WSL book

[Oily Dragon]

My only thought is that it looks like those butterfly knives are made from single-piece cast aluminum. Which disappoints me.

Me too.

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[jks9199]

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[wckf92]

My only thought is that it looks like those butterfly knives are made from single-piece cast aluminum. Which disappoints me.

Perhaps they are just training knives(?)

 

[jlq]

Let's take a few bits at a time...

But let's take a deep breath, internal Dragon styled, and step back to examine the broader context behind your actual prior claims about Judkins.

"Now, when it comes to the information on Wing Chun, its practitioners, and its development in Mainland China, he mainly draws on two sources, one being Leung Ting's "Roots and Branches of Wing Chun", the other one being a locally published work (in Fatsaan, that is) called "Fatsaan Mo Sat Man Faat" or "Foshan Martial Arts Culture". The greater part of this book is actually about Choi Lei Fat (Mr. Judkin's brings quite a bit of information about that style into his book), a lesser part is actually about Wing Chun. This book is not actually a serious scholarly work, in fact it looks and reads like a high school project, or one of those obligatory papers certain research or study faculties/organizations have to produce on a regular bases, and since it is more about just getting them done than producing actual quality content, not too much work and effort is put into it. Most of the information about Wing Chun in that book was from"

View attachment 28460
Oops. Pretty sure that's a bold faced lie because you just tried to claim you weren't talking about Judkins, but you were. What you're really attempting to is to discredit the work by trying to tie to it other less credible sources.

That's because you're trying to poison the discussion, and I believe it's on purpose. It's not like you've shown up for any previous, detailed Wing Chun discussions.

So, here you demonstrate exactly where the root of the problem is: you didn't actually understand what I wrote. I even explained it to you in a seperate post to clarify, yet you go on.
I think, if I had left out the sentence in the parenthesis, you should get the meaning... But again, let me spell it out, and leave out the part which seems to cause you confusion, to hopefully clear up the matter for you:

"Now, when it comes to the information on Wing Chun, its practitioners and its development in Mainland China, he mainly draws on two sources, one being Leung Ting's "Roots and Branches of Wing Chun", the other one being a locally published work (in Fatsaan, that is) called "Fatsaan Mo Sat Man Faat" or "Foshan Martial Arts Culture". The greater part of this book is actually about Choi Lei Fat, a lesser part about Wing Chun. This book is actually not actually a serious scholarly work, in fact it looks and reads like a high school project...

So, what exactly is unclear about this?

Is it not OBVIOUS that I was not referring to Mr. Judkin's book, especially seen within the context of what I wrote in other posts?

As I said, I even explained it to you, since you were confused about what I meant.

Any piece of academic work is only as good as the sources it draws on, so I pointed out the limitations of Mr. Judkin's book based on a critical analysis of the source he drew on, in this particular point the "Fatsaan Martial Arts Culture" book. This source is neither complete, not of a particularly high academic standard.

Critical thinking and analysis is not "discrediting", I just pointed out that due to its limitations, it is not as authoritative or definitive as you think.

2 more lies, repeated.

Now, you're trying to nail your previous false claims about the "bulk of the information" to the 2 sources you showed up to complain about in the first place.

You're attempting the old double bind man. Praise the scholar, make up stuff about his work. That way, you can't keep seen as attacking the researcher. But you are.

Do you think the audience reading your posts is generally dumb? You seem to write your posts that way.

Instead of keeping telling yourself and others that I am lying when said that when it comes to the chapter on Mainland China Wing Chun and its development Mr. Judkin's, why don't you simply verify whether or not I was correct and show it? Just take a look at how many works were referenced for that chapter and how many times each of these was quoted and provide the numbers you find. I did that in the other thread... If you want to insist I am lying, at least you should prove and demonstrate that the numbers I gave are wrong. So, what is it going to be? Since you have the book, it is a matter of a few minutes to simply count, as I did.

I don't think the audience is generally dumb as you put it, but unfortunately some people seem to have a problem with reading comprehension, so it appears spelling out things in the most simple possible way is necessary it s.

