Wing Chun vs MMA

[guy b.]

TWhat I AM saying is that if you take one fundamental thing....the interpretation of Tan Sau.....in which WSLVT differs from every other branch of Ip Man Wing Chun....then the common sense conclusion using Occam's Razor is that this particular interpretation of Tan Sau originated with WSL himself, given that all the other branches of Ip Man Wing Chun agree on their fundamental interpretation of Tan Sau.

But they don't agree on their interpretation of Tan sau. All they agree upon is that it is some kind of bridging or chi sau or blocking technique. Leung Ting disagrees with Duncan leung. But all of these interpretations are ones that could be extrapolated from seeing it being trained. They are basic, easy to arrive at conclusions.

It is far simpler to assume that WSL came up with his nuanced understanding of something like Tan by learning it correctly from his teacher, rather than assuming he came up with such awesome detail and conceptual clarity all by himself. What WSL VT communicates is obviously the work of generations, not of one man.

 

[KPM]

Point me to the post where you expand on your idea about white crane being the origin of wing chun. I don't see anything beyond the fact that you think they look the same. I know they don't function the same. Will you respond?

I'm not doing the work for you. If you actually cared you'd would go back and look for it yourself. Why aren't you answering my question about Tan Sau?

You really don't think he would NOT have corrected Ho Kam Ming's interpretation of Tan Sau if he saw it was wrong? Or Tsui Tsun Ting's? Or Wang Kiu's Or Leung Sheung's? Or Ip Ching's? Or Ip Chun's? Or Chow Tze Chuen's? Or Duncan Leung's?

 

[KPM]

But they don't agree on their interpretation of Tan sau. .

Well, again, you don't seem to be paying very good attention to things. Because all of them interpret Tan Sau as a defensive parry. WSL is the only one that says it isn't applied or used defensively and is only for training the elbow.

 

[guy b.]

Well, again, you don't seem to be paying very good attention to things. Because all of them interpret Tan Sau as a defensive parry. WSL is the only one that says it isn't applied or used defensively and is only for training the elbow.

They don't all interpret it as a defensive parry though. Some see it as a block which can stop a hook punch. Others see it as a force swallowing bridge hand which is applied during a kind of contacted fighting that looks like chi sau. These are entirely different things. Which thing that YM apparently said of these two was correct? And why did he lie to the other guy?

 

[guy b.]

You really don't think he would NOT have corrected Ho Kam Ming's interpretation of Tan Sau if he saw it was wrong? Or Tsui Tsun Ting's? Or Wang Kiu's Or Leung Sheung's? Or Ip Ching's? Or Ip Chun's? Or Chow Tze Chuen's? Or Duncan Leung's?

I have no idea about what YM said to these guys. But I do know that the wing chun produced by some of them is not very good, to put it mildly.

 

[geezer]

Very interesting discussion. Personally, I use a "Bic" razor. Inexpensive and gets the job done. Haven't seen any "Occams" at Walgreen's.

Now as far as "true-believers" go. I can spot 'em a mile away. Remember I was a disciple of LT for over a decade. I lived amongst them. Heck, I was one of them. LFJ is right, a lot of "WT" guys and "TWC" guys suffer from that. And a fair number finally woke up and moved on. Or woke up and stayed with their sifus, but with their eyes open and their mouths shut. Whatever makes you happy. The fact that some may have gone over to WSL VT is fine too. I"ll bet it's a good system, ....if you can stay away from their "true believers!"

Now about that common sense thing. I will preface my remarks by saying I am famous for my lack of it. Regardless, it seems very likely to me that GM Yip Man did teach differently to different students at different periods of his life. And that he certainly would have spent more time with favored students whose personalities, aptitudes and, in some cases, fat pocket books made them stand out. That's all pretty normal in old school TCMA.

So if we can pretty much agree on this, what are we to assume? Simply that different YM students came away from their training with diverse skill sets and understandings of YM VT. Then as time passed they built upon their foundation and their own systems diverged even more. That's how evolution works. And just because no two YM disciples interpret their WC the same way (i.e. Guy's tan sau example above) doesn't mean they are lying. IMO Such reductivist, black and white thinking is very limiting. But that's fine if it makes you happy.

 

[LFJ]

What is asinine about my conclusion?

Your conclusion means YM would have taught contradictory systems to dozens of people.

Where is my logic wrong?

