Mui Fa: Yip Man WC

[brody]

Was the Mui Fa exercises something that Yip Man passed on or was it later developed by his students?

[Rhat]

What's the Mui Fa exercises?

[brody]

Mui Fa Leg exercises using 3 posts or stakes in the ground.

[Rhat]

Ok, it's the Mui Fa Jong kung fu.

[choi yap zoi]

Moy Fa Jong is the original name of the Muk Yan Jong. I have done quite a bit of train on many versions of the Moy Fah Jong and find it to be very useful.

moy fah jong training (http://www.moyyat.net/brice/moyyatnet.nsf/8a36d71960bcc57986256d84006fe15d/$Body/0.950E?OpenElement&FieldElemFormat=jpg)

check out this text from Moy yat

Moy Fah Jong, literally translated, means "Plum Flower Pillars." It consists of a set of eleven wood posts which, when viewed from above, form the outline of the five petals of a plum flower blossum.


The largest of the posts is referred to as a Muk Yan Jong, or "Wooden Man Trunk." Its traditional place is at the center of the flower. A Muk Yan Jong consists of a a single trunk with three arms and one leg. It is also referred to as a Wooden Dummy, or Dummy, because of its passing resemblance to a man. Some dummies have additional sets of arms and a leg oriented in other directions on the trunk to allow more than a single person to practice simultaneously.


The surrounding posts are called a Gerk Jong, or "Leg Pillars." Each of the smaller ten posts are spaced from each other at a distance to allow a student to walk between them. These shorter posts can be reduced to only three pillars then representing the outline of a single petal of the plum flower blossum.


Other styles of Kung Fu also have a Moy Fah Jong. However, their configuration and use are entirely different from the Moy Fah Jong seen within the Ving Tsun System. Because of this possible confusion, both the Muk Yan Jong and Gerk Jong portions of a Moy Fah Jong are usually referred to individually. Also, because of a lack of training space, most often a student will see a Muk Yan Jong removed from the center of the flower and mounted on a wall. Due to numerous fixtures which can act as a suitable substitute, a Gerk Jong is many times eliminated entirely from the training area.


Although the two portions of a Moy Fah Jong are usually taught and practiced separately, both the Muk Yan Jong and the Gerk Jong devices serve the same purpose to a Ving Tsun student. The pillars are intended to refine a student's movements. The feedback provided by striking, touching, and moving around the posts is, when used correctly, a reminder to a student as to correct positioning. Thus, a Moy Fah Jong can be looked at as a way to polish the techniques found within the Ving Tsun System in the absence of a suitable training partner.


It should be noted that a Moy Fah Jong cannot, in itself, teach anything to a Ving Tsun practitioner. All of the techniques and attributes used when practicing on a Jong are learned elsewhere. It is because of this that Moy Fah Jong practice can be compared to a writer using a typewriter: If a writer does not know how to write or spell then using a typewriter, however proficiently, will produce only nicely formatted characters - a far cry from great prose. But, if a student has a strong and good depth of knowledge, learning to use their tool to its fullest becomes a way to streamline the actual mechanics involved so that it becomes second nature. The end result can, only then, become polished and begin to shine through.


text excerpted from an unpublished manuscript, by Moy Yat, circa 1984.

[Tom Kagan]

The link you provided to the picture does not show the Ving Tsun method of using a Moy Fah Jong.

There is nothing wrong with playing around with the posts that way (it's from another KungFu system), but the posts are not typically used for balance by a Ving Tsun practitioner except for having some fun and experimenting. Just don't try to pass it off as anything else. ;)

[Incidentally, the method shown in the picture you referenced is descendant from the Northern Shaolin's Mui Fa Keun Paai Kung Fu]

Additionally, when referencing copyrighted text which you clipped from another website, where it came from is required. Better yet, there is no need to clutter up this forum with the text when a link is sufficient.

http://www.moyyat.com/dummy.html

I've attached a picture of Moy Yat using a three post (single petal) Gerk Jong, circa 1994. Unfortunately, I am uncertain where the picture was taken and who was the cameraman, so I am unable to give further credit for the time being.

[Sam]

In Fut Sao Wing Chun Kuen the little octagon Siu Baat Gwa and Moi Fa Jong were always taught and I believe Yip Man taught them to his mainland students. http://www.futsaoyongchunkuen.com/handfootforms.htm

[brody]

From the sound of things, no one in the Yip Man Lineage has heard of basic exercises using these Mui Fa Posts? Did Moy Yat pass on anything? Or are they used similar to practicing kicks on the Mook Jong?

Thanks

[Tom Kagan]

Originally posted by brody
From the sound of things, no one in the Yip Man Lineage has heard of basic exercises using these Mui Fa Posts? Did Moy Yat pass on anything? Or are they used similar to practicing kicks on the Mook Jong?

Thanks


What's to say that what you heard as "basic exercises" for MoyFahJong training within the Ving Tsun method of training progressions outside of Yip Man lineage are not, in reality, imported from other places?

"MoyFah", or "Plum Flower", is a common theme to many Chinese arts (martial or otherwise). Many martial art training methods from many styles refer to a "MoyFah" pattern/technique/exercise/set and have nothing to do with a bunch of posts.



I can do a lot of things with a couple of posts - some basic, some not so basic, some boring, some funny, some easy, some quite difficult - all with varying degrees of relevance and helpfulness to my training.

So what?

Anyone with half a brain and properly trained in Ving Tsun will quickly figure out what to do with a bunch of posts. It would be very sad, indeed, if they still needed someone to give them the "training wheels" of "basic exercise" patterns - if they spent that much time training Ving Tsun and are at the point where concentrating on their movements in, around, over, and about a bunch of posts might prove to be a useful adjuct to their training.

The Ving Tsun MoyFahJong, or more specific to what I believe you are talking about, the GerkJong portion of the MoyFahJong, is not the same beast as the Northern Shaolin descendant MoyFahJong. Of course, there is some overlap - they are both just a pile of wood to play with.

Instead of accidentally trolling about, why not give some examples of what you might consider as "basic examples" instead of alluding to them. [As an aside: you can't find too many "basic exercises" in Ving Tsun more basic than practicing a kick against a dummy - the wood and/or fleshy kind. :rolleyes:]

At the very least, why not practice some KungFu of the keyboard kind and go though the archives of this forum to discover (rediscover) a few of the "basic exercises" which might prove useful to try out on a bunch of posts. Footwork, GerkJong, MoyFahJong, YiJeKimYeungMa, Tripodial Dummy, HeunMa, BiuMa, Kicking Dummy, MukYanJong, Wooden Dummy, Kicks, DarHungJong, GahmGaaiDakLahp, etc aren't exactly new topics of conversation within the Ving Tsum realm regardless of whether the lineage is descendant from Yip Man or not. Gather some of the ideas up to put in this thread so we can reasonably discuss them in this thread together.

"Two hands, two eyes, two ears, one brain, one mouth - you do the math and stop annoying me." -- Moy Yat