Wing Chun Forms Origin

[DanT]

I understand that many different lineages do the three main forms differently (SLT, CL, BJ), but from where and when and from who did these forms originate?

 

[APL76]

Ok, since no one else seems to be offering any ideas I’ll chime in.

I think Wing Chun was probably devised by a single person who was already exceptionally skilled in Kung Fu. Be that person Ng Mui or someone else, who knows. For me both systems of Wing Chun I have learned are far too internally consistent and integrated front to back and back to front for me to believe they are the result of a few generations of evolution contributed to by multiple people.



From the very moment one opens the Yi Ji Kim Yeung Ma, or does the Sam Bai Fat (first slow section of the first form) one is already training structural elements required for everything right through the system. In doing Sam Bai Fat one is developing their forwards force which is to guide the application of the entire system. You start learning it, developing it, long before you even get close to being able to use it.



Going further, each of the forms build on the last while still isolating various elements of Wing Chun abstracting them from their context as they are applied (my sifu tells us that he thinks whoever came up with wing chun is devious as if you try to do it just by copying stuff from the forms you will do it wrong and it won’t work). This is done in order not to train how to apply stuff, but rather to refine elements in isolation before combining them at a later stage.



You gain the structure and correct alignment from Su Lim Tao. In Chum Kui you develop the heart of wing chun, Jun Ma, it gives you the power generation to drive your techniques and footwork. In Chum Kui you also get half of the stepping procedure. Bui Ji for us, far from being some bunch of things you do if you get in trouble (as it seems to b thought of by some) is an entirely integrated and indispensible portion of our wing chun. Just one element that is an entirely standard element of the application of our wing chun is the final half of the footwork that is in Bui Ji. And in the wooden dummy you integrate all of it into something that is much more holistic particularly using the footwork which contextualises everything that had, up to that time, been trained in isolation or in combinations that trained coordination rather than application.



Going even further if your wing chun is good, and you learn how to do the weapons well, particularly the knives (and if you use knives that are heavy enough) you will reinforce all of the wing chun you have done up to then making it faster and more powerful. And so doing the weaons, particularly the knives, fed back through everything else you do.



So as I look at the way the wing chun I learned is so tightly internally consistent I can’t help but think that the person who thought up sui lim tao must have already had chum kui and bui ji and the dummy form in mind. And when they were thinking of those forms they must have already had sui lim tao thought up. So I think all of the forms were developed together by one person who was already exceptional at some other form/s of kung fu. But, that’s just my opinion. I know the idea of a single person coming up with wing chun seems to be pretty unpopular these days. But whatever, everyone is entitled to their opinion.

 

[wckf92]

... but from where and when and from who did these forms originate?

Well....back in 47' in a place called Roswell New Mexico...

 

[CB Jones]

 

[Eric_H]

It's the age old question of WC's history, which just leads to a lineage war slugfest.

Some people think that it was one long set later broken into 3 by Wong Wa Bo/ Leung Yi Tai/ Leung Jan/Chan Wa Shun/Take your pick.

My line says it came from Tahn Sau Ng, and prior to that, the Southern Shaolin Temple/Ousted Ming Era Military. It was always formula + 3 hand forms + 3 weapons according to the legends.

I believe Duncan Leung did some research and found other things pointing to Tahn Sau Ng, but I don't know what they are.

 

[Marnetmar]

The Lo Kwai and Yik Kam lineages would both seem to support the single form theory.

 

[JowGaWolf]

Was not happy when the history channel got this guy. He had a TV serious that didn't get much attention. Thank goodness.

 

[geezer]

Ok, since no one else seems to be offering any ideas I’ll chime in.

I think Wing Chun was probably devised by a single person who was already exceptionally skilled in Kung Fu. Be that person Ng Mui or someone else, who knows. For me both systems of Wing Chun I have learned are far too internally consistent and integrated front to back and back to front for me to believe they are the result of a few generations of evolution contributed to by multiple people.

Christian creationists sometimes use the same reasoning to support the belief that God created mankind, the Earth and Universe something like 6,000 years ago. According to that line of thinking, only "intelligent design" can account for the miraculous complexity and systemic integration of the human body and the the rest of creation as well.

