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!
Yes they sound the same. They don't necessarily mean the same, as LFJ already addressed.
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.
As I said this story doesn't connect minor rebel LMM to wing chun or even to white crane in any way. What does this person have to do with this topic?
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.
This is addressed very well by Judkins who debunks it thoroughly. It is a 20th C fabrication, as are most or all such stories. The trashy novel containing the wing chun origin story has even been identified, I believe.
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!
They are both modern fabrications along the same lines. Haven't you noticed this trend in nearly all Southern Chinese MA? Again Judkins blows this out of the water in the article you linked to or comments after it
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.
Wing chun doesn't work by hand shapes, and neither does white crane. Both are conceptually based systems which are very specifically delineated. You need to talk about conceptual similarity if you want to talk about similarity. LJF addressed this point very well.
I am interested to know how you think white crane works in reality? Can you describe it please, and identify why you think such an approach to combat is similar to the one taken by wing chun?
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.
Neither do they share conceptual similarities. In which case, even if wing chun did derive from some proto-white crane, any comparison would be meaningless since they no longer share any important thing. In this case it would be more interesting to look at why wing chun is different, not which fragments might remain.
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.
It is the place of origin. Why would you assume this had anything to do with the wing chun system?
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.
Virtually all Southern Chinese systems identify themselves as being anti Qing. It is part and parcel of the origin legends. As Judkins discusses in the post above, there is no reason to assume that these are anything more than stories tacked on at a later date.There are no historically verifiable Opera performers that did wing chun. There is no historical link to Red Boats. If anything wing chun is a system associated with the landed gentry and to moneyed merchant classes. Why would such people have anything to do with 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 haven't read anything historcally credible that identifies Lee Man Mau as a white crane practitioner (notwithstanding the fact that white crane as a named martial arts style likely did not exist at that time). I haven't read any historically verifiable info linking wing chun to Opera performers.
I'm sure I can come up with other possible connections that could suggest that White Crane and Wing Chun were related given time.
You haven't come up with any credible connections
Like I said before, one has to just look at the "most likely" based on available evidence and then decided what to believe.
White crane is not likely, see above
And after that, one should continue to remain a bit skeptical and open to other evidence and theories that come along
I am completely agnostic about the origins of wing chun. I don not think that you are.
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.
I can only suggest that you try WSL wing chun.
Ok. That's it. I'm done trying to have any kind of discussion with you. You've proven to be not only a poor conversationalist, but basically not worth even talking to.