You employ nothing but logical fallacies such as Appeals to Emotion;

Like "wishful thinking" where your decision is based on what is pleasing to imagine for you, rather than on reason and evidence.

For example, you refuse to believe what YM's students said about his temperament and teaching style because in your opinion it would make him a "horrible" person and you don't like that.

The idea that everyone can be right in their own way is also pleasing to you, so you simply ignore points I've made that suggest some might have been wrong.

And another appeal to emotion called "appeal to ridicule", where you present the opponent's argument in a way that it appears absurd, ridiculous, or in any way humorous, to the specific end of a foregone conclusion that the argument lacks any substance which would merit consideration.

For example, you try to paint me into a corner where I must make the claim that only WSL received the "real version" of VT so that you may then label my argument as "true believer syndrome" and discount it on that alone, which you would do even if the cold hard truth were on my side. You even ignored all my points in post #87 to pick out that short hypothetical and end your argument on it.

You are now pressing me to say each mainstream Sifu by name didn't learn correctly so that you can label me something else without actually addressing my points. This is just another logical fallacy known as Appeal to the Majority.

You want me to say all these guys were wrong and only WSL was right because that seems improbable to you and you are more interested in hearing me say such an improbable thing so that you might make an appeal to the majority rather than actually address the points I've made in my argument!

You have completely suspended all logic and reason for the sake of group hugs, and that is a symptom of Gullible Hippie Syndrome.

 

[LFJ]

And how about you answer this one simple question that I have now asked more than once?

You really don't think he would NOT have corrected Ho Kam Ming's interpretation of Tan Sau if he saw it was wrong? Or Tsui Tsun Ting's? Or Wang Kiu's Or Leung Sheung's? Or Ip Ching's? Or Ip Chun's? Or Chow Tze Chuen's? Or Duncan Leung's?

It is entirely possible that they simply went through the motions of the forms and chi-sau drills in class without receiving much information on what they were doing, and so their interpretations were unseen and uncorrected.

Unlike WSL who was testing his skills in fights and discussing his experience with his teacher, it's entirely possible that these guys never had to give much thought to the "applications" until such time that they decided to become teachers.

And as I said, I find it curious that their interpretations are no different than what any layman would assume to be the application of things after only seeing the shapes and hearing the names. Whether that be blocking with taan-sau, breaking a wrist grab at the end of SNT, or sticking to arms in chi-sau.

They would never reach a more abstract understanding without careful instruction. That suggests that what took place was mostly visual learning, sharing and copying ideas among one another, and gap filling on their own. And that such things were the norm in YM's school due to his temperament and teaching style is something his students have said.

 

[geezer]

....They would never reach a more abstract understanding without careful instruction. That suggests that what took place was mostly visual learning, sharing and copying ideas among one another, and gap filling on their own. And that such things were the norm in YM's school due to his temperament and teaching style is something his students have said.

Yet, there is a level of "abstract understanding" that my old sifu expressed to some of us, that he got directly from Yip Man, mostly imparted after the time he spent physically training, rather shared over tea, etc. and that abstract understanding wasn't the same as what WSL learned a decade or so earlier. It could be that one was right and the other was wrong as you suggest. Or it could be that YM VT was actually broad enough to allow for such differences.

Sometimes two seemingly contradictory points of view can both be right.That is to say that an apparent paradox can resolved when you see the bigger picture. Or perhaps I'm just manifesting symptoms of GHS (Gullible Hippie Syndrome) again!

 

[LFJ]

As I've seen from LTWT, "spreading hand", "freeing hand", and "sticky hands" are all taken and applied quite literally.

Some think that "two seemingly contradictory points of view can both be right" because VT is concept and principle based and that gives them a creativity license.

But this is a profound misunderstanding of VT. It's really a simple approach to fighting with a crystal clear set of concepts and principles that aren't open to interpretation. It is either correct or incorrect.

But so many people get let off with impractical ideas because it's "conceptual" and therefore not open to judgement.

This is why WSL started calling it "combat science". Because art can be freely interpreted and all can be correct, but skill is immediately verifiable with the outcome of a fight.

Many people are just training an art.

 

[guy b.]

