What was Wing Chun designed for?
- Thread starter KPM
- Start date
- Status
Despite that fact that some here think that David Petersen didn't learn the "real thing" from Wong Shun Leung, I still respect what he has to say.
Ā» BIU JI: Ving Tsunās Misunderstood Form Ving Tsun Combat Science
From the article:
Sifu Wong Shun Leung always ended his discussion of the āBiu Jiā form by stating that he hoped that his students would never need the techniques from the form. His reasoning for this was quite simple when it becomes clear that the only time that one would need to use these movements is in a situation where one is either injured or overwhelmed by the opponent(s) and close to defeat! In other words, it is good to know āBiu Jiā but it is even better if that knowledge is never put to use.
āBiu Jiā is best not introduced to a student too early, because the way in which it contradicts all the basic concepts makes it terribly confusing for the novice student to appreciate. Perhaps it is also for this reason that this form was, in the past, so closely guarded and rarely taught outside of a tight circle of trusted students.
The final action of the āBiu Jiā form, in the words of the late sifu Wong Shun Leung, āIllustrates the āessenceā of the form,ā in that it appears to be totally removed from everything already seen in the system. We canāt afford to take anything at face value, however, and like the other techniques previously described, in the āBiu Jiā form, looks can definitely be deceiving.
The sap dai seung (ālifting from below to aboveā) action involves bending the body forwards from the waist with the hands hanging down as if reaching for something on the ground. From here the ving tsun practitioner throws the arms up above the head as the body is returned to an upright position. This is usually repeated twice, after which the form comes to a close. It is certainly a strange looking movement but one done for very good reason.
The normal reaction for a person pushed up against a wall or getting up from a semi-prone position, is to push off the wall or floor with one or both hands. There is nothing wrong with that if no one is behind you waiting to attack you with a stick or bottle, but if this is the case, and the reason for being against the wall or on the floor is the fact that the enemy has forced you there, relying on natural movements could get you killed!
The sap dai seung movement probably wonāt stop you getting injured, especially if a weapon of any kind is involved, but it could prevent you from sustaining a life-threatening injury. In other words, this technique will allow you to ācut your losses,ā after all a cut on the arm is a lot less damaging than a bottle over the head. Instead of using both arms to push off from the wall or floor, āBiu Jiā trains the ving tsun practitioner to bring one hand up before bringing the head up so as to deflect that which cannot be seen, reducing the severity of the likely injury.
This doesn't sound to me like something you would be teaching to a child. But it does sound like it would obviously come later in the system, whatever your timeframe for learning may be. And nothing here about bobbing and weaving or doing high covers against swinging blows.
I also learned the Sap Dai Seung movement as being a way to rise up from a disadvantaged position while covering your head, just as Petersen states. I learned that from Sifu Augustine Fong. I didn't learn anything about bobbing and weaving or high covers when I learned the Biu Gee form. Did you Danny T? How about you Flying Crane?
Ā» BIU JI: Ving Tsunās Misunderstood Form Ving Tsun Combat Science
From the article:
Sifu Wong Shun Leung always ended his discussion of the āBiu Jiā form by stating that he hoped that his students would never need the techniques from the form. His reasoning for this was quite simple when it becomes clear that the only time that one would need to use these movements is in a situation where one is either injured or overwhelmed by the opponent(s) and close to defeat! In other words, it is good to know āBiu Jiā but it is even better if that knowledge is never put to use.
āBiu Jiā is best not introduced to a student too early, because the way in which it contradicts all the basic concepts makes it terribly confusing for the novice student to appreciate. Perhaps it is also for this reason that this form was, in the past, so closely guarded and rarely taught outside of a tight circle of trusted students.
The final action of the āBiu Jiā form, in the words of the late sifu Wong Shun Leung, āIllustrates the āessenceā of the form,ā in that it appears to be totally removed from everything already seen in the system. We canāt afford to take anything at face value, however, and like the other techniques previously described, in the āBiu Jiā form, looks can definitely be deceiving.
The sap dai seung (ālifting from below to aboveā) action involves bending the body forwards from the waist with the hands hanging down as if reaching for something on the ground. From here the ving tsun practitioner throws the arms up above the head as the body is returned to an upright position. This is usually repeated twice, after which the form comes to a close. It is certainly a strange looking movement but one done for very good reason.
The normal reaction for a person pushed up against a wall or getting up from a semi-prone position, is to push off the wall or floor with one or both hands. There is nothing wrong with that if no one is behind you waiting to attack you with a stick or bottle, but if this is the case, and the reason for being against the wall or on the floor is the fact that the enemy has forced you there, relying on natural movements could get you killed!
