we say "bong never stays".

BTW you can see one example of bong-sau being used to the indoor area at about 1:30 in the Emin Boztepe videoclip, Bong-Sau pt.1 in post #185 back on page 10. There are other circumstances in which this situation can arise as well.

 

[Juany118]

A very sensible perspective. I'm also interested to learn that David Peterson was a "live-in" student of WSL. Certain other WSL-VT students here have dismissed him as a mere "seminar student" with an incomplete understanding of the system compared with their sifu. I find this kind of talk discouragingly similar to the kind of back-biting gossip that certain members of my old WT association used to engage in. One reason I'm no longer with that group.

Frankly I find your viewpoint informative and refreshingly apolitical. Are you a student of WSL-VT, Callen?

I agree on the last bit, Callen, has certainly been very informative. As for the first bit I think the following quote that Callen posted is likely at the core of the issue...

"Wong Sifu is constantly warning his students against the dangers of blindly following an instructor, copying every move he or she makes and accepting everything that they say as gospel. 'You must become the master of your system, not its slave' is his often repeated motto. Using art as an example yet again, Wong Sifu says, “…Kung Fu is like painting a picture. When you learn to paint from your teacher you cannot be exactly the same as he or she because there are differences in age and experience, and so there must be personal differences." - Sifu David Peterson"

I would believe the above however as 100% accurate however because even YM's blood relative that he taught, sons and nephews, have all said that those students YM taught personally were taught to their strengths and weaknesses. That if these students did not engage him with questions, in a way that one could describe as the Socratic method, they may come away with a different idea about a concept or technique. This Socratic method of teaching being very traditional in Chinese culture. Blame Confucius teachings because both Confucius and Socrates used very similar teaching methods.

When you teach the way YM did you will obviously have multiple people saying "this is what YM taught me" and they would all be telling the truth. Additionally since you are teaching WC in a way that allows the student to maximize their strengths while minimizing their weaknesses, the teacher essentially creates the "don't follow me blindly" dynamic with their instruction because they aren't saying "this is how I use WC so you must as well.

 

[Callen]

...YM's blood relative that he taught, sons and nephews, have all said that those students YM taught personally were taught to their strengths and weaknesses. That if these students did not engage him with questions, in a way that one could describe as the Socratic method, they may come away with a different idea about a concept or technique. This Socratic method of teaching being very traditional in Chinese culture. Blame Confucius teachings because both Confucius and Socrates used very similar teaching methods.

When you teach the way YM did you will obviously have multiple people saying "this is what YM taught me" and they would all be telling the truth. Additionally since you are teaching WC in a way that allows the student to maximize their strengths while minimizing their weaknesses, the teacher essentially creates the "don't follow me blindly" dynamic with their instruction because they aren't saying "this is how I use WC so you must as well.

Good post. In my opinion, this is a large part of the bigger issue.

It seems it has been embedded into the way we teach and learn Wing Chun, even today. Right or wrong it's become cultural. Students of Wing Chun progress at their own pace, their own understanding. We feel, we study, we train, we reflect, we perfect... it's very subjective. No two students are going to have the exact same interpretation of the system (nor should they), because as individuals, we are the Wing Chun that we express. It's a living thing requiring natural, learned responses from the practitioner.

A very sensible perspective. I'm also interested to learn that David Peterson was a "live-in" student of WSL. Certain other WSL-VT students here have dismissed him as a mere "seminar student" with an incomplete understanding of the system compared with their sifu. I find this kind of talk discouragingly similar to the kind of back-biting gossip that certain members of my old WT association used to engage in. One reason I'm no longer with that group.

Frankly I find your viewpoint informative and refreshingly apolitical. Are you a student of WSL-VT, Callen?

From my understanding Sifu David Peterson was already an excepted student by the time he attend most of the seminars. He served as WSL's interpreter while teaching, as he is fluent in Cantonese. He also stayed with WSL while he was training in Hong Kong. In-turn, WSL lived with Peterson when he toured Australia. To me it's irrelevant whether Peterson was a mere "seminar student" or not. He was one of the few people that had a personal relationship with WSL and was able to spend quality time with him. I would say that makes his insights on WSL worth sharing.

Thanks for the kind words. We're all on the path together, searching. I believe whole-heartedly in an all lineage mindset. I am indeed a WSLVT practitioner, but I've also spent a lot of time traveling, visiting and learning from different proponents.

 

[Juany118]

Good post. In my opinion, this is a large part of the bigger issue.