KPM, here is what you have said regarding why you think wing chun is derived from white crane:

While White Crane was likely one of Wing Chun's "roots" back in the day, I don't think I would say that "Wing Chun is a branch of Crane style." That's kind of like saying that the Southern Baptist Church is a branch of the Catholic Church. It may have its roots back in history in the Catholic Church, but saying its a "branch" implies a closer relationship than what actually exists! ;-)

You appear just to believe this is self evident- no reason given

If I remember correctly it was the county/region. But "Wing Chun" is the name of a girl, or a hall at Shaolin.....take your pick from the stories. The name had to come from somewhere. One story is as good as another. The poster asked why anyone would think that White Crane was a root art of Wing Chun. I told him why. I think it is as plausible an idea as anything else

You think that the name wing chun sounds a bit like yong chun. Ok

I like the idea that whole "burning of Shaolin" story was just a cover story. That it might have actually been the burning of one of the union halls where the rebels groups were headquartered. "Chi Sim" was also possibly just a cover story for one of the rebel leaders that was hiding form the government and using a false identity to avoid capture. It has been said that the primary martial art used by Lee Mau Man and a large part of the rebel groups at that time was White Crane. So here is another story connecting White Crane and Wing Chun. Since this connection comes from several different angles, it makes the idea of White Crane as a "root" art of Wing Chun as plausible or even more plausible than other theories.

This story doesn't connect wing chun to white crane in any way. One of the documents you linked to mentions that Lee was a wandering illiterate who became a Red Turban leader. That is all.

The other document disagrees that white crane is a root art of wing chun. While it gets certain things very wrong (i.e. it thinks Bak Mei is closer to wing chun than to white crane) I agree with what the uthor says regarding wing chun and white crane. I don't see how you feel this material supports any argument for white crane and wing chun being connected.

Master Lee Kong, a very well-known White Crane teacher in Hong Kong. If you can't see the similarities with Wing Chun, that's on you not me. I think others will see what I'm talking about.

What are the similarities with wing chun? I don't see any body mechanics in common, and having done both sanchin based systems and wing chun I don't really see what you are getting at. Movement is very different. This is a particularly poor demo by the way. See clips I posted for better ones.

I agree that people only move in so many ways. So you look at the total package....narrow stance, short bridge, centerline structure, short power......doubtful that all of these elements emerged independently in multiple martial arts from the same region. So visual appearance does make a difference when looking for connections

Completely different body mechanics? Conception of short power entirely different. Footwork and stance different. Centreline? Lol

 

[guy b.]

Your conclusion means YM would have taught contradictory systems to dozens of people.



You employ nothing but logical fallacies such as Appeals to Emotion;

Like "wishful thinking" where your decision is based on what is pleasing to imagine for you, rather than on reason and evidence.

For example, you refuse to believe what YM's students said about his temperament and teaching style because in your opinion it would make him a "horrible" person and you don't like that.

The idea that everyone can be right in their own way is also pleasing to you, so you simply ignore points I've made that suggest some might have been wrong.

And another appeal to emotion called "appeal to ridicule", where you present the opponent's argument in a way that it appears absurd, ridiculous, or in any way humorous, to the specific end of a foregone conclusion that the argument lacks any substance which would merit consideration.

For example, you try to paint me into a corner where I must make the claim that only WSL received the "real version" of VT so that you may then label my argument as "true believer syndrome" and discount it on that alone, which you would do even if the cold hard truth were on my side. You even ignored all my points in post #87 to pick out that short hypothetical and end your argument on it.

You are now pressing me to say each mainstream Sifu by name didn't learn correctly so that you can label me something else without actually addressing my points. This is just another logical fallacy known as Appeal to the Majority.

You want me to say all these guys were wrong and only WSL was right because that seems improbable to you and you are more interested in hearing me say such an improbable thing so that you might make an appeal to the majority rather than actually address the points I've made in my argument!

You have completely suspended all logic and reason for the sake of group hugs, and that is a symptom of Gullible Hippie Syndrome.

Genuinely good analysis of KPM's arguing style. I am glad you had the patience to write this

 

[KPM]

As I've seen from LTWT, "spreading hand", "freeing hand", and "sticky hands" are all taken and applied quite literally.

Some think that "two seemingly contradictory points of view can both be right" because VT is concept and principle based and that gives them a creativity license.

But this is a profound misunderstanding of VT. It's really a simple approach to fighting with a crystal clear set of concepts and principles that aren't open to interpretation. It is either correct or incorrect.

.

