Interpretation and the Correct Path

[red5angel]

Someone brought up on another thread that the 'ideals' of wingchun or just that, ideals and that it is up to the student to find his individual interpretation.
While I am a proponent of making wing chun your own, this doesnt to me mean that you can freely interpret what it is suposed to be like or used as. What it means to me is that you locate techniques and tools that work well for you inside the wingchun toolbox, and learn to apply them effectively for you. This obviously recquires a strong and deep understanding of what it is you are studying.
In our time, it seems as if too many people allow thier ego to lead them down the wrong path, many instructors out there who decide they know how to do it better, make a few changes or a whole bunch and continue to call it wing chun.
The ideals of wingchun, the priniciples on which it stands seems to me to be a solid foundation for which you build your wingchun house on. Wingchun has been tested and proven to work over a good amount of time, and with many people. Loose interpretations can do more damage then good and often do. While an art needs to grow to avoid stagnation, often it is not only in technique that it grows but in understanding. Right now I am training and wingchun grows within me. Its like flowers really. A rose has changed from what it was in the beginning, but a while ago roses reached a point where changes were good changes were slight, and massive changes created something new. A good rose has some specific attributes that define whether it is a good rose or not. Now we each take our roses home and we grow them seperately, you might find one color seems to suit you best, or larger leaves and petals might make it look better, but in general our roses will all look similar. If you go off and change your rose so drastically that it now looks like a daisy, why not just grow daisies?
Ultimately the rose hasnt stagnated, and each time we grow them they are fresh and new. The same with wingchun, stagnation can be overexagerated. I feach of us allows the wing chun rose to grow within us then it does not stagnate but is fresh with each new student.

[sunkuen]

Personally red i got a plum flower growing up inside a' me, why just the other day I **** out a few petals while doing my stance training.

[yuanfen]

That is deep scatology- shifting from the rose to the plum blossom no less....on the same thread- without starting a new one.

[red5angel]

It just seems to me that everyone has an interpretation of what wing chun is out there. Why not just create our own style when we decide we want to fight? Why not just do our own studying and come up with our own system? Possible because there are finite possibilities with the human body as the frame work? Possibly because sometimes someone has already done the studying ahead of us?
What if we were to loosely interpret questions on a test? Or in classes we take?
Learning Leung Sheung lineage, should I assume that he was doing it his way and just showing his students the way he does it, for thier own interpretation?
Seems like an awefully western concept to me, trying to break the mold and form it to match our egos instead of forming our egos to match it?

[kungfu cowboy]

Eeeeww, I just suddenly got a very different interpretation of Scatman Cruthers' nickname.:(

[EnterTheWhip]

Originally posted by red5angel
Seems like an awefully western concept to me, trying to break the mold and form it to match our egos instead of forming our egos to match it? Your sifu's ego? Should we "match our egos" to our sifu's ego? Yes, we should assume our sifu's are teaching from their own interpretation. That's all they have. One can not teach what one does not understand. "Ip Man did it this way, therefore we should do it this way.."???

[fa_jing]

I'll say this. If you believe there is only one correct path, than you will spend your time questioning if your path is it, and trying to prove your path is it to others. If you believe there are multiple paths, then you will focus on reaching the goal.

-FJ

[red5angel]

EntertheWhip - To a certain degree I agree with you. Of course everything is filtered through our own perceptions but if your instructor is good and was taught well, they can transmit the information as close as possible to the original stuff. Its when ego steps in that you begin to loose original information for new stuff.

[EnterTheWhip]

Originally posted by red5angel
but if your instructor is good and was taught wellHow can one be certain?

Its when ego steps in that you begin to loose original information for new stuff. You use the word "ego" very loosely. Be careful, you may have to stick your foot in your mouth, before long.

[rogue]

What happens if the original stuff wasn't as good as the new and improved? Or just so tied into the originators abilities that it's not usuable by the general public.

[red5angel]

Fa_j - you can do anything in several ways, but sometimes there are better ways then others. You should always be searching to find a better path.

Enterthewhip - You should always be challenging it and looking for better ways.