It seems it has been embedded into the way we teach and learn Wing Chun, even today. Right or wrong it's become cultural. Students of Wing Chun progress at their own pace, their own understanding. We feel, we study, we train, we reflect, we perfect... it's very subjective. No two students are going to have the exact same interpretation of the system (nor should they), because as individuals, we are the Wing Chun that we express. It's a living thing requiring natural, learned responses from the practitioner.

It can get even more interesting in a school like mine. We learn Wing Chun and Kali in tandem. While they are taught seperately. One day all Kali, another day all WC yet another day 45 minutes of WC followed by 45 minutes of Kali, you obviously get bleed over.

A couple weeks ago we had a Sifu from our mother school come for a "Wing Chun immersion" class that we have a couple of times a month. We were paired up with other students and he came over to correct me. Instead of stepping "into" my partners stance to disrupt his center I stepped on an angle, in my case to mime stepping on his leading foot to accomplish the same thing (something we learn in open hand Kali, though I already used it as a hand cuffing technique). It still disrupts the center because the opponent is going to instinctively want to free his foot and with almost half my body weight on it the move will not be smooth and take him off balance, or he is trapped and I pummel away. The Sifu what I was doing, I told him, he said "that's sneaky, and effective, but in WC we step in." Lol

 

[LFJ]

LFJ, I find this interesting and would like to get some further information. For the sake of argument, let's say the bong you are describing is a vertical movement ( keeping descriptions generic & generalized).

Is that the only manner in which bong is used in your system, vertically?

Vertical, for the sake of argument? Poor choice.

Bong-sau is simply a concept of elbow rotation that delivers a paak energy from the elbow (proximal end of the forearm). I don't talk about different types of bong-sau that are given different applications because I don't do a technique-based version of VT.

Does your system approach this concept in the same manner or do you change the remedial bridging movement when the obstruction is under your bridge?

There's no such thing as "bridging movement" in VT. If by bridge you mean forearm, a remedial action would most likely not be necessary. An auxiliary action like paak or jat would be enough to clear the way for punching.

In short I am asking about the versatility of the bong you are using. Is it one dimensional or does it have multiple remedial actions?

Punching is the goal. It clears the way for punching.

 

[LFJ]

I mean a guard that occupy space in such a way as described by LFJ might be target for a bong-sau. In karate the guard was often quite low and in WC the guard is uncommited so moving forward with a bong-sau would be sacrificing your own arm.

I don't remember describing anything as being a target for a bong-sau.

What exactly do you mean by moving forward with a bong-sau?

A soft arm while extended will not be affected as desired by the bong say. Instead it will bend by the elbow and perhaps continue as a backfist or some other movement, hard to say actually because it depends on incoming force. Problem is also that there is a second arm that may also react to the bong-sau. In such a case the move may be stopped dead in its tracks.

Bong-sau isn't an independent defense. It's coupled with a punch from the same side that also clears the path on the way to the target. So the punch would cut straight through a winding backfist with built-in defense (lin-siu-daai-da).

 

[LFJ]

David Peterson once told the story of how WSL would speak to his students about not becoming a slave to Wing Chun.

DP, like many others, has taken the quote out of context and uses it as a creativity license because he never got to the free-fighting aspect of VT.

WSL was talking specifically about the strict elbow training we do and how in fighting it should be relaxed and used at will. He always said VT is not an art, only skill. The skill is clearly defined. The system for developing it is accommodating to various physical conditions, but not open to free interpretation or the skill won't be developed.

There are quite a few first hand accounts from early students (or even live-in students like David Peterson) illustrating how WSL had his own flavor of the system.

The people who spent the most time with him don't say this.

I will give DP credit in that his VT is probably better than most out there. But, he was not a live-in student. He was an occasional visitor and seminar attendee. His visits only lasted a month or so each year. That's not even enough to get really good at basic pun-sau or seung-ma/teui-ma drills. This is not backbiting as Geezer says. Just how it is.

PB lived in HK for the first 18 months of his time with WSL, and speaks of how for so long all he did was seung-ma/teui-ma drills, so much that he thought it was the only drill in VT.

Yet, an occasional visitor is going to learn VT in great depth in a month or two per year? Not a chance.

When I was much younger and lived in the US, I traveled to China for a month or so each year and stayed at a school, training all day every day. It was another style, and technique-based, so I learned a lot. But I wouldn't dream of saying I learned nearly as in depth as the students who lived there year-round.