Personally, I favor an evolutionary perspective both regarding homo sapiens and Wing Chun. So the question regarding WC becomes, "What were the sources it evolved from?". Fukien Wing Chun Bak Hok? Southern Hakka arts? ...or something else? And did one individual such as Leung Jan integrate this stuff giving birth to the majority of lineages in existence today? So far the jury is still out.

 

[APL76]

Christian creationists sometimes use the same reasoning to support the belief that God created mankind, the Earth and Universe something like 6,000 years ago. According to that line of thinking, only "intelligent design" can account for the miraculous complexity and systemic integration of the human body and the the rest of creation as well.

Personally, I favor an evolutionary perspective both regarding homo sapiens and Wing Chun. So the question regarding WC becomes, "What were the sources it evolved from?". Fukien Wing Chun Bak Hok? Southern Hakka arts? ...or something else? And did one individual such as Leung Jan integrate this stuff giving birth to the majority of lineages in existence today? So far the jury is still out.

Sure, but there is a big difference between the process of evolution in living things and in a martial art. If the evolutionary process was how wing chun developed it should be getting better. What one sees however is something that is very far from it getting better.

 

[APL76]

But actually now I think of it maybe if I set out what I mean by internally consistent and integrated and it will be a bit clearer why I think the forms must have been developed together.

The way I was taught to apply wing chun requires it to be used with the footwork. So take the first tan sao you do in sui lim tao, in the sam bai fat. The way we use that tan sao is always with, at the very least a turn, but preferably with footwork that puts you on the outside of the oncoming attack or the “blind side” if you like that terminology. For us that tan sao is useless if not done with a turn (having said that though you train more than just a tan sao when you do it so it’s not really “useless”).

The footwork we use to do it is a combination of three separate elements that come directly out of chum kue and bui ji. So, from our point of view, in order to properly apply the tan sao that is pulled out of sui lim tao one needs to have learned and become proficient in not just sui lim tao but also chum kue and bui ji, and probably the wooden dummy too.

Wing Chun as I learned it is full of this sort of stuff, bits and pieces of the whole separated and spread through the three forms. And possibly combined with other things that are not really practical when done together; take the first stepping sequence with the bong sao in chum kue. For us bong sao is entirely impractical when combined with a step like that, however if you think of the coordination training that you would get from training to time the feet and hips with the execution of the bong sao all together, rather than trying to figure out how to apply them together, it makes perfect sense- as a training device rather than an applicable “technique”.

So in other words, whatever you find in one of the forms makes no or perhaps only partial sense when taken in isolation from things in other forms, however when looked at with knowledge of elements in all the forms it does makes sense. That’s why I think it was developed probably by one person who already had exceptional knowledge of kung fu. And it’s not like that is some sort of wishful thinking, there are other systems of kung fu getting around that were put together by a single person.

 

[Yuehan]

I understand that many different lineages do the three main forms differently (SLT, CL, BJ), but from where and when and from who did these forms originate?

In order to not repeat anything that has been said since the general ideas are already pointed out,I recommend you to take a look at "Complete Wing Chun - The Definitive Guide to Wing Chun's History and Traditions - Robert Chu, Rene Ritchie, Y. Wu". The research done there will give you a good glimpse of WC's history (and traditions ).

 

[Tony Dismukes]

Sure, but there is a big difference between the process of evolution in living things and in a martial art. If the evolutionary process was how wing chun developed it should be getting better. What one sees however is something that is very far from it getting better.

Evolution only works when there is pressure to weed out the less functional (genes, techniques, training methods, whatever). If WC was being used consistently for fighting at one period in its development, then there would be evolutionary pressures to improve its functionality for training fighters. If it's not being tested in that fashion, then the evolutionary pressures change to, I don't know, perhaps looking cool to attract paying students.

 

[geezer]

Sure, but there is a big difference between the process of evolution in living things and in a martial art. If the evolutionary process was how wing chun developed it should be getting better. What one sees however is something that is very far from it getting better.

