Yip Man's curriculum changes

[geezer]

I have been trying to figure out if this is REALLY what he means tbh. The fact it seemed to be the case is why I returned him to ignore. It is all well and good to have different opinions but when one not only beggars a basic logical analysis, but the accounts of his students who were there, it's just not worth it.

There you see, some thirty pages of bootless bickering could have been avoided if only people would not lazily depend upon the ignore function, but instead learn to develop their own innate ability to selectively ignore things that truly merit being ignored. Really, sometimes the ability to completely ignore things is almost a survival skill!

 

[geezer]

Here's an introductory article on WSL-VT that was an enjoyable read:

» Wing Chun: when the “Wong Way” gets results! Ving Tsun Combat Science

Interesting how Mr. Peterson is able to give an overview of the WSL method of Yip Man Ving Chun without insisting that it is an entirely distinct system. Rather he makes a perfectly defensible distinction between what average or even good WC does and what great WC does.

I especially noted the following words in his concluding remarks:

For him (Master Wong Shun Leung), wing chun had to be relevant for modern times, and he taught it as a concept-based system that was adaptive, its purpose to create individuals, free thinkers and problem solvers, not people repeating the loop like a broken record.

Hmmm. Not people repeating the same loop like a broken record. I like that a lot. Quite a bit different than what I've been reading on this thread. He actually seems like a guy you might want to train under.

 

[Juany118]

There you see, some thirty pages of bootless bickering could have been avoided if only people would not lazily depend upon the ignore function, but instead learn to develop their own innate ability to selectively ignore things that truly merit being ignored. Really, sometimes the ability to completely ignore things is almost a survival skill!

Just to clarify @geezer I didn't engage it until Saturday. I was participating and responding directly to him for sometime. I used the feature on Saturday. I figured A) @KPM and @Nobody Important were doing a better job than I and the core issue that I just responded to seemed to be the issue and it was making my hurt a bit /shrug. So it's not like I just universally ignore.

The reason why I mentioned my question is because, regardless of how many times it was asked and regardless of how it was asked, the answer was the same, YMVT empty hand is entirely unique. While I believe all the other issues are debatable, this one issue so obviously isn't that I was flabbergasted.

What I tend to do at points like that is take certain actions until a thread stops "trending" then I return to "normal" operation. It helps my inbox as well since I get email notifications

 

[Nobody Important]

FWIW, the discussion between LFJ & I was quite fruitful. We came to agree on some points & disagree on others, all devoid of vitriol, largely because politics was left out of it.

 

[Juany118]

Here's an introductory article on WSL-VT that was an enjoyable read:

» Wing Chun: when the “Wong Way” gets results! Ving Tsun Combat Science

Interesting how Mr. Peterson is able to give an overview of the WSL method of Yip Man Ving Chun without insisting that it is an entirely distinct system. Rather he makes a perfectly defensible distinction between what average or even good WC does and what great WC does.

I especially noted the following words in his concluding remarks:

For him (Master Wong Shun Leung), wing chun had to be relevant for modern times, and he taught it as a concept-based system that was adaptive, its purpose to create individuals, free thinkers and problem solvers, not people repeating the loop like a broken record.

Hmmm. Not people repeating the same loop like a broken record. I like that a lot. Quite a bit different than what I've been reading on this thread. He actually seems like a guy you might want to train under.

I would love to have a beer with this guy. He is clearly someone who is very thoughtful about his art and uses what you bolded as the lens through which he sees the martial arts.

FWIW, the discussion between LFJ & I was quite fruitful. We came to agree on some points & disagree on others, all devoid of vitriol, largely because politics was left out of it.

I know. It was actually your exchange that made me say to myself "okay, since HK was remembering and reinventing what he had been taught it is possible that the pole was up front in his mind while doing so BUT I still believe it more likely the other way around."

My "hang up" has been the idea that the empty hand is entirely unique from all WC. Now I believe the reasoning behind this is the "strategy" issue but, in terms of striking especially, the same biomechanical principles can be applied to multiple strategies. So a unique strategy doesn't necessarily=/= an entirely unique art. Far more often than not it simply = a further refinement of what came before.