For everyone's record (again) this book is the most well researched scholarly attempt on Wing Chun in history, and its been published in part in peer reviewed sports journals. The co-author has trained with over a dozen well-known Wing Chun instructors.

The co-author has trained with "over a dozen well-known" Wing Chun instructors? Let's have a look:

Coach Nielson has an eclectic background in Wing Chun training:

Jon Nielson - Jerry Gardner - Duncan Leung - Ip Man

Jon Nielson - Malcolm Lee - Eddie Chong - Kenneth Chung and Ben Dur - Leung Sheung - Ip Man

Jon Nielson - Malcolm Lee - William Cheung - Ip Man

Jon Nielson - Eddie Chong - Kenneth Chung and Ben Dur - Leung Sheung - Ip Man

Jon Nielson - Ron Heimberger - Jim Fujitsu - Bruce Lee - Ip Man

Jon Nielson - Ron Heimberger - Leung Ting - Ip Man

Jon Nielson - Ron Heimberger - Francis Fong - Jason Lau - Ju Wan - Ip Man and Ju Chao - Chan Wah Shun

Jon Nielson - Ron Heimberger - Ip Ching - Ip Man

Jon Nielson - Ip Ching - Ip Man

Source: Wing Chun Hall.


So, what we can ascertain from this is that the co-author basically had 5 teachers, and they are all Yip Man lineage people. Does that make him a "master" of anything? Or does that mean he has some special insights into the history and development in Wing Chun, especially in Mainland China? The answer should be pretty clear... You claimed he learnt from some well-known people? That is pretty relative... In Europe, or in Mainland China, only one person is what could be considered well-known, and that is Yip Ching.

It might hurt your feelings, but there is actually a mistake in that lineage "chart", which undermines your faith in this gentleman as being an expert in Wing Chun history and development and your logic. It doesn't say anything about the gentleman's skills or mastery of the art.

Maybe you can consult your "bible" to spot it, if you can't already tell...



So, who are these more than a dozen teachers, and what does "train with" entail? Having a long term student-teacher relationship, with regular classes, or having a few private lessons over the course of a decade or just going to a seminar? Sure sounds impressive, but is it? And is it of relevance to the question at hand?

I am curious...

Which "peer reviewed sports journals" has it been reviewed in and who are those "peers"? At first glance it would seem quite a bit odd to have a socio-cultural study be peer reviewed in a sports magazine.

As far as well researched, that is another key issue: when it comes to actual sources on Wing Chun and its development in China, it is not at all well-researched as you think, given the paucity of the actual sources it draws on that particular subject.

This statement is what you are having trouble with, but doon't look at the total bibliography, but at which books are quoted when it comes to Wing Chun and its develpment in Mainland China specifically.

I mentioned which ones in the other thread, but for some reason you closed your eyes to it.

Listing 300 sources with only 4 (fictive numbers to make a point) relating to a specific subject and one of these quote 60 percent of the time is not "well researched".

Again, it is not that fault of Mr. Judkin's, it is just that not many sources are available, which limits the validity of certain suppositions made in the book. It should be taken for what it truly is, no more, no less.

That's because you're trying to poison the discussion, and I believe it's on purpose. It's not like you've shown up for any previous, detailed Wing Chun discussions.

I do not comment here to poison any discussion, just to rectify your misconceptions which you keep repeating. If you feel bringing up this subject poisons the current discussion, you should bring it up.

As far as me not having shown up for previous, detailed Wing Chun discussions, I would suggest you better check my posting history before making any such claims. Respectfully, I have seen a lot of what you post, but in terms of Wing Chun, most of it is not worth discussing, from my perspective.

 

[Oily Dragon]

, what exactly is unclear about this?

Is it not OBVIOUS that I was not referring to Mr. Judkin's book, especially seen within the context of what I wrote in other posts?

It's pretty obvious you were referring to Judkins et al, and now you are backpedaling hard.

You showed up just to discredit the work, remember? Several Wing Chun threads ago, backing up the first Wing Chun troll, Hunschuld. Do you remember what his beef with Judkins was?

The rest of your post is troll bait. OBVIOUSLY.

