What's the difference?

[watzun]

I've been studying Wing Tsun for a while and I'm familiar with many of the concepts of the Leung Ting system and Emin Bozetepe's. The differences between these are subtle and the styles are over all quite similar.

I've trained with a few WC guys in the past.... Their skill was good and our chi-sao was compatible but we used different stances, footwork and disagreed on chainpunching.

I know that it all came from Yip Man and evolves from practicioner to practicioner but can any of you guys help me to understand how these styles are different? Maybe centerline theory, lineages, organizations, etc.


Thanks,
-watzun

[rubthebuddha]

not all of it came from yip man.

<ahem, rene, that's your cue>

(by the way, i'm leung ting wing tsun, so i don't have much in the way of differences to offer)

[watzun]

Please enlighten me Mr Budda.

Also, WT calls the SLT the Sin Nim Tao (SNT).

Any comments?

[rubthebuddha]

well, since rene isn't piping in (lazy bum), i'll explain -- a popular branch of wing chun is that of yuen kay shan, aka sum nung wing chun kuen. i know little of the style, but yks was a contemporary of yip man (i believe ym was technicially yks kung fu uncle, but i think yks had started his wing chun studies earlier).

that's not the only one. if you take a gander through leung ting's roots and branches of wing tsun, you'll get a bit of his explanation on many of the different families.

as far as siu nim tau vs. sil lim tau, i'd chalk that one up to interpretation of the meaning of the form. i've heard different english translations for the form, but i know leung ting's snt, so i'll speak to that. it means little idea form, the little idea being both a blueprint for your techniques, and for will.

there are quite a few folks on this forum who have done both wt and wc, so ask around.

[Jim Roselando]

Hello,


All WC is pretty similar but not all stems from the same source.

With regards to YM & YKS you can see for yourself;


Wong Wah Bo--Leung Jan--Chan Wah Shun--Yip Man
Wong Wah Bo--Leung Jan--Chan Wah Shun--Ng Chung So--YM

Wong Wah Bo--Fok Bo Chuen--Yuen Kay San
Dai Fa Min Kam--Fung Siu Ching--YKS


You may want to be a bit careful with the Roots book by Leung Ting as it tends to promote one source and its info. seems to be a bit off in some chapters. I know the Koo Lo chapter was!

Hope that helps,

[reneritchie]

Yuen Kay-San (Sum Nung's sifu) and Yip Man, as well as others, were all sons of wealthy merchants in Foshan, and friends and frequent tea house companions, but they had no direct martial relationship (nephew, uncle, or otherwise).

Jim provided the correct lineages (lack of information and rice bowl paranoia led to some lineage distortions in the mid-1900s, which still manifest). As the two lines (and others) diverged in the late 1800s, there are some differences in how the core is surfaced (for example, YKS/SN tends to have more apparent circles) but the core remains and if you see good Leung Sheung lineage Yip Man WCK, you see something pretty similar to how YKS/SN, and other Foshan WCK for that matter, looks.

On SLT/SNT there are three differences to take note of:

1) Most WCK uses the name Siu Lien Tao (Xiao Lian Tou, Little First Training), which has a different middle character. Yip Man and some others use Siu Nim Tao (Xiao Nian Tou, Little Idea).

2) Some people in Hong Kong have a dialect divergence which causes Siu Nim Tao to be pronounced closer to Siu Lim Tao, though the characters and meaning remain the same.

3) There is no set way to romanize (write using the roman alphabet) Cantonese characters, so many different ways exist, and hence Siu/Sil/Shil Nim/Lim/Lum Tao/Tau/Tou and others have all cropped up over the years.

For more, please consult http://www.wingchunkuen.com/archives/systems/ where you can find write-ups and info on a dozen or so branches.

RR

[tparkerkfo]

Hello,

Your asking what can be a touchy subject. What I offer is that there are indeed several branches of wing chun as others have stated. Also, within each lineage people understand things differently. Think back to school and see if every one got the same information out of what ever class. People have preferences for this or that and they may focus on certain aspects.

To make matters worse in Yip Man family, Yip Man did not have a specific curriculum. He was constantly changing the forms. I beleive Yip Man taught to the individual. So shorter people may learn something different than taller people or perhaps stronger people would learn different techniques. Hard to say exactly, but various of Yip Man's students do express wing chun differently. Also, keep in mind Yip Man did not teach everyone directly. Of course the early group had Yip Man's attention. But it is common knowledge that many people taught for Yip Man and I have heard that Yip Man rarely touched peoples hands in the latter years.

So, all this can account for some difference. Add to that various peoples skill levels before they start to teach. Many people are 3-5 or more generations removed from Yip Man and may not have really good foundation before they move on.