And, once again, you are showing that your entire understanding of Wing Chun centers on WSLVT. You generalize what you have learned from WSLVT to all Wing Chun....which isn't always necessarily accurate. And besides, wasn't it WSL himself that said in regards to Wing Chun...."be its Master, not its Slave!".....????

 

[guy b.]

Information on the "Red Turban Rebellion"

http://www.scientificjournals.org/journals2009/articles/1473.pdf

A lot of good information in this blog post from Ben Judkins. Its rather long, and actually speaks against a White Crane or even Red Boat link for Wing Chun. But Ben is a historian and is sticking to the known facts as much as possible. Beyond that you have to start talking about what seems most plausible and then we are in the realm of conjecture and competing theories. I think another problem with Judkin's conclusions is that he doesn't take into account Weng Chun's history and stories at all. He seems to pin everything on Leung Jan. Anyway, kind of long but worth reading:

Hing Chao Discusses Southern Boxing, White Crane and the “Eastern Theory” of Wing Chun’s Origins.

Ben Judkins reply regarding a question about Lee Man Mao:

Hi, Ben. I am a huge fan of your work and have been reading your articles for months. I have read almost all of them. Fantastic work you’re doing here.
I just want to point out a few things though. I’ve noticed that you keep referring to Leung Jan as a reference point. There are quite a few students from his ‘generation’ (e.g. Fok Bo Chun and Fung Siu Ching) who have learnt from opera performers other than Wong Wah Bo and Leung Yee Tai (e.g. Yik Kam and Dai Fa Min Kam). I think that maybe Wing Chun might have been created in the earlier 19th century rather than the mid 19th century.
Also, have you tried looking into characters such as Li Wenmao (Lee Man Mao)? He’s associated with the Tiandihui (fairly high ranked) and apparently was also associated with the King Fa Wui Goon (the opera troupe where these supposed performers are from). Also, rumour has it he’s trained in Yong Chun White Crane.
Here’s an article on the Red Turban Rebellion that I think you might find really useful.
http://www.scientificjournals.org/journals2009/articles/1473.pdf
Thanks a lot for your blog. Keep up the good work.
POSTED BY LEON | JULY 17, 2013, 9:17 AM
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  Hi Leon,
  Thanks for the kind words and the valuable feedback. I am a big fan of Kim’s article and think that the breakdown of the leadership of the (highly splintered) Red Turban movement is particularly valuable.
  You are correct that I see the genesis of the modern art with Leung Jan. Nor am I unaware of the creation myths and folklore of the Yuen Kay-San clan or the other, non-Ip Man, Wing Chun movements. There are a number of reasons that I approach the history of Wing Chun in this way. To begin with, in historical terms, we know some things about Leung Jan that we do not know about these other individuals. In fact, he is a historically verifiable figure to a degree that the rest are not.
  That does not mean that stories or “memories” of the rest are not widespread. They certainly are. Ip Ching remembers (or to be more accurate, remembers hearing) stories about Fung Siu Ching for instance. Yet these figures tend to be really hard to deal with in actual historical and academic terms. Why? Because of the nature of the creation myths in all of these lineages. Most of these stories are an attempt to differentiate a clan or affiliation from the Ip Man line. Yet the creation narrative of his lineage probably only dates to the 1930s. That means the rest of these stories, explicitly reacting against it, are even later (at least in their current form). While these figures may have existed, pretty much everything I know about them is folklore (sometimes pretty late folklore).
  There may have been other students doing something similar to what Leung Jan was doing in the mid 19th century. Indeed, nothing happens in a vacuum, so that seems rather likely. But not only do I not have any actual verifiable historical information about these figures, I don’t think there is very much that is knowable about them at all. Even Leung Jan is interesting in this regards. We have evidence of his existence, but how much hard proof (not folklore mind you, actual publicly accessible contemporary documents) do we have that he was a martial artists prior to the Republic period? The answer is that we have basically nothing.
  Now I certainly believe that he was a martial artist. I don’t know if he was actually aware that the art he practiced was named Wing Chun or not. Remember, most martial practices at the start of the 19th century did not actually have names (thats one of the odd things about this story). But what we know about Leung Jan comes either from Ip Man’s reminisces of what Leung Bik and Ng Chung So said, or Republic era pulp martial arts stories. Would historians consider either of these to be trustworthy sources? No.
  And the situation is generally downhill from there. The Opera singers? We don’t have any idea if any of these figures actually existed. It seems like a plausible story. There were certainly unemployed opera singers in the area (at least some escaped the White Terror that followed the Red Turban uprising). But any particular story about any given singer? Impossible to verify. This is the big reason that I try to focus my discussions on the historical environment (things that are knowable and useful no matter what your lineage) and not get into discussions taking the various lineage legends as concrete facts.