I invited the teacher to the States for seminars and he stayed with me too. But I was always able to learn a lot from fellow classmates who trained with him year-round. They obviously had much more knowledge than I had; finer details I never got on previous visits. Time with the instructor is an undeniably clear factor in that.

Now, that was a technique-based MA. Easier to pick up. A concept-based system like VT with a very abstract training methodology would be impossible to learn well with such little training and only occasional guidance. It's no wonder DP teaches a technique-based understanding of the system. All he had time to learn was the skin and hair of the forms and some basic drills.

Again though, that said, what he teaches still probably functions better than a lot of other Wing Chun that's out there. So, it's not terrible. It's just missing a ton of detail, most importantly the understanding of free fighting strategy and tactics.

So, I'd either take what he says with a huge grain of salt, or not listen to him at all.

 

[LFJ]

Problem with that quote is that I do not read it as him saying he made no changes. All he said is "Basically" that means that on the more basic level everything is the same, that there might be differences but it is not intended to change the basics. Then he follows up by saying he has changed the way he teaches it to a more systematic way.

Not wanting to start a fight but that quote seems far from saying that there were no changes made whatsoever.

You realize he was not speaking English and this is a translation of what he said? No point in analyzing the words used and speculating about what he meant regarding a system you have no experience with.

Plus, the information from him does not just come from interviews, but his close and longterm students that spent the most time with him and know his system. What is referred to by "more systematic" is just the order in which he taught things like the dummy form, which was broken up and taught between CK and BJ forms.

The concepts and principles, the strategy and tactics are all the same. The “intuitive” part is being able to construct drills specific to an individuals needs, which he and any VT teacher who knows the system was/is very good at. This can only be done with the right understanding of VT without screwing things up though.

 

[Juany118]

Vertical, for the sake of argument? Poor choice.

Bong-sau is simply a concept of elbow rotation that delivers a paak energy from the elbow (proximal end of the forearm). I don't talk about different types of bong-sau that are given different applications because I don't do a technique-based version of VT.



There's no such thing as "bridging movement" in VT. If by bridge you mean forearm, a remedial action would most likely not be necessary. An auxiliary action like paak or jat would be enough to clear the way for punching.



Punching is the goal. It clears the way for punching.

You do realize that much of this response is simply an argument founded in semantics and not actual substance correct? Example you refer to the use of bong, pak, what have you as "punching is the goal. It clears the way for punching."

That is all a bridging movement is, a movement that allows us to close and "clears the way" so we can punch.

You seem to be almost myopically focused on trying to prove that there is some massively fundamental difference in technique, yet you appear to be reduced to using semantics to maintain the argument. If there was a fundamental difference this would not be necessary.

I think the most likely explanation is explained by WSL's own statement...

"Basically I teach the same method I learned from Yip Man but I would say that I teach it in a more systematic way..."

Systematic teaching is a two edged sword. It can result in students, used to the more linear method of modern education, learning more readily. However the more systematic structure also lends itself to people confabulating method with practice. So when different terminology is used to explain shared techniques, the assumption is the "other side" is speaking of something different, when in reality both sides are discussing the same thing.

Traditional Chinese teaching methods are also a two edged sword btw, don't get me wrong. The Confucius/Socratic method, while being more holistic and encouraging of critical thinking regarding the topic at hand, potentially allows for faster advancement and also making the Art, to a degree "your own" as well as it allows you to refine what you are learning to your own strengths and weaknesses. However it also risks confusing or even losing the student, if they don't ask questions or, if not honest enough with themselves, the student can fail to recognize their limitations and so they do not know what questions need be asked.

 

[LFJ]

Go ahead and keep analyzing words that didn't come from WSL's mouth and speculating about a system you have no experience with.

The terminology of "bridging movements" certainly carries some baggage as many use it that I completely reject.

 

[Juany118]

Go ahead and keep analyzing words that didn't come from WSL's mouth and speculating about a system you have no experience with.

The terminology of "bridging movements" certainly carries some baggage as many use it that I completely reject.

Well he did say that. That what he teaches is what YM taught him, he simply changed the method of teaching to those techniques. This also is confirmed by simple critical analysis. Read how YM's students have described his teaching methods, the traditional Chinese/Socratic method vs how WSL organized VT instruction. As for how other people have previously used the term bridging method with you, that isn't relevant here. What is relevant is what people HERE are saying to you and the use of the term "bridging movements" in this conversation is as I noted... clearing the way to strike.