To add to what Tony said, evolution has nothing to do with making things "better". It has everything to do with gradual adaptation through natural selection due to environmental pressures. If showy, non-functional "martial arts" attract more paying students -- eventually they will predominate. If MMA continues to rise in popularity, fighting systems that integrate well into that format increase in popularity.

When talking about social activities like martial arts training, societal pressures primarily dictate the direction in which things evolve, prosper, or become extinct.

Here's how social pressures influenced my own "personal evolution":

Following the social pressures in my own small world, I started my personal martial journey in grade school and junior high in the 1960s as a wrestler with a fantastic coach named Tony Russo and following in the footsteps of my older brother who became a state champion. But later, our coach moved away to Portland and in the anti-war, anti-violence environment of the early 70's our school dropped the wrestling program.

When I first got interested in Kung-fu as a youngster back in the early 70's, there was a huge societal interest in the "exotic" and almost magical folklore (wuxia) associated with Chinese Martial arts as presented in Shaaw Brothers movies, the original Kung-Fu TV series, and of course, the Bruce Lee movies. What was presented as "kung-fu" in America and the West catered to these pressures with it's fancy "silk pajama" uniforms, exotic dance-like movements and claims of conferring near supernatural powers (iron palm, dim mak, iron bell, light-body, etc.).

Later around 1980 and perhaps maturing a bit, I turned to Wing Chun, which still offered a bit of that exotic flavor, but was far more practical in that it actually worked. Those still interested in fantasy turned their eyes to the ninjutsu fad.

Now, since the emergence of BJJ and MMA, "real" fighting arts are all the rage, and I have trouble recruiting Wing Chun students. I have responded to these pressures by exploring some grappling and "mixed" style responses through my involvement with DTE FMA and, honestly if I were younger and not suffering from joint injuries, I would probably be training BJJ. Looking back, some of my happiest times were those early days on the mat.

 

[Eric_H]

The Lo Kwai and Yik Kam lineages would both seem to support the single form theory.

That seems somewhat plausible. My only contention regarding the Yik Kam lines is 1) Yik Kam was a junior member of the red boat opera, it's unlikely he would have been as fully trained as Wong Wa Bo. 2) Yik Kam's art was called "Siu Lein Tao" which translates to "Little Drilling" vs "Siu Nim Tao" the little idea. That tends to suggest to me that Yik Kam was given a long san sik set vs the "formal curriculum." As for if the san sik set is older, who can say?

Some people have said SLT vs SNT is "marketing" or westerners misunderstanding the cantonese accent, but they're different characters when written. I tend to liken it to the difference between "I like frogs" and "I lick frogs". in english Similar words, very different meaning

 

[Yuehan]

That seems somewhat plausible. My only contention regarding the Yik Kam lines is 1) Yik Kam was a junior member of the red boat opera, it's unlikely he would have been as fully trained as Wong Wa Bo. 2) Yik Kam's art was called "Siu Lein Tao" which translates to "Little Drilling" vs "Siu Nim Tao" the little idea. That tends to suggest to me that Yik Kam was given a long san sik set vs the "formal curriculum." As for if the san sik set is older, who can say?

Some people have said SLT vs SNT is "marketing" or westerners misunderstanding the cantonese accent, but they're different characters when written. I tend to liken it to the difference between "I like frogs" and "I lick frogs". in english Similar words, very different meaning

Yep i agree with you that its not (just) "marketing", the spelling and the characters have different meaning. A question if I may, might have you mistaken the above spelling of "Siu Lein Tao" for "Siu Lien Tao" ? I don't want to be pretentious and keep on writing something if that isn't the case . It might be my own ignorance, but I haven't run into that term anywhere yet.

 

[Eric_H]

Yep i agree with you that its not (just) "marketing", the spelling and the characters have different meaning. A question if I may, might have you mistaken the above spelling of "Siu Lein Tao" for "Siu Lien Tao" ? I don't want to be pretentious and keep on writing something if that isn't the case . It might be my own ignorance, but I haven't run into that term anywhere yet.