I think a good example in grappling may be Judo to BJJ. BJJ has some strategic and technique differences from Judo but it can't be debated that BJJ is an evolution of Judo.

 

[dudewingchun]

is Dale 12 years old or something

 

[KPM]

FWIW, the discussion between LFJ & I was quite fruitful. We came to agree on some points & disagree on others, all devoid of vitriol, largely because politics was left out of it.

Well, maybe. But I didn't talk about politics either. I think the difference was that you weren't directly challenging his belief system and asking him to back it up.

 

[KPM]

Let me tell you guys a story. Now the old-timers like me and Geezer will know this story. But maybe some of the newer people haven't heard it. I don't tell this with the intent of opening old wounds or stirring up old controversies. And I truly hope that my TWC brothers do not take offense. But I think it has bearing on a lot of what we have been seeing lately. This is how I remember it:

William Cheung studied with Ip Man in Hong Kong for many years. He was one of Ip Man's teenage fighters that went out and made a name for the system in street fights and Bei Mo right alongside Wong Shun Leung, Hawkins Cheung and others. Good evidence shows that Bruce Lee considered him one of the best fighters in the clan. When he turned 19 Cheung left Hong Kong and moved to Australia. When he left Hong Kong, by all accounts his Wing Chun was the same as everyone else's.

Now fast-forward 10 years or so and William Cheung is starting to teach publically and build up an organization. But what he was teaching was very different from what every other Ip Man student had learned. How do we explain this? Well, in the 80's Cheung published an article in Inside Kung Fu Magazine. I held on to that copy for many years, but foolishly got rid of it at some point. I wish I still had it! In this article Cheung explained that while studying Wing Chun in Hong Kong he actually lived with Ip Man for many years and Ip Man taught him privately. But what he taught him was different from what he was teaching everyone else. The story explained that when Leung Jan was teaching in Foshan, Chan Wah Shun heard of his reputation and wanted to learn his Wing Chun. But LJ wouldn't teach him. So CWS resorted to spying on training sessions when LJ was teaching his sons. When LJ discovered this, he started to purposefully teach a "modified" version of Wing Chun whenever he thought CWS was around. CWS was persistent and eventually LJ agreed to actually teach him. But CWS was a big strong guy and LJ's sons not so much. LJ did not want CWS to have any advantage over his own sons! So he continued to teach CWS this "modified" version of Wing Chun that was inferior to his "traditional" version of Wing Chun. But since CWS was big and strong he was able to make this inferior version of Wing Chun work quite well, and gained a reputation and following of students of his own...including a young Ip Man. Fast-forward and now Ip Man is a teenager going to a finishing school in Hong Kong and has a chance encounter with an old man that essentially kicks his butt! He finds out that this old man is none other than Leung Bik....Leung Jan's son! Leung Bik ends up agreeing to teach Ip Man the "traditional" Wing Chun that he is missing. Cheung noted that it was THIS version of Wing Chun that Ip Man had taught him privately! And since he was the ONLY one that Ip Man taught this to, this made him the new Grandmaster of all of Wing Chun! However, Ip Man made him swear to keep this secret until after Ip Man himself had died.

So William Cheung pops back on the scene after laying low in Australia for about 10 years to announce that he is the Grandmaster of all of Wing Chun and that all of his classmates under Ip Man had learned a "modified" form of Wing Chun rather than the "real" Wing Chun. You can imagine how well THAT went over in the Wing Chun world! And Ip Man was dead at that point and so wasn't around to set people straight! And back then the internet was new and there was no youtube and China's borders were still very restrictive. Very few people in the west had seen Sum Nung/Yuen Kay Shan Wing Chun (which comes from a lineage completely separate from LJ) to realize how strikingly similar it was to "modified" Wing Chun. Very few people in the west had seen Ku Lo Pin Sun Wing Chun (which DOES come from a lineage tracing to LJ) to realize that it also looked nothing like William Cheung's Wing Chun. And William Cheung had many "true believers" that would fight to the death to back up his story! They created animosity with everyone else and often had a very smug and superior attitude.