  On a certain level, none of this really matters. The Wing Chun that we practice now is pretty distant from whatever happening in the 19th century. When is the first time that the name Wing Chun, in conjunction with a martial arts style, actually appears in a document? A reader asked me that question recently and its pretty late.
  The art was massively reformed and gained its initial public character during the 1920s and 1930s. This is critical as it is how we all know Wing Chun, as a public commercial martial art. And without Ip Man (and Bruce Lee) expanding its appeal and modernizing the system in the 1950s, we would not be having this discussion right now. So when I sit down to talk about the origins of a modern practice, where should I look? Obviously I look to the lineage that succeeded in making the art a mass phenomenon, and I try to stick as close to the verifiable sources as I possibly can.
  I realize that this may seem unfair or one-sided to practitioners from other lineages, but again, I want to explore the martial milieu of the period. That is actually my job as a academic blog. Not all that many people are interested in the history of Wing Chun in isolation.
  I want to talk about the evolution of China’s martial culture in broader terms. The historical study of Wing Chun is really only useful or interesting so far as it sheds light on important questions about the development of popular culture in southern China more generally. Ip Man managed to impact that environment in a way that Yuen Kay-San (who remained a lone practitioner) never did for instance.
  “Also, have you tried looking into characters such as Li Wenmao”
  For what purpose? In terms of basic historical research? Yes, I have looked at him in a fair degree of detail. My academic book manuscript (still under review) spends a couple of chapters on the Red Turban Revolt and its aftermath.
  In terms of Wing Chun? To be totally honest this is where we start to get into trouble. Wing Chun really appears to be a product of the aftermath of the Red Turban revolt, not one of the things that helped to incite it. Lets say that the Opera singers in the various creations myths were real, and that their teaching was an important part of what would become Wing Chun. All of this teaching is supposed to be starting (or still happening) in the 1850s. What was going on at that point in time?
  To begin with the government was rounding and butchering anyone associated with the revolt. How many people did they kill? Hundreds of thousands, by some estimates up to 1 million people in the Pearl River Delta alone. And at this point almost all of the surviving opera rebels had left Guangdong to form their own “Taiping Kingdom” a little to the north-west which would survive for years. We know where most of those guys were, and it wasn’t in Foshan (which would have been suicidal).
  So what do we know (circumstantially) about figures like Wong Wah Bo or Leung Yi Tai? To begin with, they were not dead (which is sort of surprising, I have a theory about that but its so speculative I will keep it to myself). And secondly, they were not fighting to support the new kingdom with the rest of the actual rebels. Instead they were sitting in still smoking ruins of Foshan, looking for someone to support them.
  What does all of this mean? Its almost impossible to say, which is why I like to stick to real history. But if I were to push it, I would probably conclude that there are two possibilities. Either they were super secret rebel agents who were refusing to leave, or they had nothing to do with the uprising (which was at heart a tax revolt) and everyone around them knew it. For a variety of reasons the second possibility seems vastly more plausible.
  Remember, the governor had given the local gentry of Foshan and other areas large quotas of “rebels” and other undesirables that they had to turn over for execution or face punishment themselves. That is why there were all of those 100,000s of executions. If there had been even a shred of evidence connecting the Opera stars to the rebellion it seems unlikely they would have survived the purge. Even if they had any important enemies they probably would have ended up in a mass gave in Guangzhou. Remember, many, probably most, of the people who were being executed by the end of this period were simply local undesirables. The actual rebels had died, fled or melted back into the mountains at the end of the uprising.
  During the late 19th century rebel figures tended not to be as popular as they later became, and people avoided associating themselves with these causes. Too many individuals remembered what had happened and they blamed the rebels for nearly destroying the country. Martial artists have a hard time accepting this fact, but the government was actually fairly popular in the late 19th century, especially when it was seen as standing up to (or being victimized by) foreigners. The Boxer Uprising, for instance, was an uprising in support of Beijing, not opposing it. Actually that is a good example of what I am talking about. In the immediate aftermath of that disaster people tended to blame the Boxers (and even martial artists in general) for what had happened, not the government.
  There have always been stories about righteous rebels in Chinese literature (see “Water Margin”) but this stuff really came to the fore in the wake of the 1911 revolution, and then again in the 1920s-1930s. This is when there were powerful social and political forces promoting the idea of “revolution,” romanticizing it, and filling popular culture with it. This is when people started to get all misty-eyed when discussing the “opera rebels” (as opposed to “those dirty thugs”).