The sap dai seung movement probably wonāt stop you getting injured, especially if a weapon of any kind is involved, but it could prevent you from sustaining a life-threatening injury. In other words, this technique will allow you to ācut your losses,ā after all a cut on the arm is a lot less damaging than a bottle over the head. Instead of using both arms to push off from the wall or floor, āBiu Jiā trains the ving tsun practitioner to bring one hand up before bringing the head up so as to deflect that which cannot be seen, reducing the severity of the likely injury.
This doesn't sound to me like something you would be teaching to a child. But it does sound like it would obviously come later in the system, whatever your timeframe for learning may be. And nothing here about bobbing and weaving or doing high covers against swinging blows.
I also learned the Sap Dai Seung movement as being a way to rise up from a disadvantaged position while covering your head, just as Petersen states. I learned that from Sifu Augustine Fong. I didn't learn anything about bobbing and weaving or high covers when I learned the Biu Gee form. Did you Danny T? How about you Flying Crane?
Last edited:
drop bear
Sr. Grandmaster
Yeah but now we have moved from unable to be integrated into uncommon. You can move your feet parallel and perpendicular to people in boxing.
Uncommon is miles different to incompatible.
And just because you don't have these extra concepts doesn't mean you can't gap fill the deficiencies in VT by adding rotation to punches or fighting off a different footwork adding hooks or even ground fighting or BJJ.
And still retain the essence of what you are trying to train. Just like when you gap fill the deficiencies of VT with BJJ. You have elements that you consider compatible and you have elements that you don't. You are already making that choice.
By choosing the elements you gap fill you still have control of your direction you are heading. You can work to a specific concept if you want or you can work multiple concepts. Which also has merit in practical fighting.
drop bear
Sr. Grandmaster
You can use both concepts. Just about every style that exists has figured that out.
You realize gaang-sau was only in BJ and was only later added to SNT, and is now taught to children in the first form?!
There are things in BJ that can be taught sooner because they don't compromise VT structure or strategy.
There is in fact a lot of overlap with CK, the primary idea we work to recover.
Other things are not taught at the beginning because they contradict the primary idea.
That doesn't make them "advanced", and covering your head is not one of them!
Where's your head??
A high cover is covering your head. You just didn't get much detail, apparently.
There is a ton you didn't learn about, starting with the strategic information contained the very first action in SNT!
BJ is where YM lineages start to diverge wildly, because hardly anyone even got to learn it.
I wouldn't act surprised not to have learned some details if I didn't even understand the opening to SNT.
Rotational punches are incompatible.
You can talk about adding rotational punches or changing footwork only because you don't know how VT is designed to function. It will not work with a different footwork base or rotational punches.
BJJ ground fighting will not interfere with standup striking methods.
Adding ground fighting to standup striking is not gap-filling for missing striking elements.
It's cross training, adding functional method to functional method.
This has been explained to you before. Cross-training ā gap-filling.
Silly question. Are we just standing in front of each other swinging blindly, or are we fighting?
A gross misconception of fundamental VT punching principles!
Much of the entire system is about developing punches with built-in defense ability in the elbows.
That's called lin-siu-daai-da in the system. It is with a single arm in a single timing.
You only know it as two arms against one, which is no great skill to develop.
I know this has been explained to you before.
You never seem to follow or remember any conversation.
anerlich
Brown Belt
Wrong.
drop bear
Sr. Grandmaster
It is a pity you can't throw hooks or rotational punches in your system or advance your footwork. I hope you find a way to overcome that.
My confusion with the terminology is that if you did not have missing elements you wouldn't be cross training. Which is the definition of gap filling. You can have missing elements within a functional system.
Not a pity. It works as intended. Doesn't work when tampered with by someone who doesn't understand it.
Rotational punches are not "missing elements".
They are not done intentionally, and for good reason as I briefly described here.
Your terminology doesn't make sense, then.
"Gap" implies non-functional.
If a bridge has a gap, a entire missing section, right in the middle, it can't be crossed without filling the gap.
It's not a functional bridge!
"Missing" also implies the negative, as if it were an original part that got lost.
A horse might be cool-looking with a horn or wings, and it can do things it would otherwise not be able to do without the horn or wings, but horses are not "missing" horns or wings.
When a Muay Thai fighter cross-trains another striking style it is not to fill gaps in a non-functional system.
It's just adding on some horns and wings, so to say, but not because it was "missing" them.
So, cross-training ā gap-filling.
So, let me get this straight....using MMA sweeps and throws is "cross-training" but using MMA ducks and bobs and weaves and high covers is not? Doesn't your BJ form have the concept of sweeping in that Huen Ma motion??? Couldn't that "bending forward at the waist" motion in the last section of BJ be interpreted as a hip throw? With a "conceptual" system that has such a wide latitude in how you interpret....dare I say it...."applications"....one would think you can justify saying a LOT of things are "pure" WSLVT........including the standing grappling!