But over the years this rhetoric has been toned down considerably! William Cheung's most recent book hardly mentions it at all. You come across a "true believer" still on occasion, but nothing like in the past! And TWC is a great system, regardless of what its true origins are! As GM Cheung gets holder I keep hoping he will reveal the "real" secret behind his TWC. But who knows? He may take that secret to the grave!

Has this been sounding at all familiar? Wong Shun Leung died a few years back and so is not around to set people straight. So in recent years it seems we are seeing more and more WSLVT people that are "true believers" telling us that WSL had the "real" Wing Chun from Ip Man and everyone else's Wing Chun is "broken." How can this be? Well, because Ip Man had a version of his Wing Chun that he created himself from scratch based ONLY on the pole and knives. And only WSL seems to have been able to learn this "true" version of Ip Man's Wing Chun! Everyone else was taught incompletely or were just poor and dull students. Now we seem to have WSLVT people that are willing to fight to the death to defend this story, creating animosity in many forums. Many of them seem to have the very same smug and superior attitude I remember from a lot of TWC guys nearly 20 years ago.

And again, I think WSLVT is a great system! TWC and WSLVT are BOTH great systems! And to discount the very real possibility that both William Cheung and Wong Shun Leung were talented enough and smart enough to be responsible for a lot of the technical differences found in their systems compared to other Wing Chun systems is somewhat of an insult to both men!

It seems like history repeats itself....at least Wing Chun history!

 

[Juany118]

Well, maybe. But I didn't talk about politics either. I think the difference was that you weren't directly challenging his belief system and asking him to back it up.

I think the problem with this particular topic is this. If you look to 100% outside influences you can to an extent avoid politics. If you look at the pole topic that is essentially what you have. It gets trickier when you start looking at things that have a large internal component and that is what happens when you get into the empty hand portion. It raises the issues of politics because some people feel there is a right way and a wrong way. Some people feel he taught to students strengths and weaknesses. Still others believe it likely his WC/VT evolved over the course of his teaching life and this is all before we debate the idea of whether or not what we see is the product of someone who had to remember teaching methods he had forgotten.

 

[Juany118]

Let me tell you guys a story. Now the old-timers like me and Geezer will know this story. But maybe some of the newer people haven't heard it. I don't tell this with the intent of opening old wounds or stirring up old controversies. And I truly hope that my TWC brothers do not take offense. But I think it has bearing on a lot of what we have been seeing lately. This is how I remember it:

William Cheung studied with Ip Man in Hong Kong for many years. He was one of Ip Man's teenage fighters that went out and made a name for the system in street fights and Bei Mo right alongside Wong Shun Leung, Hawkins Cheung and others. Good evidence shows that Bruce Lee considered him one of the best fighters in the clan. When he turned 19 Cheung left Hong Kong and moved to Australia. When he left Hong Kong, by all accounts his Wing Chun was the same as everyone else's.

Now fast-forward 10 years or so and William Cheung is starting to teach publically and build up an organization. But what he was teaching was very different from what every other Ip Man student had learned. How do we explain this? Well, in the 80's Cheung published an article in Inside Kung Fu Magazine. I held on to that copy for many years, but foolishly got rid of it at some point. I wish I still had it! In this article Cheung explained that while studying Wing Chun in Hong Kong he actually lived with Ip Man for many years and Ip Man taught him privately. But what he taught him was different from what he was teaching everyone else. The story explained that when Leung Jan was teaching in Foshan, Chan Wah Shun heard of his reputation and wanted to learn his Wing Chun. But LJ wouldn't teach him. So CWS resorted to spying on training sessions when LJ was teaching his sons. When LJ discovered this, he started to purposefully teach a "modified" version of Wing Chun whenever he thought CWS was around. CWS was persistent and eventually LJ agreed to actually teach him. But CWS was a big strong guy and LJ's sons not so much. LJ did not want CWS to have any advantage over his own sons! So he continued to teach CWS this "modified" version of Wing Chun that was inferior to his "traditional" version of Wing Chun. But since CWS was big and strong he was able to make this inferior version of Wing Chun work quite well, and gained a reputation and following of students of his own...including a young Ip Man. Fast-forward and now Ip Man is a teenager going to a finishing school in Hong Kong and has a chance encounter with an old man that essentially kicks his butt! He finds out that this old man is none other than Leung Bik....Leung Jan's son! Leung Bik ends up agreeing to teach Ip Man the "traditional" Wing Chun that he is missing. Cheung noted that it was THIS version of Wing Chun that Ip Man had taught him privately! And since he was the ONLY one that Ip Man taught this to, this made him the new Grandmaster of all of Wing Chun! However, Ip Man made him swear to keep this secret until after Ip Man himself had died.