Haha, yes, yes i did

 

[APL76]

Evolution only works when there is pressure to weed out the less functional (genes, techniques, training methods, whatever). If WC was being used consistently for fighting at one period in its development, then there would be evolutionary pressures to improve its functionality for training fighters. If it's not being tested in that fashion, then the evolutionary pressures change to, I don't know, perhaps looking cool to attract paying students.

I totally understand what you are saying and I suspect that we are seeing a bit of that happening now. I do often get the impression when I see some Wing Chun being done that the person doing/teaching it has possibly never been in a fight; for example teaching people to stop a round kick to the legs from the likes of a Mui Thai person up on the blade of the shin with their garng sao. In my opinion that’s asking for a broken arm at the least.

But there’s a few things other than that I think going on as well, that suggest to me that Wing Chun is not the result of an evolutionary process. Now when I say not the result of an evolutionary process I guess I mean its creation, the fact that it is in three initial forms, so the basic shape of the system. My sifu, who is totally a traditionalist Chinese sifu, is beginning to suspect himself that there has been some points in time where the system has been added to, but I’ll touch briefly on that below.

One of the first things that suggests to me that it has possibly been always divided up like that is the stuff I set out above, that you get isolated components spread through the three forms and nothing (or at least most things) from any of the forms are complete; individually they either don’t work or are only partially applicable (which in and of itself is a strength of the system I think, it means beginner to intermediate students have something that is functional even though they don’t know the whole picture yet).

Another thing is something my Sifu has always repeated to us; he was told, either by Sum Nung or Yip Chun, that Leung Jan was want to say that three forms are too many. Apparently Leung Jan would say that “the person who can reduce Wing Chun to one form, without losing the essence of Wing Chun, will take Wing Chun further than anyone ever has before”. Now if that’s the case, that if Leung Jan had that attitude, it means it was in the three main form format before he learned it.

Also, given that both the Yip Man and the Yuen Kay San versions of Wing Chun (the two versions I’m familiar with) which are independent of each other (aside from Yuen Kay San teaching Yip Man some things) are in the three form format it means the three forms pre-date both of them. Yuen Kay san didn’t change the forms contrary to what some seem to think (I have heard from the mouth of Sum Nung himself that Yuen Kay San only changed one thing: the opening movement of the Sui Lim Tao; and given that my sifu always tells us that Sum Nung would always tell him NEVER CHANGE A THING!!! suggests that aside from adding the sup yi sik, si gung never changed what Yen Kay San taught him). So that means that the three form format was well established before them.

So you have to go back to where the two lines converge, the red boat generation. If the descendants of Dai Fa Min Kam (the Yuen Kay San line) and of Wong Wah Bo/Leung Yi Tai (the Yip Man line) all do the three form format that suggests to me that it was probably established before that. So you have to go back to Leung Bok Chao (in the Yuen Kay San version of the lineage there is no mention of his nephew, however there are two people between Ng Mui and Yim Wing Chun) who taught the red boat people. So at the very least Wing Chun has been in the shape it is in now from the Reb Boat era. Now if they came up with it, or if they really did learn it from Leung Bok Chao, who knows. If it was a collaboration at that level they must have worked very closely together to get it so consistent.

What my sifu thinks may be something of a point of evolution (if you like) is with Fong Sui Ching (Yeun Kay San’s second teacher). What he taught Yuen Kay San and his brother was a little different to what Fok Bo Chung taught them. Not in terms of different Wing Chun, it was all the same Wing Chun they learned from Dai Fa Min Kam, but of a different level. I’m not going to go into the details, but suffice to say that given Fung Sui Ching’s work he faced off with all sorts of dangerous fighters and evidently came out on top at the end of it all, he lived a very long life, but my sifu seems to think that he may have added many refinements that are not in other streams of Wing Chun, that he developed in light of all the fights he had had with all sorts of kung fu. Yet, when he, and Fok Bo Chung, taught Yuen Kay San and his brother it was in the three form format with a dummy form, a bamboo dummy form, pole, knives and darts. So even back as far as that it was in three primary forms. At about the same time generationally on the Yip Man line, it seem Leung Jan also had the three forms, dummy, pole and knives. I think it’s possible the bamboo dummy form was added in after the split at the red boat level, as with the darts, since there is no mention of them ever being a part of the Yip Man line, they may have been added by Fung Sui Ching, but the overall format was still the same. Like with the sup yi sik, Sum Nung added them. Until recently I had never heard any mention of them being in the Yip Man line. And though this might piss off some Yip Man people, my sneaking suspicion is that when we finally see someone coming out and showing Yip Man’s san sik (which is inevitable eventually, it will be too good a marketing angle for someone not to try to make some up), well my gut feeling is it will look suspiciously like a rip off of Sum Nung’s sup yi sik.

