Ip Man Tong Experiences

[stuartm]

Hi all,

Got back from Foshan from the Ip Man Tong. How did you find it??
I thought the museum itself was very impressive.

Thoughts?

Stuart

[yuanfen]

Hi Stuart- when you get rested after your trip- I would love to hear your report if you care to share one.
The building certainly looks impressive and the bust of Ip Man as well. And apparently it was well attended. KJ shared a great picture of Lok Yiu and Kenneth Chung- and from the pic. the weather looked great.

[dezhen2001]

my Sifu and some seniors went to the ip Man Tong... (Tse Qigong Centre/Michael Tse Wing Chun Association)... as far as i know they had an amazing time!

hope all who went enjoyed the experience (and im insanely jealous lol)

dawood :)

[Lindley57]

The Ip Man Tong was very enjoyable. The weather was very good, warm and no rain. We strolled through the streets of Foshan, elegantly avoiding the streams of bicycles and mopeds. We walked by the home and shop of Leung Jan (Yip Man's Si-gung).

The museum was impressive and extensive. There were some photos of Yip Man and Bruce Lee I had never seen before. Films were showed of Yip Man playing Chum Kiu and the Dummy. Overall, the events seemed well organized considering the amount of people. Supposedly there were 1500 people in attendance.

Some of the demonstrations were good. Some were not so good. There was Wing Chun brick breaking? Most groups demonstrated Chi Sao, the 3 forms, and a couple did the Knives. I recall one short of a pole form which I was not familiar with. There was at least one self defense routine. There was one demonstration of dar hung jong (playing the dummy form without the dummy).

After the activities, some camps set up Chi Sao training in various areas. Although most were interactive amongst their own schools, they were receptive to training with others.
Nice Chops were available that could be bought very cheaply as well as engraved.

Some notable missing were William Cheung, Victor Kan, Hawkins Cheung, and Leung Ting although I am not sure if there were any representatives from them in the audience.

The Tong was more about Kung Fu Life - hanging out with your Kung Fu family. This was an occassion to appreciate lineage and be a part of Wing Chun history.

[joy chaudhuri]

Lindley- thanks for the report. Ho Kam Ming couldnt go and Augustine Fong's work schedule also interfered. I couldnt get off from work. I envy those who could go. It is an important occasion.
Perhaps next year i will geta chance.

[rubthebuddha]

leung ting was in san antonio with a buncha instructors (including mine, which means goodies to learn this week :D )

fwiw, i'm just as jealous as the rest of you who couldn't go. :(

[yuanfen]

Just heard froma friend of mine. Apparently the pollution in Foshan is quite bad. The building is impressive...I am glad they could open in spite of I am sure lots of governmnetal red tape.
All in all- a historical occasion.

[stuartm]

The building is very impressive as is the ancestral temple itself. The Wong Fei Hung museum is also in the temple which is well worth a look if you go there.

The pollution was really bad, and as for the roads!! Forget the french being the craziest motorists, go to China !!

Stuart

[Frank Exchange]

Stuart, Im repeating this from the "Who is going to HK thread", as you have just come back.
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StuartM, huge apologies. On Friday I took my mobile to Temple Street Market to have it modded with some cool flashing lights and what have you. It died later that day, and so I was totally without connection or phone numbers until I was able to get back from China, when we promptly returned home. The phone works now, but I was dissappointed we were not able to meet at the Tong, and it was totally my fault.

I caught the beginning of your schools demo, but couldnt work out which one was you, then we were hoisted off to the Wong Fei Hung museum and kept busy for the rest of the afternoon.

The museum and the surroundings were great, it was a lot better than I had anticipated. However, to be frank, watching 23 different and unexplained versions of SLT and Biu Jee is not my idea of a grand day out.

Later on we went to visit Cheung Po's school in Foshan, which was down some serious back alleys. Navigating a big coach down there was really interesting, felt like the scene from Big Trouble In Little China. I half expected a bunch of bandolier-wearing kung fu baddies to leap out, brandishing meat cleavers and other household weaponry.

This school had a training area and on the 4th floor and the rest of it was on the rooftops. That was extremely cool, felt like I was back in the 50s. Particularly memorable was an accompanying WC elder, a 70 year old Mr. Chan, who demoed chum kiu and the dummy. The guy was an original student of Yip Man from back in 1954, and his power and precision was gobsmacking. The dummy form in particular was amazing.

Im not going to do a breakdown of the rest of the trip like last year, particularly because large portions of it would revolve around my holiday bowel problems and the state of toilets in Foshan. True-to-life, gritty stuff, but hardly welcome reading for the general public.

Anyway, took a cubic assload of footage, about 5 hours in all, so will eventually be posting some clips, but it wont be till I get my new PC capture card.

Hope all you who went got back safely, and those who are still there, have a TsingDao on me.

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Yeah, I noticed the pollution, or at least we all had sore throats, but I thought the traffic was pretty cool. As somebody did something unusual, everyone else on the road slowed down and adjusted position appropriately, without rushing and slamming of brakes. It seemed to work pretty well. Even when our own coach decided to u turn across a busy main street with little or no warning.

I thought the Wong Fei Hung museum was great. Basically any KF movie you have seene has this architecture, central courtyard with high walls. Just like Crouching Tiger, The Blade, and 63 others I could mention.

[stuartm]

Hi James - my mobile was playing up as well. Shame though. I did see Clive there, so maybe you were with him?

I did the demo - i would be in the top left hand corner of the stage as you look at it. Quite nervous but i suppose i'll look back on it with affection. Some o f our boys did chi sao with some foshan boys - got a bit rough at times but they handled it fine and got the better of em i think !!

The demos were good - probably my favourite was Ip Chings students who were really sharp and some student of Yip Man who did SLT - the real deal !!

I didnt have any jabs for China so i was worried for the whole 5 days. My guts were wrecked for the whole time, and i never want a can of Tsingtao or blue riband beer again in my life - it was ok for flushing the hole in the floor though !!

We had a couple of seminars with Ip Ching and i finally got to do a fair bit of Chi Sao with theman. After i finished and shook his hand i discovered that one of my students didnt take any photos!!! SLT on one leg every class for him from now on!!!!

Best wishes, Stuart

[Mr Punch]

How was the air-dummy?