So William Cheung pops back on the scene after laying low in Australia for about 10 years to announce that he is the Grandmaster of all of Wing Chun and that all of his classmates under Ip Man had learned a "modified" form of Wing Chun rather than the "real" Wing Chun. You can imagine how well THAT went over in the Wing Chun world! And Ip Man was dead at that point and so wasn't around to set people straight! And back then the internet was new and there was no youtube and China's borders were still very restrictive. Very few people in the west had seen Sum Nung/Yuen Kay Shan Wing Chun (which comes from a lineage completely separate from LJ) to realize how strikingly similar it was to "modified" Wing Chun. Very few people in the west had seen Ku Lo Pin Sun Wing Chun (which DOES come from a lineage tracing to LJ) to realize that it also looked nothing like William Cheung's Wing Chun. And William Cheung had many "true believers" that would fight to the death to back up his story! They created animosity with everyone else and often had a very smug and superior attitude.

But over the years this rhetoric has been toned down considerably! William Cheung's most recent book hardly mentions it at all. You come across a "true believer" still on occasion, but nothing like in the past! And TWC is a great system, regardless of what its true origins are! As GM Cheung gets holder I keep hoping he will reveal the "real" secret behind his TWC. But who knows? He may take that secret to the grave!

Has this been sounding at all familiar? Wong Shun Leung died a few years back and so is not around to set people straight. So in recent years it seems we are seeing more and more WSLVT people that are "true believers" telling us that WSL had the "real" Wing Chun from Ip Man and everyone else's Wing Chun is "broken." How can this be? Well, because Ip Man had a version of his Wing Chun that he created himself from scratch based ONLY on the pole and knives. And only WSL seems to have been able to learn this "true" version of Ip Man's Wing Chun! Everyone else was taught incompletely or were just poor and dull students. Now we seem to have WSLVT people that are willing to fight to the death to defend this story, creating animosity in many forums. Many of them seem to have the very same smug and superior attitude I remember from a lot of TWC guys nearly 20 years ago.

And again, I think WSLVT is a great system! TWC and WSLVT are BOTH great systems! And to discount the very real possibility that both William Cheung and Wong Shun Leung were talented enough and smart enough to be responsible for a lot of the technical differences found in their systems compared to other Wing Chun systems is somewhat of an insult to both men!

It seems like history repeats itself....at least Wing Chun history!

After looking all over this dynamic seems to pop up a fair bit whenever a particular person or persons wants to start their own organization and does their marketing push. Once they feel "secure" though (on the business side) they tend to tone it down. With Sigung Cheung, as an example, he really seems to just focus on the challenge fights that he and WSL did that helped market YM's school and this is something none of his fellow students dispute. Heck some go so far as to say both of them were "trouble makers" to an extent. It helped advertise the school but also resulted in a little drama with HOW they did things on occassion.

 

[geezer]

....It seems like history repeats itself....at least Wing Chun history!

Yep. Like the Leung Ting story:

In his early teens he began training WC with a friend, and then decided to study under Leung Sheung. He learned fast and was cocky, and no doubt offended his Sifu and elder brothers at the school. Consequently, Leung Sheung stopped teaching him much. Leung Ting wasn't a happy camper and word got out.
Fortunately for the young Leung Ting, at this same time Leung Sheung and Yip Man were having their own feud, and things got nasty. I know some specifics but rather not go into that. But the end result was that GM Yip, although pretty much retired from teaching publicly, accepted Leung Ting as a personal student ...primarily as a slap in the face to Leung Sheung. Leung Ting was just lucky to be in the right place at the right time, so to speak. But at any rate he did become a private student of Yip Man for a while.