So, addressing the subject of this thread, I think that there must have been the tree from format for a very long time. Addressing the idea of an evolutionary process or a single person……… I still think it would have been a single person, but I’m willing to accept that, at probably the red boat level, there may have been a collaborative effort to put it together. But I still think, given the vastly different interpretations of Wing Chun we get today- from no techniques, only concepts, to chi power, to “force flow” to whatever,- I think if it was an evolutionary process through a reasonable period of time we would have seen this fracturing many years ago. But yes, having to make sure it works in a fight would be a very good leveller for the nonsense; something we don’t really get these days.

 

[Yuehan]

Haha, yes, yes i did

Heh I see , in that case, I believe that "Siu Lien Tao" stands for "Little first training" . Also, I don't recall associating that name with YK's art, can you point me in a direction where you read/saw that piece of info ?

 

[Mou Meng Gung Fu]

I understand that many different lineages do the three main forms differently (SLT, CL, BJ), but from where and when and from who did these forms originate?

SLT is a traditional taolu/form from Wing Chung Kuen which also exists in Mou Meng Kuen (while CK and BJ only exist as concepts). According to Mou Meng Kuen tradition, Siu Nim Tao originated from the Five Elders of the Shaolin Temple whose names were Gee Sim, Pai Mei, Wu Mei, Fung Dou Dak and Miu Hin (in our version of the story, Wu Mei is equated with Ng Moi and it was her and Miu Hin who simplified all of their Shaolin five animal styles into a single human art form called WCK). At some point during the 1700's the complete SLT form was placed in the care of a 22nd generation Shaolin grandmaster named Tan Sau Ng (also known as Cheung Ng).

 

[Juany118]

I totally understand what you are saying and I suspect that we are seeing a bit of that happening now. I do often get the impression when I see some Wing Chun being done that the person doing/teaching it has possibly never been in a fight; for example teaching people to stop a round kick to the legs from the likes of a Mui Thai person up on the blade of the shin with their garng sao. In my opinion that’s asking for a broken arm at the least.

But there’s a few things other than that I think going on as well, that suggest to me that Wing Chun is not the result of an evolutionary process.... /snip.

On the first part regarding the kick... I found reading this very coincidental. I actually have a mean round kick and tonight a Master in TWC was making his biweekly visit to my school and actually did a fook sau> huen sau combo on me that basically made me his beotch. It actually felt Aikido like in that he basically used my own energy and made me spin around so he could just pounce. He didn't meet force with force, he simply used the fook sau to connect with my kick and then used the huen sau to do what my Aikido Sensei used to say... "Never be so rude as to get in the way of your opponent. Always be a gentleman and simply assist him on his way."

As for the last, and maybe this is just the "old soldier" in me but I feel evolution HAS to be a part of the foundation of Wing Chun, let me explain. No system is created in isolation and even if we accept the legends of the founding of the art this is true so I will use that Legend. There are two main legends. 1. Ng Mui created WC, 2. It was the creation of the 5 elders and only Ng Mui survived. In either case VERY experienced fighters created Wing Chun, they did so via their experience in combat, they knew what worked and what did not work for the purposes they were creating Wing Chun for. That in and of itself is a part of evolution, the only difference is that the timescale is compressed due to the vast experience of the people involved.

In evolutionary terms think of it this way... at some point an offspring has a "mutation" or mutations. If that mutation(s) provide advantages, or are benign, the offspring survives, procreates, and thus passes on that mutation to some, if not all, of their offspring. If the mutation(