Now you're trying to discredit the co-author, who has definitely trained with more than a dozen Wing Chun masters. Glad to see you Googled the list.

Care to triple down? You haven't even tried to challenge a specific claim in the text. You're trying to smear a whole work.

If that work were Leung Ting's you'd have some fun with that. Judkins is unassailable so far. Even the editors of the Journal of Sports History agreed when they published a sliver of it. It's not largely based on either the two sources you keep claiming. And around we go.

 

[Oily Dragon]

Now that we've cleared the air, ahem.

Why do you keep trying to discredit an academic work on Wing Chun, in a thread about Gong Sao Wong, bro?

Curious!

 

[Callen]

Perhaps they are just training knives(?)

Yes, most likely. The picture is from a photoshoot so it's hard to say, but WSL did not advocate live-edge training in general.

I have a pair of aluminum trainers that are great, IMO. The handles and D-guards are made of steel for weight and durability and the blade and tang are aluminum. They do well for solo training, forms and some knife to pole work.

Knife-to-knife training is more demanding, all steel construction has the best performance and safety. From my experience there aren't many solid knife-to-knife BJD trainers on the market, the majority of them fall apart fairly quickly and become projectiles. That's why most quality BJD trainers are custom made.

 

[Flying Crane]

Perhaps they are just training knives(?)

Most definitely. As someone who recently stabbed myself in the leg with a live dao, I can certainly appreciate the need for safety weapons.

The problem is, a steel blade handles very differently from an aluminum blade. A steel or bronze or brass guard contributes to that realism as well, where it looks in the picture like the guard is part of the cast aluminum. A steel blade can be blunt and safe(er) than a sharp, and get a more realistic feel for the handling.

 

[Oily Dragon]

My personal "live" training dao is a steel-aluminum mixed alloy that allows for a sturdy blade that doesn't bend or shard, but it's a lot better than springsteel or straight up aluminum (which won't survive much blade-on-blade sparring contact because it's too malleable, even wood is safer imho).

The two on the cover of Judkins are legitimate 19th century hudiedao used during the Opium Wars and the Red Turban Revolt, and other fun times.

I'll have to dig into the metallurgy to see what these might have been made of, but it probably wasn't steel. Probably mostly iron. China is the oldest civilization to cast it.

It's hard to tell by the cover illustration but see below as to what a 19th century version actually looked like. A standard dao would be between 24-28 inch blade, these things are barely 23 inches end to end (about 60 cm).

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Now that we've cleared the air, ahem.

Why do you keep trying to discredit an academic work on Wing Chun, in a thread about Gong Sao Wong, bro?

Curious!

"Discrediting" is more about shaming, proving false, showing as worthless, etc. Given jlq has said more than once that it's worth a read, it doesn't seem to fit the description. He's pointing out weaknesses, which is just about understanding the limitations of a work/study - a common practice in science, as well (even, and perhaps especially, with published studies).

Rather than reacting like you're being attacked, why not refute each point? For instance, he asked a while back about the co-author's "mastery". You responded with (IIRC) a statement that he'd studied with more than a dozen WC masters (which feels circular, but that's a different question). He replied with a list of - if I counted correctly - 11, as listed on some WC list. If that's incorrect, why not simply correct it? If 11 is the correct number, then maybe the focus should be that 11 seems plenty for the point at hand (I know many people I consider highly knowledgeable in their art, who have studied with far fewer).

Focus on making good points, and you'll need less back-and-forth.

 

[Oily Dragon]

"Discrediting" is more about shaming, proving false, showing as worthless, etc. Given jlq has said more than once that it's worth a read, it doesn't seem to fit the description. He's pointing out weaknesses, which is just about understanding the limitations of a work/study - a common practice in science, as well (even, and perhaps especially, with published studies).

Rather than reacting like you're being attacked, why not refute each point? For instance, he asked a while back about the co-author's "mastery". You responded with (IIRC) a statement that he'd studied with more than a dozen WC masters (which feels circular, but that's a different question). He replied with a list of - if I counted correctly - 11, as listed on some WC list. If that's incorrect, why not simply correct it? If 11 is the correct number, then maybe the focus should be that 11 seems plenty for the point at hand (I know many people I consider highly knowledgeable in their art, who have studied with far fewer).