So starting in the 1970s when Leung Ting began promoting himself as a "Wing Tsun" master, he also developed a pitch. He billed himself as the last, best student of GM Yip, and the one to learn the "final version" of GM Yip's Ving Tsun. He proclaimed that his teaching method was more logical and students would learn faster, and moreover he suggested that what the softer, elastic or "springy" system he taught represented a more evolved form of WC/VT which he eventually named and trademarked as WingTsun.

Anybody who looks back through old Hong Kong martial arts news-clippings from the time will find that these cocky claims were greeted with the same outrage from his seniors in the system as William Cheung received a few years later. Pre-figuring Cheung, LT even suggested that his softer, supposedly more sophisticated "WT" may have come from Leung Bic's influence, and that GM Yip emphasized this approach in his last years as he could no longer depend on his strength as before.

Naturally when Cheung burst onto the public scene in the 80s, LT was outraged. But was his indignation due to the falsehood of Cheung's claims, or more likely due to the financial competition and the fact that Cheung had stolen a page from LT's own playbook?

On the positive side, Cheung's exaggerated claims took attention off LT's puffery, and he was able to patch things up with the Hong Kong VT/WC community and the Ving Tsun Athletitic Assn. where he served in various important-sounding positions.

Next Chapter: Young Emin Boztepe -- Sent by Ting and Kernspecht to humiliate William Cheung. Now that was a play from Wiliam Cheung's playbook from the days when he was a young tough-guy who would challenge rivals in Hong Kong! Now that Emin is older, I heard him admit that it was a stupid stunt that proves nothing. Somebody else could pull the same stunt on him.

I guess I'm at a point where I can see value in the best representatives of WT/WC/VT and TWC. Eventually, most of us outgrow the silliness and politics. Unfortunately a few do not.

 

[DanT]

Instead of bickering about who's d*ck is bigger, why don't you guys come to Baltimore for the USKSF tourney this year? The thing is I've seen people from all lineages win, sure the William Cheung guys do thing a bit differently in terms of forms, just like the Leung Ting guys do, but at the end of the day if your form is crisp and your sparring is on point or your chi sao is awesome, it doesn't matter what line your from. The funny thing is that people don't like mentioning what line they're from when they lose.

 

[Juany118]

Yep. Like the Leung Ting story:

In his early teens he began training WC with a friend, and then decided to study under Leung Sheung. He learned fast and was cocky, and no doubt offended his Sifu and elder brothers at the school. Consequently, Leung Sheung stopped teaching him much. Leung Ting wasn't a happy camper and word got out.
Fortunately for the young Leung Ting, at this same time Leung Sheung and Yip Man were having their own feud, and things got nasty. I know some specifics but rather not go into that. But the end result was that GM Yip, although pretty much retired from teaching publicly, accepted Leung Ting as a personal student ...primarily as a slap in the face to Leung Sheung. Leung Ting was just lucky to be in the right place at the right time, so to speak. But at any rate he did become a private student of Yip Man for a while.

So starting in the 1970s when Leung Ting began promoting himself as a "Wing Tsun" master, he also developed a pitch. He billed himself as the last, best student of GM Yip, and the one to learn the "final version" of GM Yip's Ving Tsun. He proclaimed that his teaching method was more logical and students would learn faster, and moreover he suggested that what the softer, elastic or "springy" system he taught represented a more evolved form of WC/VT which he eventually named and trademarked as WingTsun.

Anybody who looks back through old Hong Kong martial arts news-clippings from the time will find that these cocky claims were greeted with the same outrage from his seniors in the system as William Cheung received a few years later. Pre-figuring Cheung, LT even suggested that his softer, supposedly more sophisticated "WT" may have come from Leung Bic's influence, and that GM Yip emphasized this approach in his last years as he could no longer depend on his strength as before.

Naturally when Cheung burst onto the public scene in the 80s, LT was outraged. But was his indignation due to the falsehood of Cheung's claims, or more likely due to the financial competition and the fact that Cheung had stolen a page from LT's own playbook?

On the positive side, Cheung's exaggerated claims took attention off LT's puffery, and he was able to patch things up with the Hong Kong VT/WC community and the Ving Tsun Athletitic Assn. where he served in various important-sounding positions.

