WSLVT
- Thread starter KPM
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Juany118
Senior Master
I am not ignoring the content that they teach. If you read all my posts my argument can be summed up as follows...
1. I have evidence anyone can find and read for themselves that shows extensive teaching to DP by WSL.
2. the following corroborate the relationship. A. being personally declared an authorized teacher of his system by WSL himself, B. a multitude of videos with DP acting as WSL's demonstration partner and translator from Australia to Malaysia and C. Selected to deliver the eulogy at WSL's funeral.
Now this does not take away from PB at all.
1. PB also had a close relationship with WSL and I will not say "false" that he may have trained with him longer. HOWEVER more than a bit of that training was about adapting WSLVT to his disability.
2. The later noted above will clearly have an impact on what he teaches.
So what I say is that In light of the available evidence we have two students of WSLVT who were close to WSL but were clearly taught in different ways. Next simply because you study longer doesn't give you a fiat blessing that your WSLVT is the true WSLVT and that another chosen by WSL to pass on his legacy doesn't. To make such a claim brings to mind a quote by Carl Sagan...
as of yet your argument is based upon fiat statements...these are not evidence. So I await you to stand up and do what I have done, present verifiable evidence, links, to show that the links I have posted are false and that PB has a blessing from WSL that DP lacks. Until then these words of William Shakespeare will ring in my head...
Juany118
Senior Master
Thanks for another good link! According to DP:
Is Wong Shun Leung’s Wing Chun different than everyone else’s?
The best answer is that his Wing Chun is different. The reason for this is, before he became a Wing Chun man, he was a very good western boxer. When he arrived at Wing Chun he had a fighter’s mentality. Fighting was exactly that, it was two people trying to hit each other. Many people get into the art form, prolonging a tradition. They might be afraid to get into a boxing ring or they just want to do something less violent. He, being a fighter, came to Wing Chun and saw the potential. He used the tools exactly what they were meant for, fighting. A lot of people get into Wing Chun with a scholarly attitude, the only people they ever work with are their own people/classmates and they think they know what a fight is, but they never had a fight. The result is they end up chasing hands and do fancy moves that never work in real combat. My Sifu, looked at the tools and said “can I use those to smash a guy.”
His approach is to streamline, simplify it, and what is the shortest distance between my fist and the other guys noise.
Sure sounds to me like DP would agree with what I have been saying!
No worries, I have a thing for research, probably again the lapsed History teacher in me. That, and the cop in me, make fiat statements we have seen thus far REALLY annoy. So I go a digging.
Juany, what is the disability you speak of, with respect to PB? This is the first time I've seen it mentioned, and I'm curious how it might affect his approach to the art.
"lapsed history teacher" - I love it! Reminds me of referrring to myself as a "lapsed Catholic".
Juany118
Senior Master
It's detailed in the link I posted earlier but I understand if you didn't read it. PB lost his left hand in 1980. Losing a hand can have a rather interesting impact on WC/VT/WT.
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Juany118
Senior Master
Lol I am a lapsed Catholic as well. I dropped out of a student teacher program in 1991 because now I understand I lacked patience. I wanted to say one day "you 4 stay everyone else to the Principal's office because you have no interest in learning what I have to teach." (Doing that at the US I graduated from probably didn't help because students knew me as Juany vs Mr. X) so next stop was the Army recruiter since patriotic fervor bit me at the same time (same day the ground war of Gulf War I started).
That could certainly explain the emphasis of one-handed work. That's a significant factor to consider when looking at the differences between the two lines under discussion.
Juany118
Senior Master
Indeed, that is while I feel a little sheepish for not raising it earlier. That is why I believe that both can 100% say they teach what WSL taught them and be truthful. So WSL did what YM himself did, he taught his student's to their strengths and weaknesses inside the system he learned from YM which was tailored to his personal strengths and weaknesses.
That would be a testament to the ability of both WSL as a teacher and PB as a student.
Juany118
Senior Master
Indeed and that is what I don't get. Acknowledging that DP, without such a disability, is a skilled teacher who passes on what WSL taught him as truly as possible doesn't mean that PB does not do the same. I can only think that adherence to dogma creates such a denial.
Agreed. I'd find it odd if a one-handed student didn't have a different approach than a two-handed student. In fact, it would probably be a bad thing. Now knowing that one of them had that limitation, it's clear that he would have been focused on one-handed technique, and might even have found a better way. It's possible WSL's best version was what he worked on with that student, but it's unlikely he taught the same way to students who had the use of both arms. Both may, in fact, be transmitting exactly what they were taught, and exactly what WSL wanted them to teach.
Juany118
Senior Master
The only issue I would have is the "best version". That seems to me a bit too subjective and DEFINITELY getting into the weeds for a conversation like this. That is why I prefer to simply leave it at "they both teach what WSL taught them and if it works when it hits the fan that is all that matters."
That's why I said "might have" - it's a possibility that this different approach could produce a "better way". Not a foregone conclusion, by any means, but a possibility. Your point is valid - if both work when it hits the fan, then the differences are nuance.
What "one-handed work" are you guys on about? Both arms are used together. PB didn't lose a whole freaking arm!
Thing is, the VT method is not about the hands. It's the "way of the elbow". So to say PB couldn't learn the standard method shows you know nothing about how VT works.
Other students who spent significant time with WSL share PB's understanding of VT.
Do you think he taught them all "disabled" VT?
The more time people spent with WSL, the more their VT matches PB's. The less time, the less so. Predictably.
As I said earlier, go through the system as taught by PB, or someone with simular time spent with WSL, and it clears away every doubt, inconsistency, and impracticality in what DP teaches.
The system as passed via WSL to some others is not streamlined in that it contains many things lacking from the other wing chun I have seen. The fight strategy would be one of these. The full conceptual base and the full understanding of it would be another. It is blatantly obvious that WSL did not just cut bits off a wing chun that was the average of the other YM wing chun systems I have seen.
WSL VT is not streamlined and does not have a narrow focus. It contains a strategic approach and conceptual understanding that is lacking from other YM derived wing chun that I have seen and which is the key to making it both understandable and functional. Without this it is reduced to application based thinking.
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Post a clip of David Peterson doing his VT. Beside it post a clip of Philipp Bayer.
But this digging has unearthed nothing useful, beyond acting to confirm what you already thought.
DP's understanding of VT is limited, as I've briefly detailed, so I don't think he can accurately describe much, but in this case I think "it" doesn't mean other WC that WSL "refined".
Rather "it" refers to fighting and fight training, and this is just the simple, no-nonsense VT approach to punching people directly in the face.
It wasn't WSL's invention and he didn't have to streamline anything himself. That's just VT.