  So yeah, when I hear these stories about “Opera Rebels” and the origins of Wing Chun, they sound pretty anachronistic. They reek of the 1930s (and the 1950s). Most of the very small number of people who were actually doing Wing Chun in the 19th century (Leung Jan, Fung Sun Ching, Chan Wah Shun ect…) were pretty much establishment types, and not the sort you would expect to go in for treason or assassination. While I am certainly aware of Li Wenmao I don’t associate him all that closely with the creation of Wing Chun.
  As a matter of fact, for as far back as we have solid data, Wing Chun is a martial art that has been associated with the wealthy and powerful. Its the kind of thing that was studied by the sons of business owners and landlord. If you looking for something with a little more possibility for rebellion and class conflict I would go with Choy Li Fut. The Shaolin inspired stories of righteous rebellion are a constant across the martial arts of Guangdong. Each and everyone of the Hung Mun stories simply has a slightly different varient of the same basic narrative. What is interesting about Wing Chun is the degree to which it breaks out of this mold. In an era when most martial arts were associated with poverty and “working class” individuals, Wing Chun was an establishment art. I think that this is the much more interesting mystery to solve.
  I guess that ended up being a more extensive answer than I had planned on giving, but hopefully it better illustrates the position that I am coming from in these posts.
  POSTED BY BENJUDKINS | JULY 17, 2013, 1:25 PM
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    Part II
    With regards to the more specific question of whether we should think of Wing Chun as pre or post 1850. Again, this is really tough. There are so few verifiable sources that almost anything that you say will end up being an “argument from silence.” There are really very few sources available to contradict anything, so practically any date or theory becomes “plausible.” This is exactly how we ended up with so many theories of Wing Chun’s origins in the first place. A lot of the discussions of Wing Chun’s origins that you find seem to be an attempt to open a space for rational belief of a theory that some group already holds. The silent nature of the historical record makes that possible.
    Of course another name for arguments like this is “apologetics.” That is what we would call them if we were discussing religion, and its something that I am explicitly trying to avoid. This can be hard. I am very interested in Cantonese opera and its historical association with the martial arts. I would love to be able to use Wong Wah Bo, Painted Face Kam and Leung Yee Tie in all sorts of conversations. Part of me would like them to be a solid part of Wing Chun’s history, rather than a mere suggestion. But most of the things I have thought about saying about them end up being just different types of apologetics. This is a different type of exercise than historal or social scientific discussions.
    Apologetics is not bad in and of its self. It can be quite useful. There are college professors who do this sort of thing professionally. But apologetic arguments are different from historical ones, and its important to keep that distinction at the forefront of your mind when writing about a topic like this.
    Obviously there is stuff in the Wing Chun system that predates the mid 19th century. The six and a half point pole would be a good place to start. As would the swords. We perform that form with butterfly swords now but my Sifu believes (and I think he has good reason to assert) that it has many movements that work much better with two sabers (inverted guards, complex bridging ect) and hudiedao. I am trying to get him to write a guest post on that, and I may yet succeed.
    So yeah, there is clearly a lot of material here that is much older than the mid 19th century. These styles evolve through time, and assigning a start date (“ok, from this point forward it will be called…….”) is always a sort of arbitrary act. As I have argued in another post, the boundaries between styles are basically socially constructed. They are certainly never as firm and fast as our current “lineage framework” makes things out to be.
    I have attempted to explain above why I focus on Leung Jan as a starting point for historically grounded discussions of Wing Chun. When you take his life in isolation from a lot of the other folklore, and you look at his age, career, his father, local events and all of that, a start date in the mid. 19th century seems most plausible (at least it does to me). When you start to add in other elements of Wing Chun folklore, especially stories about the Opera Rebels, yeah, that pushes things back a decade or two. But I don’t think we can actually use these stories as independent witnesses. Specifically, many of them seem to have been composed with the explicit aim of critiquing the “received wisdom.” That means they post-date said wisdom. From a historical standpoint they seem like dangerous sources to lean on. No professional historian would rely on them to try and make definitive statements about the period. And if you can explain something about the development of Wing Chun without them (at least in a certain area) that seems to be the safer thing to do.
    I hope I have addressed all of your questions. Thanks for taking the time to read and engage with my posts.[/QUOTE