Just SOME reasons as to differences, and there are probably more.
Tom
________
CHRYSLER 300M SPECIFICATIONS (http://www.dodge-wiki.com/wiki/Chrysler_300M)

[rubthebuddha]

jim,

good lineages -- and i take every martial art book i read with at least one grain of salt. even my sigung has his own lineage's interests in mind, and i don't blame him, or anyone else for that. :)

rene,

oddly enough, in one of my books by leung ting, i think it says that yks and ym were contemporaries. i could be bass ackwards on that one. i'll dig and get back to you with the exact quote.

[captain]

so yuen kay san actually knew yip man.did they share knowledge,if so did yip man ever meet sum nung?the
sum nung part of the article rene added, needs to be
updated with some haste.
why is it that wing chun masters from that era were
essientially rich children.i thought wc was a tough style
not best suited to such lifestyles.does the yks style
exist in the uk,or mainly in china/canada/usa?
finally,there must be better picture of yks somewhere.

[black and blue]

Originally posted by captain
why is it that wing chun masters from that era were
essientially rich children.i thought wc was a tough style
not best suited to such lifestyles.

Even rich kids like a scrap :) Masters? Well, if you're rich (can afford many lessons/personal tuition) you also don't need to work. That's all day, every day to work on and perfect your Wing Chun.

My Sifu is lucky enough to teach full time. He has all day to work on fitness, forms, chi sau, sparring, weapons, dummy etc.

Which reminds me, I must check my lottery ticket tonight :D

[reneritchie]

The Yuen and Yip families were neighbours on Foshan's Mulberry Garden. Yip Man knew Sum Nung since Sum worked at Tien Hoi, the tea house off Chopstick street where Yuen, Yip, etc. would frequently take tea, and later studied with Yuen, who was Yip's neighbour.

Most WCK people of that time, unlike the Red Junk time, didn't talk about WCK much with each other, since back then there were no books, videos, internet, etc. and thus "secret techniques" (aka surprise) was still a factor if you ever found yourself fighting in self or property defense.

WCK passed to the sons of the wealthy merchants (though not exclusively so) mainly because they could afford the extremely high tuition prices WCK masters charged at the time for training (large amounts of gold and/or silver). They excelled because they didn't have to work for a living (though some, like Yuen who was a lawyer, worked part time), and could thus spend hours a day developing their skill.

There were some who were "tough", like Cheung Bo, Yiu Choi, etc. but WCK wasn't a "tough" system (Hung Ga, etc. attracted more of those types), but a refined one that slender, small, not always in the best of health types found they could still excell with.

RR

[black and blue]

I know that it all came from Yip Man and evolves from practicioner to practicioner but can any of you guys help me to understand how these styles are different? Maybe centerline theory, lineages, organizations, etc.


In terms of organisations, I believe Leung Ting's WT is the largest in the world. I read somewhere there's 80,000 WT students in Germany alone, but I've no idea if this figure is correct.

The WT org catches a lot of cr@p on other forums, mainly because it's so big. (whatever problems they have, political or otherwise, seem amplified). It's also, from what I can tell, a very mixed bag with Hong Kong WT and European WT having slightly different training drills/exercises.

I've not seen that many different Yip Man lineages, but from those I have seen or read about, the WT org seems to have the largest curriculum. Some think this is a good thing, some think it's a bad thing.

I've seen WT from a couple of different European countries, and it all seemed pretty good to me. Nice guys that trained hard and were very approachable.

[captain]

Is'nt that curious that all of those key people [yks,ip man,and sum nung] all knew each other.i does make sense that those
with enough time can spend the hours woking on their
style.
well if yks and ip man knew each other,why are there some
interesting differences in the two.i wonde if there are any
people let in hin[that age] that had actuallinks with those
three men?

[captain]

Is'nt that curious that all of those key people [yks,ip man,and sum nung] all knew each other.it does make sense that those
with enough time can spend the hours working on their
style.
well if yks and ip man knew each other,why are there some
interesting differences in the two.i wonder if there are any
people left in china[that age] that had actual links with those
three men?

[reneritchie]

Foshan was not a huge city, and the local merchants knew each other, and the WCK folks knew each other. Yuen Kay-San, Yip Man, Ng Jung-So, Cheung Bo, and visitors like Cho On from Panyu would get together in social settings and take tea.

Sum Nung would also meet others like Fung Chun of Gulao, Chu Chong (disciple of Pao Fa Lien), etc.

Fung Chun, I believe, is still alive in China. Yip Man's early student Lun Gai, likewise. Maybe 1 or 2 of Sum Nung's early students, but they were often older than he himself, so not many.

There are differences because their lines split in the last 1800s, which meant there were a generation or two of independant development. Yuen Kay-San also learned from Fung Siu-Ching, which could account for some things. Lastly, both Yip Man and Sum Nung continued to refine their WCK and kept trying to improve it throughout their lives.

RR