 

[LFJ]

Well he did say that. That what he teaches is what YM taught him, he simply changed the method of teaching to those techniques. This also is confirmed by simple critical analysis. Read how YM's students have described his teaching methods, the traditional Chinese/Socratic method vs how WSL organized VT instruction.

He only changed the time at which the latter parts of the dummy form were taught because they contain more BJ ideas a student would have not yet learned. He changed absolutely nothing about the contents, how it's taught, or what it all means.

How do you think WSL organized VT instruction differently than YM besides the timing of dummy sections?

As for how other people have previously used the term bridging method with you, that isn't relevant here. What is relevant is what people HERE are saying to you and the use of the term "bridging movements" in this conversation is as I noted... clearing the way to strike.

How does a bong-sau clear the way to strike when there's nothing obstructing it?

Some "bridging" method using bong-sau to do something to something going on underneath the arm was suggested. I do no such thing and can't imagine how it would not violate VT principles.

 

[Juany118]

He only changed the time at which the latter parts of the dummy form were taught because they contain more BJ ideas a student would have not yet learned. He changed absolutely nothing about the contents, how it's taught, or what it all means.

How do you think WSL organized VT instruction differently than YM besides the timing of dummy sections?



How does a bong-sau clear the way to strike when there's nothing obstructing it?

Some "bridging" method using bong-sau to do something to something going on underneath the arm was suggested. I do no such thing and can't imagine how it would not violate VT principles.

I said nothing about contents, I mentioned method. Now maybe I am more sensitive to this. Yes I was a soldier, now a cop, but my first degree was to be a history teacher. There are many methods to teaching. All I speak to is NOT the actual practice being changed as WSL was taught, rather he simply chose a less holistic and rather more systematic and thus, due to traditional Chinese/Confucius methods, different teaching method.

I am thinking you are so trapped by an assumption at this point that you aren't really reading what is typed. I am not trying to be rude but no where have I said that WSL is not teaching what YM taught him. If you look above I actually say he did. I am simply speaking of teaching methods and how methods can have as much an impact on learning as the ideas that are being taught. WSL himself stated that the only thing he really changed was the method of teaching, and he described it as what it is, systematic vs a more holistic (read universal) method that also requires engagement and active questioning of the teacher by the student.

 

[LFJ]

You were talking about it just being semantics and that Nobody Important and I were saying the same thing.

But he said something about bong-sau being used to do something to something under the arm.

That couldn't be more different from what bong-sau is to me. So, no, we are not talking about the same thing and different teaching methods didn't lead us there. The entire concept of bong-sau has become something else.

 

[Juany118]

Hmmm... you said a bong was just one of many methods to open the gap for striking. All he did was mention one specific method where it CAN be used to accomplish said goal.

That debate however is completely irrelevant to the issue of teaching method. They are both two different topics as I said, though some confuse them as they both may have equal impact on a student.

 

[LFJ]

Hmmm... you said a bong was just one of many methods to open the gap for striking. All he did was mention one specific method where it CAN be used to accomplish said goal.

No. I said bong-sau is just elbow rotation for a remedial purpose, not a primary or auxiliary action. He was giving it all sorts of possible applications I don't do. It's not semantics.

That debate however is completely irrelevant to the issue of teaching method. They are both two different topics as I said, though some confuse them as they both may have equal impact on a student.

You brought up teaching methods as a cause for semantic disagreements, which is not what was happening. So yeah, irrelevant.

 

[Juany118]

No. I said bong-sau is just elbow rotation for a remedial purpose, not a primary or auxiliary action. He was giving it all sorts of possible applications I don't do. It's not semantics

You brought up teaching methods as a cause for semantic disagreements, which is not what was happening. So yeah, irrelevant.

I don't ever recall anyone saying "I am charging him with a bong so on the first point I am truly lost.

As for the second I noted as one of many causes. Not the only cause or even required to be paired with another. I can't say I am surprised by such a retort however.

 

[LFJ]

I don't ever recall anyone saying "I am charging him with a bong so on the first point I am truly lost.

His bong-sau is used to "hack, cover, support, bar, lift, sweep, bump & pull". These are various applications. He would hack one sort of thing, and lift another, or pull another. Not all of them are remedial.

My bong-sau is simply elbow rotation to retake space/ regain lost position. Not an application against any specific thing.

How is that just semantics and not entirely different concepts?

As for the second I noted as one of many causes. Not the only cause or even required to be paired with another. I can't say I am surprised by such a retort however.

You only named one cause and called it the most likely. But there is no semantic disagreement, so talking about possible causes is irrelevant.