 

[KPM]

Genuinely good analysis of KPM's arguing style. I am glad you had the patience to write this

LOL! You know, I'm pretty passionate about Wing Chun, so sometimes I let that show in my posting. But what gets really frustrating is trying to discuss something with people who aren't really here to discuss. It is very frustrating when I make points that are completely dismissed and ignored, questions that aren't answered, and someone just keeps repeating the same thing over and over and ignoring the point that refutes what they are saying. That isn't a discussion. That's more like a crusade on the part of the person that is ignoring the other parties points and just repeating their own belief over and over....as if by saying it over and over it become more true. I capitalize things sometimes, not because I am so "emotional" but because the person I am replying to has shown a pattern of ignoring what I say. So I capitalize in hopes of emphasizing and catching their attention. I don't know why I let you guys get me caught up in pointless discussions with you that I know are going nowhere because you don't really care what anyone else thinks. I guess I find it entertaining to an extent.

 

[wckf92]

Hi everyone. My friend and I have been going back and forth over which is superior for self defense, wing chun or mma. No martial art is truly superior, however he has been relentlessly insulting Wing Chun even though he literally knows nothing about it. He told me it is the "laughing-stock" of martial arts. I thought I would seek help here for arguments as to why Wing Chun is better for self defense. Thanks.

Can anyone remember the days way back when....the OP asked a question and it would get responses aligned with it? hahaha

This thread nowadays has spiraled into a conversation (argument?) between KPM and Guy regarding WC and White Crane; and another "conversation" between KPM and LFJ/Guy on whether WSLVT is the "real deal"...

 

[KPM]

KPM, here is what you have said regarding why you think wing chun is derived from white crane:

---Ah! So you did bother to go back and look! You didn't find it all, but at least you made an effort.


You think that the name wing chun sounds a bit like yong chun. Ok

---Uh...."Wing Chun" is Cantonese...."Yong Chun" is Mandarin for the exact same characters. They are the same words. So its more than "sound alike", they are the same thing!



This story doesn't connect wing chun to white crane in any way. One of the documents you linked to mentions that Lee was a wandering illiterate who became a Red Turban leader. That is all.

---I pointed out that Lee Man Mao was part of the Taiping Uprising but the Wikipedia article you found didn't mention him. You then asked for a source. I provided a source explaining how Lee Man Mao and the Red Turbans were part of the Taiping Uprising.



The other document disagrees that white crane is a root art of wing chun. While it gets certain things very wrong (i.e. it thinks Bak Mei is closer to wing chun than to white crane) I agree with what the uthor says regarding wing chun and white crane. I don't see how you feel this material supports any argument for white crane and wing chun being connected.

---Here is a very brief rundown of what I see as evidence to suggest a connection between Wing Chun and some older version of White Crane.

1. Wing Chun's own origin stories and legends talk about Ng Mui seeing a fight between a Snake and a Crane and being inspired to create Wing Chun. The stories talk about Ng Mui being a resident of the White Crane temple. While these are just stories, the old legends sometimes have a nugget of truth to them and are actually metaphorical. So this suggests a possible connection to White Crane. I mentioned this before.

2. The story of Yim Wing Chun and Ng Mui is practically the same as White Crane's own origin story. They are likely both fictional. But this could also suggest a connection, or at least that whoever decided to take White Crane's story and adapt it to Wing Chun may have done so because THEY saw a connection. And of course they were closer in history to it all than we are!

3. White Crane has evolved and developed over time into several branch systems. But if you look at the version that is considered to be closest to the "ancestral" White Crane, it has a lot of similarities to Wing Chun. In the videos posted you can spot a lot of techniques shared with Wing Chun like Tan Sau, Biu Sau, Bong Sau (which some lineages even refer to as a "Crane's Wing block") Fook Sau, etc. You can see footwork and stances that are similar as well. Now again, these may not be very similar to WSLVT! But WSLVT is not the standard by which all Wing Chun is judged! These things from White Crane tend to be more similar to the mainland China versions of Wing Chun like Pin Sun and Yuen Kay Shan WCK.

