Wing Chun vs MMA
- Thread starter abe_tz
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Seems like a lot of repetition going on here all around. Which just goes to prove that, contrary to what some folks believe, repetition alone does not promote learning!
@KPM -- I never use the ignore feature on this forum. I like to be able to read a thread and grasp both sides of a discussion rather than feel like I'm listening in on a cell phone conversation and only hearing half of what's being said.
Instead, I've learned to read and then willfully ignore certain individuals with whom I simply can't seem to communicate, no matter how hard I try. It has made me a happier person, and I'd like to recommend it to you and anyone else on this forum who feels that certain other parties "just don't get it". Take Joy, for example, he has got this technique mastered. Basically he seems to always keep in mind that this is just a forum, and what people say here is, frankly, unimportant.
Thank you Steve. You are, of course, very right! I will do my best to follow that policy from here on out!
Caveat: I'm speaking entirely out-of-school here. I know nearly nothing of CMA, and am referring only to the concept in this one sentence.
I don't think the fact that they don't work the same way can actually be used to definitively state that two arts/styles are unrelated. I actually recall an instructor I trained alongside. He was slightly senior to me in hierarchy, and had several years more experience. His Nihon Goshin Aikido didn't work at all like mine. If you didn't know we were from the same lineage (same 3 primary instructors in our training history to that point), you wouldn't be sure we were even using the same art. Our individual interpretations of the movements and techniques were that different.
And if he and I started two branches of the art, in 30 years you'd never know they were related. What would have happened in 150 years?
Mind you, that's not saying the disparity doesn't matter in the case of WC and WC - just that it's not conclusive in my mind.
A white crane looks just like a seal to me! Or maybe a bear?
Seriously, suppose WC could be compared to a seal, slick and streamlined, whereas White Crane is something totally different, like say, a dog. And let's compare Karate to ...a bear....
Just because two things look different or work in totally different ways today doesn't mean that they might not have had a common ancestor. Neither does it mean that they do. So either party in this discussion may be correct. See below:
Dogs And Bears Are Closely Related To Seals
So how about we move on?
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Vajramusti
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----------------------------------------------------------A white crane looks just like a seal to me! Or maybe a bear?
Just because two things work in totally different ways today doesn't mean that they might not have had a common ancestor. Neither does it mean that they do. So either party in this discussion may be correct. See below:
Dogs And Bears Are Closely Related To Seals
So how about we move on?
Steve- thanks for sealing the non issue that was dogging the list.
Yes it was getting more than I could bear
@KPM
So, in addition to having all those techniques I listed on the last page, this style also has this unique idea of bracing with the fist against the sternum to create a solid triangle connected to the body for the gwai-jaang technique as the wrist and elbow are rolled over, called panzhou (coiling elbow), similar to how it's done in the BJ form with the same function. I haven't really come across this idea in other styles. Does White Crane do this?
So, in addition to having all those techniques I listed on the last page, this style also has this unique idea of bracing with the fist against the sternum to create a solid triangle connected to the body for the gwai-jaang technique as the wrist and elbow are rolled over, called panzhou (coiling elbow), similar to how it's done in the BJ form with the same function. I haven't really come across this idea in other styles. Does White Crane do this?
@KPM
So, in addition to having all those techniques I listed on the last page, this style also has this unique idea of bracing with the fist against the sternum to create a solid triangle connected to the body for the gwai-jaang technique as the wrist and elbow are rolled over, called panzhou (coiling elbow), similar to how it's done in the BJ form with the same function. I haven't really come across this idea in other styles. Does White Crane do this?
Your image didn't load. Where is the video of this style so we can all judge how closely it resembles Wing Chun?
I think this is it?
----This doesn't look anything like Wing Chun to me. Certainly not even close to the similarities from White Crane.
has this unique idea of bracing with the fist against the sternum to create a solid triangle connected to the body for the gwai-jaang technique as the wrist and elbow are rolled over, called panzhou (coiling elbow), similar to how it's done in the BJ form with the same function.
----Huh? You brace your fist against your sternum in the Biu Gee form? I never learned to do that!
I'm not sure Keith, but looking at that picture Guy posted I'd say that your concept of looking at the whole package, or gestalt doesn't seem to have gotten through. Or for that matter the idea expressed in the Judkins article on Hakka boxing which implies a crane connection there too.
Of course it doesn't. It's a Northern style. You're missing the point and demonstrating that you have no idea how to analyze similarities between TCMAs.
You used to complain to Alan Orr that his stuff doesn't "look like Wing Chun". Then you started his online program and learned how it functions, and now you agree with him.
You should have learned from that, that looking for the presence or absence of superficial similarities is trivial, and you must look deeper.
You told me I need to get out more. I've spent all but a few years of my adult life in China pursuing TCMAs, learning and researching them from North to South. I haven't even been back stateside for a visit in about half a decade. I still need to get out more? Have you ever been out of the country, your state, your backyard?
What I have found is that all the Wing Chun "hands" have equivalents up North, in single systems, and each action of the Wing Chun forms could be given applications from a northern perspective, because there are similarities in human movement and fighting instincts.