Focus on making good points, and you'll need less back-and-forth.

Sorry Gerry, but Jlq is not acting in good faith, it's impossible to have a civil discussion with someone who is making up their own "facts" about something.

I don't feel attacked but I'm not going to play games with such a person about a serious subject. If he lies, he lies and I'll call it out.

If this were Shakespeare, Jlq would be trying to convince everyone that the Tragedy of Macbeth was largely based on the works of Rosencrantz and Gildenstern.

He's not pointing out weaknesses, he's making them up and wrapping them in long essays. If Judkins (peer reviewed) work has any weaknesses, sources aren't one of them.

The only point I should have to make is to point out the work is not based on anything Leung Ting wrote, or "Foshan Martial Arts Culture".

And it's very odd to anyone who knows the Wing Chun scene, to attempt to link a book about all of Wing Chun to a very controversial, somewhat fringe figure (Leung Ting).

He just made a new lie about "anybody looking at the bibliography can see...", Taunting me to post screenshots of the book, which is of course a copyright violation that could get YOU (not I) in trouble.

 

[Oily Dragon]

Given jlq has said more than once that it's worth a read

Are you getting Eric H and jlq mixed up?

Geezer and Eric H have said it's worth a read, but neither has made the claims about the book being based on just two sources.

Jlq on the other hand, showed up within hours of hunschuld (who is a more overt troll) to repeat the same false claim in a more conciliatory tone. Anybody with the book in their hands will know their claims are fabricated. It's hard to believe anyone could do this by accident.

But I'm willing to start listing references, I'll be here all week doing it due to the size of the mountain of sources (over 150) involved in crafting "The Creation of Wing Chun", since it was formatted for academic publication.

Acevedo, William and Mei Cheung. 2014. “Republic Period Guoshu Periodicals.” Classic Fighting Arts. Vol 2. No. 26 Issue 49. pp. 56-68.

For those curious cats still wondering what we're talking about, the claims that the highest water mark for academic publication in the Wing Chun Universe is based on two crappy sources, and somehow that negates my previous discussions about the relationship between Wing Chun's ancestor arts such as southern Dragon, Crane, and Crane.

Oh and that my reading comprehension sucks!

Project MUSE - <i>The Creation of Wing Chun: A Social History of the Southern Chinese Martial Arts</i> by Benjamin N. Judkins and Jon Nielson (review)

muse.jhu.edu

 

[Oily Dragon]

Now that we've cleared the air again, let's see what jlq has to say about what Judkins wrote about Gong Sau Wong, the subject of this thread.

9 pages, go. It's fascinating stuff (if you have the book that is).

None of it comes from Leung Ting or "Foshan Martial Arts Culture", again because the former is mentioned on fewer than 20 pages of a 350 page book (along with 9 of his relatives who are given about the same coverage), and the latter can hardly been found mentioned anywhere in the book.

 

[Oily Dragon]

The only point I should have to make is to point out the work is not based on anything Leung Ting wrote, or "Foshan Martial Arts Culture".

and the latter can hardly been found mentioned anywhere in the book.

I want to clarify these particular statements, to try to be as transparent as possible (remember I was accused of having "an agenda" here).

Ma Zineng's 2001 work IS referenced in the book in a couple places, particularly Chapter 4, "The Public Emergence of Wing Chun". The first quote of the chapter is from Huang Xiao Hui and Huang Hong found in Ma's Foshan Wushu Wenhua. They are sparse and hard to find (thankfully Judkin's meticulously noted his chapters).

But those are from the Notes section on one chapter of the book. There is a separate Notes section per chapter in the appendix. There are around 20 little bits of information pulled into Chapter 4 from Ma Zineng's work (this is stuff like "So and so died in year XXX" or direct quotations of other people). The actual number of sources used to support Chapter 4 is pretty large. By the time you get to it you've covered everything from the dawn of Chinese martial arts to Foshan and Hong Kong and beyond, and then Jackie Chan is the face of Ip Man on airlines.

