Good Wingchun, is there such a thing?

[red5angel]

I hear a lot of crap about it being ok to do it differently on these forums all the time. About how there are several ways to do one thing and that is ok (paste smiling dimple faced suburban house wife here). Some people may even go to such an extent as to say that no matter how you are doing it, that's ok to since it is each to his own right?

WRONG. How many ways are there to fly an airplane? Would you want your navy fighter pilot teaching the guy who is flying you and 250 other people to Chicago next week to fly his way? How about vice versa? Would you want that airline pilot to be teaching the fighter pilot how to fly in combat? That's the difference to me, and that is why it isn't always ok to have a lot of variation and discrepancy.

If you want to be a navy pilot you fly a navy fighter plane, if you want to be an airline plot you fly an airliner.

Lets skip all the crap about getting bland and drying up blah blah blah, or this person learnt it from that person blah blah blah. Lets also skip the This person does it and it works for him blah blah as well. Not all things are created equal.

[apoweyn]

ah. i don't buy it.

look at your analogy. and at your loyalties.

take martial arts. is your loyalty to wing chun? or to an objective? if it's to an objective (i.e., putting someone down), then as long as that person ends up going down, then yeah variation is fine. it doesn't matter how you got them there, just that you did.

if your loyalty is to wing chun, then you can get into arguments about this and that. but even within that context, if some wingchun sifu manages to take people out with his 'variation' on the theme, and that's his primary concern, then it's valid.

with the flying analogy, the objective in one case is a comfortable ride. the objective in another is combat effectiveness. in the wing chun analogy, the objective is combat effectiveness in either case. it's just the performance that's in question.


stuart b.

[norther practitioner]

Some of that can be seen in the differences from taiji and taiji chuan.....
But there is only one way to do things....the right way, the problem is there is so much behind that statement. Look at yourself, how your body works...does your sisters work the same way? Essentially yes, but there are some small differences that may make your "right" way different than hers. ala differences. How peoples arms go into bak sau etc. will always differ slightly, how my arm goes up to block is different in some small ways than other students.....
who is right, you ask us then you say this:
"Lets skip all the crap about getting bland and drying up blah blah blah, or this person learnt it from that person blah blah blah. Lets also skip the This person does it and it works for him blah blah as well. Not all things are created equal."

Not all things are created equal, this actual detracts from your argument.

The this person and that person argument can not be ignored..... the specifics can, like Yip Man tought this person, this person showed this person...etc.

The lagistics of a 5' 0" man blocking a punch to the face from an attacker is going to be different than for a man of 6'4". The way a teacher teaches, and spreads there knowledge is affected by there physical stature etc. they can doing the same technique, however the technique is still different from person to person. The mechanics are altered a bit aka different.

[ewallace]

All the arguments about which flavor or lineage of wing chun is better is the main reason that I decided to not train in wing chun.

[Merryprankster]

There is an infinity between 2.000000001 and 2.0000000001, yet the difference between them isn't so great.

Whose boxing was the real boxing, Mike Tyson or Muhammed Ali?

[ewallace]

Tyson was a MMB.

[rubthebuddha]

mixed martial buby?

[ewallace]

Pretty much. He cross-trained in kina mutai.

[red5angel]

This goes for any art by the way, not just wingchun I just use it because it is what I know.

Ap I have a rebuttal :) but I will have ot get back to you!

[apoweyn]

d*mmit man! a rebuttal?!

i'll be here, mate. :)