And before you go off again.....how can you say that taking that wide sweeping motion with the arms from the BJ form and then interpreting it as a static "high cover" is NOT considered an "application" of the concept that you see it embodying???? 
It's simply a matter of what's already in the system and what's not, and the reasons why or why not.
I was wondering how long you'd take to come to this question... lol
First of all, the last action;
Doesn't have to be a large-frame motion.
Doesn't have to be done with both arms.
Doesn't have to be recovering from ducking.
So, it is also not a 1:1 from the form. It is simply covering the head when necessary.
Now, BJ is fundamentally different from core VT (SNT+CK).
It is correct that VT isn't built on 1:1 applications but continuous attacking actions that clear the attack line while simultaneously and thoughtlessly maintaining a closed line of defense. (The reason why we don't use hooks, uppercuts, and rotational punches.)
BJ looks "beyond the pointing finger" and considers potential situations in which we are unable to use our primary method, and gives a couple solutions to possibly recover to that primary method.
Those solutions are not the primary method, nor an "advanced" addition to the core VT.
So even though BJ "looks beyond" the primary method, gives solutions to recover the primary method, and is an addition to the core or primary method as in taught after it....it isn't considered advanced?
From dictionary.com....Advanced:
2. ahead or far or further along in progress, complexity, knowledge,skill, etc.:
an advanced class in Spanish; to take a course in advanced mathematics; Our plans are too advanced to make the change now.
And even though you are taking the concept behind that wide sweeping motion and doing it statically as a high cover, your aren't actually putting that motion from the form to a special use or purpose?
From dictionary.com.....Application:
1. the act of putting to a special use or purpose: the application of common sense to a problem.
2. the special use or purpose to which something is put:
a technology having numerous applications never thought of by its inventors.
Pretty amazing that WSLVT has its very own definitions for words! Do you get a special dictionary along with your secret decoder ring?
Last edited:
So even though BJ "looks beyond" the primary method, gives solutions to recover the primary method, and is an addition to the core or primary method as in taught after it....it isn't considered advanced?
From dictionary.com....Advanced:
2. ahead or far or further along in progress, complexity, knowledge,skill, etc.:
an advanced class in Spanish; to take a course in advanced mathematics; Our plans are too advanced to make the change now.
And even though you are taking the concept behind that wide sweeping motion and doing it statically as a high cover, your aren't actually putting that motion from the form to a special use or purpose?
From dictionary.com.....Application:
1. the act of putting to a special use or purpose: the application of common sense to a problem.
2. the special use or purpose to which something is put:
a technology having numerous applications never thought of by its inventors.
Pretty amazing that WSLVT has its very own definitions for words! Do you get a special dictionary along with your secret decoder ring?
Why argue semantics? It serves no purpose and you know what LFJ meant since you write that in text. Going against his use of word will not change his meaning.It is beneath you and us all.
Saying that the move is an application would I agree be both correct and incorrect. One can also say the move shows a concept and while that move would be an application following the concept it shows. Would it be only an application then it would prohibit evolving but showing a concept means it may show other applications that may not be identified unless one can read the form.
Sorry if being unclear but there is a difference between a concept and an application even if a concept may be an application as well.
Last edited:
drop bear
Sr. Grandmaster
Yeah. See I don't know if I would intentionally create gaps in my striking system by omitting ideas like hooks or advanced footwork concepts. It seems if WC can incorporate other ideas it is ultimately more flexible than VT. Which to me would make it the better system.
See for me functional is attached to the concept of use. I don't see VT really being used anywhere. Muay Thai gets used. BJJ gets used boxing gets used. Functional isn't decided by someone's opinion. And I think that is the functionality WC is looking at. Rather than functional as defined by a technique list. So I don't really know where that sits in the concept of cross training vs gap filling.
Hopefully the BJJ will Alleviate your need for incorporating striking ideas.
Lol, dude, Im not the sharpest tool in teh box, but u are gettin a bit "special" here with lack of understn. Almost looks like u mean to do it. Hes sayin its not gaps cos boxing works against his method. I say fair play an i unerstan his arguments. If boxing works in different way then add it just makes the WC method not work (for him)
But WTF is his method? Looks nuthin like WC to me, an that is main weak point in teh arguments for wat hes doin
After all KPM make WC and boxing work together like a dream!!
wing chun getz uzed in the street fightin people all the time. Doesn't need teh world too see it to know it works!! Its fine for the person that use it
- Status