4. Fukien White Crane and Wing Chun may not share the same power generation mechanics, but they have had 150 years of divergent development and evolution. To me, that is plenty of time to come up with different power generation mechanics or different "engines."

5. The whole name of the version of White Crane thought to be closest to the "ancestral" Crane style includes the words "Yong Chun" which is simply the mandarin version of "Wing Chun" and is the same characters in Chinese. For White Crane this is said to identify the County of its origin. In the White Crane stories they also have a ancestral character named "Fong Wing Chun."

6. The Wing Chun stories say that several of the ancestors were Red Boat Opera performers. The Red Boat Opera performers were highly involved in the Taiping Rebellion. Lee Man Mau was a Red Boat performer documented in Chinese history that started his own spin off "Red Turban" rebellion that drew a large number of its members from the Red Boat performers. Lee Man Mau was a White Crane guy and said to have trained his followers in that style. So we have both newly developing Wing Chun and an older version of White Crane both associated with the Red Boat Opera performers at the same era in history.

I'm sure I can come up with other possible connections that could suggest that White Crane and Wing Chun were related given time. But its all just a theory and conjecture. Like I said before, one has to just look at the "most likely" based on available evidence and then decided what to believe. And after that, one should continue to remain a bit skeptical and open to other evidence and theories that come along. Like your pole theory. That started out interesting, but I will point out that the ONLY evidence you provided for your theory that Wing Chun is derived from the pole methods was a short description of 7 pole concepts stated by Wong Shun Leung. So as I stated before, in my opinion there is a lot more reason to theorize that Wing Chun may have developed from a "proto-White Crane" style than that Wing Chun developed from someone adapting the pole methods to empty hand fighting!

Now if you want to actually discuss this any further I suggest you start a new thread.

 

[KPM]

Can anyone remember the days way back when....the OP asked a question and it would get responses aligned with it? hahaha

This thread nowadays has spiraled into a conversation (argument?) between KPM and Guy regarding WC and White Crane; and another "conversation" between KPM and LFJ/Guy on whether WSLVT is the "real deal"...

True! And each time I have begun respond to a point that was off-topic from the thread I have noted that it was a topic for another thread or suggested another thread be started, but have been ignored and people have just run with it anyway! I guess that's just the nature of conversation, whether in person or on a forum. It tends to wander it many directions!

 

[LFJ]

And, once again, you are showing that your entire understanding of Wing Chun centers on WSLVT. You generalize what you have learned from WSLVT to all Wing Chun....which isn't always necessarily accurate. And besides, wasn't it WSL himself that said in regards to Wing Chun...."be its Master, not its Slave!".....????

Actually, I've come to an idea of what YM most likely taught as VT through examining various lineages, taking what those teachers say and teach into account (coherency/functionality), as well as their training time and fighting experience.

I think YMVT was meant to be one thing, not dozens of contradictory methods. I've explained why I think many are teaching deficient systems, and it has nothing to do with biased generalization, just an objective review of the facts.

Also, that quote from WSL has been taken out of context and misused by many as yet another "creative license" to justify their version of the "art" that is beyond judgement because it's "conceptual" and if you don't agree with them you're just a slave to your art...

 

[LFJ]

LOL! You know, I'm pretty passionate about Wing Chun, so sometimes I let that show in my posting. But what gets really frustrating is trying to discuss something with people who aren't really here to discuss. It is very frustrating when I make points that are completely dismissed and ignored, questions that aren't answered, and someone just keeps repeating the same thing over and over and ignoring the point that refutes what they are saying. That isn't a discussion. That's more like a crusade on the part of the person that is ignoring the other parties points and just repeating their own belief over and over....as if by saying it over and over it become more true. I capitalize things sometimes, not because I am so "emotional" but because the person I am replying to has shown a pattern of ignoring what I say. So I capitalize in hopes of emphasizing and catching their attention. I don't know why I let you guys get me caught up in pointless discussions with you that I know are going nowhere because you don't really care what anyone else thinks. I guess I find it entertaining to an extent.

Wow... That is surreal, the way you're imagining you're in my position where your points are the ones being ignored. Haha! You talk about YM and personality disorders. You seem to have some sort of dissociative identity disorder.

I've addressed your points on taan-sau and answered each question you've raised. What have I missed? Or have you forgotten now that you have taken on a new identity and side in this whole discussion?