As far as Leung Ting, again his work is mentioned here and there, but not used as a basis for any chapter, especially 4. References such as "Leung Ting's own research" are made here and there, in an objective manner. I believe this is a big part of why people have a problem with an actual historian poking around lineage wars, along with a leading American Ip Man figure. Maybe somebody in Hong Kong got angry at this? Who knows.

I'd like to get back to Gong Sao Wong now, since he's a far more interesting character, and better looking.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

I'm going to make an effort to chime in as a neutral 3rd party here. I have only a small amount of WC background and no particular concerns with anyone's lineage, but I do have a copy of Judkin's book and pretty good reading comprehension.

Speaking of reading comprehension... Unfortunately, your above post really corroborates the point I made. You took offense that I wrote somethin to the effect of "that book is of no better quality that a high school paper" because you somehow read this as if I was referring to Mr. Judkin's book, but it should be pretty clear to anyone reading carefully what I wrote that I was referring to the book "Fatsaan Martial Culture", he draws so heavily on. I even pointed out the misunderstanding EXPLICITLY in a seperate post, but you STILL didn't concede that you had misread something and got it in your head that I questioned Mr. Judkin's scholarly method.

"Now, when it comes to the information on Wing Chun, its practitioners, and its development in Mainland China, he mainly draws on two sources, one being Leung Ting's "Roots and Branches of Wing Chun", the other one being a locally published work (in Fatsaan, that is) called "Fatsaan Mo Sat Man Faat" or "Foshan Martial Arts Culture". The greater part of this book is actually about Choi Lei Fat (Mr. Judkin's brings quite a bit of information about that style into his book), a lesser part is actually about Wing Chun. This book is not actually a serious scholarly work, in fact it looks and reads like a high school project, or one of those obligatory papers certain research or study faculties/organizations have to produce on a regular bases, and since it is more about just getting them done than producing actual quality content, not too much work and effort is put into it. Most of the information about Wing Chun in that book was from"

Oops. Pretty sure that's a bold faced lie because you just tried to claim you weren't talking about Judkins, but you were. What you're really attempting to is to discredit the work by trying to tie to it other less credible sources.

So, here you demonstrate exactly where the root of the problem is: you didn't actually understand what I wrote. I even explained it to you in a seperate post to clarify, yet you go on.
I think, if I had left out the sentence in the parenthesis, you should get the meaning... But again, let me spell it out, and leave out the part which seems to cause you confusion, to hopefully clear up the matter for you:

"Now, when it comes to the information on Wing Chun, its practitioners and its development in Mainland China, he mainly draws on two sources, one being Leung Ting's "Roots and Branches of Wing Chun", the other one being a locally published work (in Fatsaan, that is) called "Fatsaan Mo Sat Man Faat" or "Foshan Martial Arts Culture". The greater part of this book is actually about Choi Lei Fat, a lesser part about Wing Chun. This book is actually not actually a serious scholarly work, in fact it looks and reads like a high school project...

So, what exactly is unclear about this?

Is it not OBVIOUS that I was not referring to Mr. Judkin's book, especially seen within the context of what I wrote in other posts?

Despite your contrasting claims about the "obvious" meaning of jlq's original post, it's actually quite ambiguous. The subject in the sentence "This book is actually not actually a serious scholarly work..." could easily be read as referring either to Judkins book or to "Foshan Martial Arts Culture". A little bit of initial editing could have clarified that. However, jlq has repeatedly clarified his intent in subsequent posts. I've reviewed all of his posts on the subject and can't find any other comment he has made which could be interpreted as suggesting that Judkin's book is not scholarly. To the contrary, I've found comments by him stating that Judkin is an excellent scholar.

Part of maintaining this forum as a place for friendly martial arts discussion involves giving each other the benefit of the doubt and not attempting to mind read and assume someone else's intent without evidence. You have a perfect right to believe that jlq is for some reason lying about the intent behind his original ambiguous paragraph. However making that accusation publicly without evidence is neither helpful to the discussion nor within the bounds of civility.

