wooden dummy lost moves

[yak sao]

We've all heard how Yip Man took his original dummy set of 140 moves and reduced it down to 108 moves and then toward the end decided to take it up to 116 moves.
Does anyone have any insight/speculation to what those missing 24 moves are? Do you think they were merely rendundancy that he took out for the sake of streamlining?

 

[zepedawingchun]

I see a few people looking at the thread, but no posting.

Okay, I'll take a stab at it. I'm not sure 24 moves are missing. Yip Man may have removed them, but I'm sure some of his original students may be still doing them. And other lineages also may have them. So you might not call the moves missing, just not done in your execution of the form.

Or maybe it's the way you count the movements. May be 140, but some of the hands positions are combined which would make the count less.

We have 160 movements totaling 10 sets. Take out the redundanct sets (what we call B sets of jong sao and po pai jern using the opposite hand) and we have 130 movements.

 

[geezer]

We've all heard how Yip Man took his original dummy set of 140 moves and reduced it down to 108 moves and then toward the end decided to take it up to 116 moves.
Does anyone have any insight/speculation to what those missing 24 moves are? Do you think they were merely rendundancy that he took out for the sake of streamlining?

Well, the 116 movements appear in the little gold book by Yip (Ip) Chun, but we know that that was really Leung Ting's version.... except for a couple of details. BTW, the 116 movements are shown in the book as 117 pictures. Can you guess which one not to count? Also, Leung Ting noted that when he first researched the roots of WC/WT on the mainland, that the older versions of the set were typically longer. Some of this was redundancy. As you noted, LT felt that Grandmaster Yip (Ip) Man streamlined the form to get down to the "special number" of 108, then later decided that he'd gone a bit too far and extended it back to 116.

Personally, I think that how you do the form probably matters a lot more than how many moves you do. And even more importantly, can you fully apply the dummy techniques against an opponent? I know I've got a long, long way to go.

 

[hunt1]

Your question is interesting but there is no real answer.
There was no dummy form originally. It was a training aid that some smart folks developed a curriculum around. We can even today estabilsh a core set of moves going back to the Red Boats. However different versions of the dummy arose in different families once the art spread from the boats.

Each section of the dummy is meant to convey a fighting concept. Some dummy forms dont really do this.

I believe that Yip did two things and you can see this by looking at the dummy form he taught is Foshan compared to the dummy forms he taught in HK.

Yip both simplified and attempted to combine at least 2 different dummy forms.

My last teacher liked Yips form because of the simplification even though the form lacked several concepts and sections when compared to his families form.

 

[geezer]

Your question is interesting but there is no real answer.
There was no dummy form originally. It was a training aid that some smart folks developed a curriculum around. We can even today estabilsh a core set of moves going back to the Red Boats. However different versions of the dummy arose in different families once the art spread from the boats.

I think you're pretty much on the mark here. I personally don't think you can prove any of the various histories proposed by different WT/WC lineages before the mid 1800's. And that is after the red junks of the travelling opera troupes figure into most of the stories. What can be seen is that there were various different versions of the forms going back to that time. I also agree that it is futile to seek out an "original" version.

We do know that dummies pre-date Wing Chun by centuries, and that at some point, earlier dummies were altered and adapted to be used in the WC system. The oldest dummy designs were simply posts set into the ground with three arms and a leg. The "live" or springy dummy mounted on a frame came later. And of course the form (or forms) developed over time too. Some became increasingly complex, and others, like Grandmaster Yip's were trimmed down and simplified. But we can never know for sure who were the authors or major contributors to the forms, although we can safely guess that the form was being practiced by the time of Leung Jan, based on the lineages that practice it today, as well as on the testimony of Grandmaster Yip.

I believe that Yip did two things and you can see this by looking at the dummy form he taught is Foshan compared to the dummy forms he taught in HK.

Hunt, you are a better scholar than I. When I look at the picture sequences of forms practiced by other lineages, such as some of the branches in Fatshan (Fo'shan), My mind goes blank. I can observe basic similarities and differences, but without actually seeing the forms performed... or better, being taught them... I really don't get it.

My last teacher liked Yips form because of the simplification even though the form lacked several concepts and sections when compared to his families form.

Same with my old teacher. Any idiot can tack on extra movements, but to simplify without losing content is what Wing Chun is all about. In fact my first Sifu believes that Grandmaster Yip was too respectful of tradition to deliberately drop any movements. Instead, he believes that Grandmaster Yip may have actually become a bit rusty or forgetful about some parts of the forms during the troubled periods of his life when he was not teaching.

Then, when he began teaching again in Hong Kong, he had to reconstruct the forms. Of course he remembered the most useful stuff very well. But perhaps he let some of the repetitive and purely "traditional" stuff slip away. The end result, ironically, was a net improvement in the forms, at least by the Wing Chun standards of efficiency and simplicity.

I do not know if this is true. But my sifu studied with Grandmaster Yip and believes it may be so. An interesting idea at any rate.

 

[hunt1]

Geezer there is a vid out there in internet land of Lun Gai doing the dummy Yip taught him in Fatshan before he went to HK. I will look this weekend to see if I can find it. Some different sections. Some things tend to repeat.

I

 

[hunt1]

 

[hunt1]

Sorry couldnt get it to link. It is a chinese blog site Yam blog.

 

[yak sao]

I appreciate all the input.
My posting was more or less a thinking out loud sort of thing.
As for the Yip Man lineage, I love its simplistic sophistication, but the history buff in me is always courious about what he may have changed over the years.