Rogue - I agree with you on the new stuff. even old stuff can be modified and added to, but as things become more refined it becomes harder to make them better, often you end up just going away from the path!

[EnterTheWhip]

Originally posted by red5angel
Enterthewhip - You should always be challenging it and looking for better ways.You're contradicting yourself. Make up your mind before you shoot your mouth off.

[yuanfen]

I am excited about wing chun. Indeed I am.
I am so glad that many of you are too.
Are you sure you are on the parh. This weekend
you can find out!!!

[byond]

hi red5angel,
you mention that one should always be searching for a better path.....

i feel that 1)knowing your path is the best and blindly following
and
2) always searching for a better path
are both wrong....there both to extreme....that is not wing chun
wing chun is center.....apply wing chun principles to life and thinking.......
my idea is put time and energy into a version of wc....put the time into it though....and im not talking just 1 or 2 years...give time for development....and than if your skills are not developing open your mind to several possibilites....
A) its you not your style thats the problem
b)perhaps the style does suck find a new one
c)perhaps your sifu sucks not your style

[red5angel]

Enterthewhip - No, read it more carefully, I am saying that as you study you must trust your instructors and those teaching you. As time goes on you challenge what it is you are learning, put it to the test? If it passes you know you are on the right path, if it doesnt, then you need to look at what it might be that is hurting you, other then your opponent! :)

Byond - exactly, either path is an extreme path. You cant have any fear about what it is you are doing, and somewher ein the middle, trusting and testing, is the truth.

[yuanfen]

I am excited. I was ina study group for two years and then we had seminars. I am so glad I found the path. I am excited.
Arent you. You should be.

[EnterTheWhip]

Originally posted by red5angel
As time goes on you challenge what it is you are learning, put it to the test? If it passes you know you are on the right path, if it doesnt, then you need to look at what it might be that is hurting you, other then your opponent! Few of us- and that's being very generous- will ever have an opporunity to really put Wing Chun to the test. It's not very difficult to make Wing Chun (or whatever you want to call it) work in the average situation. That doesn't mean that what you call Wing Chun is good. That doesn't mean your teacher knows how to teach Wing Chun.

[Spark]

Originally posted by red5angel
As time goes on you challenge what it is you are learning, put it to the test? If it passes you know you are on the right path, if it doesnt, then you need to look at what it might be that is hurting you, other then your opponent! :)


LIKE YOURSELF, MAYBE?!?!? ;)

[anerlich]

A rose has changed from what it was in the beginning, but a while ago roses reached a point where changes were good changes were slight, and massive changes created something new.
Sounds like somebody watched "Being There" with Peter Sellers just recently.

If you believe there is only one correct path, than you will spend your time questioning if your path is it, and trying to prove your path is it to others. If you believe there are multiple paths, then you will focus on reaching the goal.
Well said.

Be careful, you may have to stick your foot in your mouth, before long.
In red5angel's case, your advice comes way too late.

Its when ego steps in that you begin to loose original information for new stuff.

You should always be challenging it and looking for better ways.
So which is it?

Rose gardens are OK, but personally I prefer horticultural diversity.

As usual, the truth lies somewhere between the extremes of blind faith, and relentless following of fashion.

[yuanfen]

I am so excited. Thank you for referring to Peter Sellers and being there- if you root now-its roses in spring. Thank you.
BTW should I root aggressively? If peter Sellers had made it to Minneapolis- he would have done so much better in the Pink Panther.

[Wingman]

Teaching wing chun is just like teaching a bunch of grade school kids how to write the alphabet. The grade school kids are taught the same things by one teacher. But each of them will write a different A, a different B, a different C, etc. Although we can recognize it as A, B, or C; each A, B, or C is different from one student to another.

I think it is not the different interpretations of wing chun that makes one wing chun different from the other. It is the different ways of doing things that are different.

[anerlich]

BTW should I root aggressively? If peter Sellers had made it to Minneapolis- he would have done so much better in the Pink Panther.