What might be productive is engaging with his claim as clarified - that "Foshan Martial Arts Culture" is one of Judkin's primary sources and is not itself a scholarly work.

Instead of keeping telling yourself and others that I am lying when said that when it comes to the chapter on Mainland China Wing Chun and its development Mr. Judkin's, why don't you simply verify whether or not I was correct and show it? Just take a look at how many works were referenced for that chapter and how many times each of these was quoted and provide the numbers you find. I did that in the other thread... If you want to insist I am lying, at least you should prove and demonstrate that the numbers I gave are wrong. So, what is it going to be? Since you have the book, it is a matter of a few minutes to simply count, as I did.

Sorry Gerry, but Jlq is not acting in good faith, it's impossible to have a civil discussion with someone who is making up their own "facts" about something.

I don't feel attacked but I'm not going to play games with such a person about a serious subject. If he lies, he lies and I'll call it out.

If this were Shakespeare, Jlq would be trying to convince everyone that the Tragedy of Macbeth was largely based on the works of Rosencrantz and Gildenstern.

He's not pointing out weaknesses, he's making them up and wrapping them in long essays. If Judkins (peer reviewed) work has any weaknesses, sources aren't one of them.

The only point I should have to make is to point out the work is not based on anything Leung Ting wrote, or "Foshan Martial Arts Culture".

And it's very odd to anyone who knows the Wing Chun scene, to attempt to link a book about all of Wing Chun to a very controversial, somewhat fringe figure (Leung Ting).

He just made a new lie about "anybody looking at the bibliography can see...", Taunting me to post screenshots of the book, which is of course a copyright violation that could get YOU (not I) in trouble.

Okay, so here we have an objectively testable claim, i.e. in the section of Judkin's book which focuses on the development of Wing Chun in mainland China he draws primarily from two sources: Leung's Roots and Branches and Ma's Foshan Martial Arts Culture.

To clarify this claim, I should point out that Judkin's book contains five chapters and an epilogue. The first three chapters are primarily concerned with the general history of the Guangdong province from 1800 - 1949, with an emphasis on martial culture. There are some passing mentions of Wing Chun, but not a lot of specific focus on the art. That is reserved for chapter 4, which is about the development of Wing Chun in mainland China. Chapter 5 is focused on Ip Man, but is mostly about his time spent in Hong Kong. The epilogue briefly covers the spread of Wing Chun as a worldwide art.

My interpretation of jlq's claim is that at least the majority of Judkin's citations for chapter 4 are from Leung's Roots and Branches and Ma's Foshan Martial Arts Culture. I'm prepared to go ahead and count up those citations right now. However, if anyone else has a reasonable interpretation of what jlq might be stating or ideas of what I should check with regard to those citations, go ahead and let me know. Otherwise I'll report back with my findings once I've finished my lunch and had a chance to count up the citations.

 

[geezer]

My only thought is that it looks like those butterfly knives are made from single-piece cast aluminum. Which disappoints me.

They are. I have an identical set. Decent dimensions and weight (for my lineage) and OK for practice.

I have a nice pair of sharp, high carbon steel ones too. They're better weapons but downright dangerous in training. The ones I use the most are a crappy set of thick plastic ones. Lousy dimensions but you can spar with them!

 

[Callen]

Now that we've cleared the air again, let's see what jlq has to say about what Judkins wrote about Gong Sau Wong, the subject of this thread.

I'd like to get back to Gong Sao Wong now, since he's a far more interesting character, and better looking.

From what I remember, Judkins didn’t really write anything all that profound about Wong Shun Leung in his book. Everything that Judkins included on WSL in The Creation of Wing Chun was already well-known public knowledge for decades prior to the book’s 2015 release.

 

[Callen]

The ones I use the most are a crappy set of thick plastic ones. Lousy dimensions but you can spar with them!

Yes! We have a few sets of those too. They're truly horrible, but fun for going ham during sparring!