Next Chapter: Young Emin Boztepe -- Sent by Ting and Kernspecht to humiliate William Cheung. Now that was a play from Wiliam Cheung's playbook from the days when he was a young tough-guy who would challenge rivals in Hong Kong! Now that Emin is older, I heard him admit that it was a stupid stunt that proves nothing. Somebody else could pull the same stunt on him.

I guess I'm at a point where I can see value in the best representatives of WT/WC/VT and TWC. Eventually, most of us outgrow the silliness and politics. Unfortunately a few do not.

What I have found most interesting about it all was how personal relationships transcended these politics. As an example, for all the drama William Cheung stirred in the greater YMVT community he seemed, by all accounts, to still get along with his contemporaries, Moy Yat and WSL to name two. Imo a testament to how we should never allow politics and business to become "personal.". Within limits of course. As an example, if my brother started employing 11 year olds on his job sites I might be perturbed .

 

[Juany118]

Instead of bickering about who's d*ck is bigger, why don't you guys come to Baltimore for the USKSF tourney this year? The thing is I've seen people from all lineages win, sure the William Cheung guys do thing a bit differently in terms of forms, just like the Leung Ting guys do, but at the end of the day if your form is crisp and your sparring is on point or your chi sao is awesome, it doesn't matter what line your from. The funny thing is that people don't like mentioning what line they're from when they lose.

I was there 2016 . Didn't take part though, I was playing shaparone to the younger members of the school. I agree though. Might do weapons competiton this year. Depends if the schedule works out. I actually said much the same leading up to 2016..."Show up to Kuoshu and see if it works. That's what's important."

 

[Transk53]

Two posts respectively by KPM and Geezer have just made more sense than 25 odd pages. Fanaticism and dogma don't get anybody anywhere. In fact how many millions have actually died down the ages due to it. Anyway, cue the next cronie to have LFJ's back with a ultimately fruitless and pointless argument.

 

[Danny T]

In the final analysis...can you utilize your training (whatever it is) in a real situation. Doesn't matter who you trained under or how good they are...Can You do it.

 

[DanT]

Instead of bickering about who's d*ck is bigger, why don't you guys come to Baltimore for the USKSF tourney this year? The thing is I've seen people from all lineages win, sure the William Cheung guys do thing a bit differently in terms of forms, just like the Leung Ting guys do, but at the end of the day if your form is crisp and your sparring is on point or your chi sao is awesome, it doesn't matter what line your from. The funny thing is that people don't like mentioning what line they're from when they lo

I was there 2016 . Didn't take part though, I was playing shaparone to the younger members of the school. I agree though. Might do weapons competiton this year. Depends if the schedule works out. I actually said much the same leading up to 2016..."Show up to Kuoshu and see if it works. That's what's important."

what school? 2016 was amazing, lots of wing chun competitors, hopefully 2017 brings even more!

 

[KPM]

Two posts respectively by KPM and Geezer have just made more sense than 25 odd pages. Fanaticism and dogma don't get anybody anywhere. In fact how many millions have actually died down the ages due to it. Anyway, cue the next cronie to have LFJ's back with a ultimately fruitless and pointless argument.

I suspect that Dale80 got himself at least temporarily banned right off the bat for such horrible behavior. And LFJ said he was going to be gone for awhile on a trip. That's why things have calmed down on this thread!

 

[geezer]

I suspect that Dale80 got himself at least temporarily banned right off the bat for such horrible behavior. And LFJ said he was going to be gone for awhile on a trip. That's why things have calmed down on this thread!

On the downside, without LFJ and company carrying on, things will really slow down on this forum. Nothing draws a crowd like a good fight!

 

[Transk53]

I suspect that Dale80 got himself at least temporarily banned right off the bat for such horrible behavior. And LFJ said he was going to be gone for awhile on a trip. That's why things have calmed down on this thread!

Boy Scouts maybe. I did like the history post. It does make wonder on logical level to me that Wing Chun fits the slender frame more, well that is what I thought from reading your post anywho. Wonder who is up next on the LFJ bandwagon. To me there has been good guy/bad guy on the sub bench as it were.