I liked the Pink Panther and "The fiendish plot of Dr Fu Manchu" a great deal (the Kung Fu spoof he did with Kato was priceless!), but I regard "Being There" as far and away his greatest role. That he was not awarded an Oscar for it is IMO a huge miscarriage of justice.

It took me a while to get the Minneapolis reference :cool:

At the risk of taking the metaphor even further:

roses appear to grow better when deeply rooted and regularly fertilized with bull$h!t

[aelward]

r5a writes:

> What it means to me is that you locate techniques and tools
> that work well for you inside the wingchun toolbox, and learn
> to apply them effectively for you.

Following the analogy.... How many different kinds of tools are there? I would argue that if your only tool is a hammer, then all problems will look like a nail. But there are of course, many different kinds of tools. Add a screwdriver, a wrench, etc, and your options increase exponentially.

You put these in the hands of two different skilled carpenters, and they can use the fundamental purpose of these tools to build completely different items of equal functionability and aesthetic beauty.

> In our time, it seems as if too many people allow thier ego to
> lead them down the wrong path,

It wasn't until "our time" that Wing Chun propogated. But why do you think that even in Yip Man's generation, different families of WC exisited? It's because all of these carpenters sought to build something that was useful for them, personally! And I do not think it was a matter of ego as much as it was a matter of experience and practical reality.

> many instructors out there who decide they know how to do it > better, make a few changes or a whole bunch and continue to
> call it wing chun.

Now, in our time, there are dozens of teachers out there. Yip Man alone had what, a thousand students? Of course, not all of them were experts, but I can think of at least 20 right off the top of my head who began teaching. And not surprisingly, none of these people teach the same way! Sure, there are similarities (like WSL, Hawkins Cheung, Duncan Leung), but none of them to my knowledge teach exactly the same way.

Now r5a, let's look at your lineage a bit, which I confess I only know a little about. I have personally seen three different sub-lineages from Leung Sheung: Sifu Ken Chung, Sifu Leung Ting, and one who I am not entirely sure of (a Canadian student of a student of Leung Sheung). Not a single one approaches teaching the same! I also know of a student of Sifu Leung Ting who is no longer with the WT organization and calls his art "Leung Sheung Wing Chun." Now who is "really" teaching Leung Sheung Wing Chun out of all those carpenters who have access to the same Wing Chun tools?

Before you say that only your particular sub-lineage got the "right thing," let's look at your Si-Gung Ken Chung-- who I also confess I only know a little about. But what I do know from personal hands on experience, his older students (1970s) do things clearly and categorically differently from the latter ones. It was explained to me that Sifu Chung changed his approach. Which way was right, the "true Leung Sheung Wing Chun?"

So you see, going back to "good" Wing Chun, there are so many different interpretations because there were so many carpenters who knew how to use their tools. Probably because those tools aren't that hard to learn how to use.

[dezhen2001]

good post aelward :)

david

[Alpha Dog]

What would Brian Boiatano do?

[kj]

Originally posted by anerlich
I regard "Being There" as far and away his greatest role. That he was not awarded an Oscar for it is IMO a huge miscarriage of justice.

Ditto. It's a classic.
- kj

[reneritchie]

In calligraphy (Chinese), it's said you must first perfect the basics (the base strokes), then study and master 1 or 2 established "styles". Only then may you develop your own "style". So, it's not an entirely Western concept, just one that is taken rather seriously in other cultures.

r5a - It's good to know what Leung Sheung did. Better to find out what works best for you. Trying to keep WCK the same as someone else is like taking a snapshot of a life: it captures very little. WCK is alive and vibrant. You can look the same and have none of the essance, or look different and capture perfectly the spirit. To look at WCK is to see an art which has developed consistently over the generations. It is to see something always made useful for its time(s) and place(s). And in the end, a path is just a path. WCK is just WCK. Don't fret it so much.

Rgds,

RR

[kj]

Originally posted by wujidude
maintained a rather high stance throughout "Being There." Not even a pigeon-toed stance, but he could walk on water. i think even Ken Chung would've had a hard time with him, kj.

:D It's a tough call, but you may very well be right.

Regards,
- Kathy Jo