 

[Tony Dismukes]

My interpretation of jlq's claim is that at least the majority of Judkin's citations for chapter 4 are from Leung's Roots and Branches and Ma's Foshan Martial Arts Culture. I'm prepared to go ahead and count up those citations right now. However, if anyone else has a reasonable interpretation of what jlq might be stating or ideas of what I should check with regard to those citations, go ahead and let me know. Otherwise I'll report back with my findings once I've finished my lunch and had a chance to count up the citations.

And I'm back! I recounted a few times to make sure my numbers are correct. If they're off, it shouldn't be by much.

Judkins has 90 footnote references for chapter 4. However some of those footnotes cite multiple sources and a few just refer the reader back to earlier chapters. I counted a total of 105 actual citations of source material.

Out of those 105, 26 were of Ma's Foshan Martial Arts Culture and 20 were of Leung's Roots and Branches. They are definitely the most cited sources, but combined they only account for 44% of the total citations, so jlq is incorrect if he means to indicate that they make up the majority of citations. He would have been just barely correct if he did the math by measuring against the total number of footnotes, but I think that counting the total number of actual citations is the more reasonable approach.

I will note that majority of the citations do come from a relatively small number of sources. If you include Ip and Tse's Wing Chun Kung Fu (with 14 citations), then that would show 57% of citations from the chapter coming from 3 sources. I count a total of 28 distinct sources cited, but about 80% of the citations come from about 5-6 sources.

So, from a fact-checker standpoint, how do I rate jlq's claim? Well, first I went back to his previous posts to review what he actually wrote. The most relevant quote is this:

To put this in perspective: of 90 citations, 29 are from "Fatsaan Martial Culture" (Ma Zineng), 19 from "Roots and Branches of Wing Chun" (Leung Ting), 11 from Yip Chun and Tse, 10 from Yip Ching and Heimberger and 6 from Chu, Ritchie and Yu's "Complete Wing Chun". The rest are cited just once, mostly.

Our counts are slightly off from each other, but pretty close. If he believes that I've miscounted, then I'm willing to go back and count again, but I don't think the slight discrepancy affects the overall conclusion. The main disagreement is that he is counting up the citations for the various sources and comparing them to the total number of footnotes, rather than considering that some of the footnotes list 2 or 3 sources. As I stated above, I think the proper approach is to compare the number of citations for the sources he is concerned with to the total number of source citations, not the total number of footnotes.

As I noted, including the additional sources that he mentions in the quote above do represent a solid majority of the total citations.

He has also stated that "the bulk" of the information in chapter 4 comes from Leung and Ma. This is actually harder to measure than just counting up citations. It would certainly be possible for a majority of the paragraphs written in the chapter to be based on a minority of cited sources. I'm not going to spend the time to try analyzing that.

Overall, if I were a fact-checker site, I would give jlq's claims a rating of "partially true". His count of citations in the quote above is approximately correct, but if he wants to claim that a majority of the citations come from Ma and Leung, then I think he is applying the math incorrectly. His broader point that most of the information in chapter 4 comes from a small number of sources is valid.

 

[geezer]

I'm going to make an effort to chime in as a neutral 3rd party here. I have only a small amount of WC background and no particular concerns with anyone's lineage, but I do have a copy of Judkin's book and pretty good reading comprehension.


My interpretation of jlq's claim is that at least the majority of Judkin's citations for chapter 4 are from Leung's Roots and Branches and Ma's Foshan Martial Arts Culture. I'm prepared to go ahead and count up those citations right now. However, if anyone else has a reasonable interpretation of what jlq might be stating or ideas of what I should check with regard to those citations, go ahead and let me know. Otherwise I'll report back with my findings once I've finished my lunch and had a chance to count up the citations.

Thanks for providing as outside perspective, Tony.

I don't care to get drawn into this argument myself. The real problem is the lack of verifiable documentation from the mid 19th century and earlier. So Judkins is forced to make some a lot of assumptions, and coming from a western, academic background he is generally cautious and conservative in these respects.

Others here give more weight to the essence of the folklore and oral martial arts traditions, once corrected for obvious historical errors. Scholars do not have the luxury of such factual generosity without compromising their research in the eyes of their peers. Traditional martial artists have the opposite problem. Different audiences.