Between villages I've encountered the same forms done differently due to a separation and isolation of 300+ years. Looking for visual similarities would lead one to believe they were completely unrelated because they looked absolutely nothing alike. But learning the sequences and functions, you then realize they are actually the same form, or rather, came from a common ancestor.
You can't be stuck at a superficial level and pretend to be doing "research" or "analysis" of TCMAs, looking for visual similarities in forms on Youtube. You have to get in there and learn how they function. I think to be a serious researcher of TCMAs, you have to have learned at least one northern and one southern style.
No, dude. I said it's "similar" to how it is done in the BJ form. Every lineage does it by placing the back of the wrist into the sternum to create a solid triangle connected to the body. I was struck by this exact concept in a northern style because it is rather unique.
The picture I posted shows this unique concept with the exact same function as in VT. That is, when your hands are up and someone grabs your wrist and swings at you, the elbow is rolled over to break the grip (panzhou, "coiling elbow") while the other arm covers. In the BJ form, only the elbow portion is done, but the other arm would be free to do what it needs to do.
In this northern style it is done with a bow stance in the form, but in application it means to be moving into the opponent. Stances in northern styles are exaggerated for training purposes, but in use, it is done in a natural upright stance just like VT, moving forward. Same footwork. If you only look for visual similarities in forms you're missing everything that's important about how the styles function.
Now, this is quite a unique concept I haven't seen in other styles. Does White Crane do it? If not, it seems to have fewer similarities than a completely unrelated style from the North which also contains equivalents to each Wing Chun "hand", as I listed on a previous page. I don't think White Crane even contains all of those.
Here's something else for you, @KPM
Beetlejuice on the other forum used to post pictures of this posture from Emei and his Wing Chun, positing a suggested connection based on nothing more than that. No answers to who taught what to whom, when and where. Just common postures, and didn't even explain their functions.
I posted the exact same posture found in this same northern system I'm talking about. You see it's the same monk as in the elbow technique picture above. And boy, did that upset him, because it completely destroyed his theory.
You talk about a necessary gestalt. Well, these are all contained within the same system, and they are lacking in White Crane AFAIK.
So, as it stands, there is more material to posit a "suggested connection" between Wing Chun and this northern system, than there is with White Crane, based on your standards of "looking alike", plus function.
But it would be foolish to suggest a historical connection like that without answering the essential questions of who taught what to whom, when and where. If you can't do that, you've really got nothing more than a few visual similarities, which is less than what I can show from an unrelated style.
Beetlejuice on the other forum used to post pictures of this posture from Emei and his Wing Chun, positing a suggested connection based on nothing more than that. No answers to who taught what to whom, when and where. Just common postures, and didn't even explain their functions.
I posted the exact same posture found in this same northern system I'm talking about. You see it's the same monk as in the elbow technique picture above. And boy, did that upset him, because it completely destroyed his theory.
You talk about a necessary gestalt. Well, these are all contained within the same system, and they are lacking in White Crane AFAIK.
So, as it stands, there is more material to posit a "suggested connection" between Wing Chun and this northern system, than there is with White Crane, based on your standards of "looking alike", plus function.
But it would be foolish to suggest a historical connection like that without answering the essential questions of who taught what to whom, when and where. If you can't do that, you've really got nothing more than a few visual similarities, which is less than what I can show from an unrelated style.
Judkins is a good historian and is great at cutting through the red boats BS that surrounds wing chun. He excels at getting time lines, finding out who was a real person and who was a myth. That kind of thing. Judkins rejects anything that is not supported by historical evidence and so has a picture of wing chun that originates with Leung Jan in Foshan around the time when the only rebel in Foshan would be found in a mass grave, with wing chun as a system of the establishment, not of rebel groups. He shows this story to be fiction, which is a good thing.He shows the origin of wing chun to (most likely) be quite recent, which is a good thing. .
Where I find his analyses fall down is when he attempts to make system comparisons and contrasts based upon his knowledge of wing chun and other systems. For example he rejects white crane as similar to wing chun on a historical basis, and he is correct to do so. However at the same time he has a theory that wing chun and the Hakka arts are related because they look similar to him. In fact SPM, Bak Mei and Lung Ying share a lot more with white crane than they do with wing chun. All are sanchin (3 battles/arrows) styles. All approach the opponent in the same way as white crane, and all finish in the same way. All are conceptually similar to white crane in terms of the way they deal with the fight. Wing chun is different to all of these.
Given that neither you nor KPM will talk in any sensible way about what system similarity is, beyond KPM saying that the arm motions look a bit similar (which is trivial), and then shouting about a whole picture he has entirely failed to demonstrate, I don't really want to go into the way that the Hakka arts and wing chun are different in any detail, since I will only be educating someone that is not honest in their attempts to discuss anything. Put something forward and be honest and I will discuss. I am/was involved in SPM and I am involved in VT. I love both of these systems. I do not wish to cause damage to either of them by giving someone only interested in trolling for info anything real or potentially damaging.
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