YongChun
09-28-2004, 02:25 PM
Food for thought
If you have a good brain, then all you need to know about Wing Chun is that a lady by the name of Yim Wing Chun watched this Crane and Snake fight and after that thought up Wing Chun.
From the Yim Wing Chun legend comes the idea that pure brute strength is not the way to go with Wing Chun. The message is to use smartness to overcome strength. There are lots of ideas both in the hard and soft category to do this. The art is in the details to work this all out and millions of words can be written about this by both the fighters and by armchair theoreticians.
From the snake idea we get the kind of feel your body and arms should have in fighting. The good people feel like snakes and slippery fish. The idea is not to be tense but also not to be limp. You should be like a good grappler. Of course a snake can also strike.
From the Crane idea we get that Wing Chun attacks are perfectly timed, and are fast, sharp, crisp, accurate and direct. You should be like a good striker. A Crane doesn’t normally grapple.
After one has the right idea about the art, a person trains to be a good grappler and striker and investigates fighters who are those things and train in similar ways. And that's all there is to it. Since Wing Chun is a theory for a practical art and since all theories need to be tested then testing is a natural part of the art.
So the stupid made up legendary marketing story above is just the shortest possible way to explain to someone what Wing Chun style fighting is like. The truth of the story doesn’t matter at all. From the idea of the legend, the whole art can be reinvented again. So you don't need forms, chi sau or anything else that we constantly argue about. .
Is there a shorter way to describe the essence of Wing Chun than in the first sentence above? (note: all other wise crack alternative stories are similar: watching a turtle and a rabbit, watching Ali beat Foreman, watching the wind rip down a tree etc.)
The above is just a device that works for some people to give them a new idea. For example one student was very stiff and tense all the time and just relied on speed and strength. So after I told him something like this he got a new idea and his Wing Chun started to change for the better. He just needed a new way to think.
Ray
If you have a good brain, then all you need to know about Wing Chun is that a lady by the name of Yim Wing Chun watched this Crane and Snake fight and after that thought up Wing Chun.
From the Yim Wing Chun legend comes the idea that pure brute strength is not the way to go with Wing Chun. The message is to use smartness to overcome strength. There are lots of ideas both in the hard and soft category to do this. The art is in the details to work this all out and millions of words can be written about this by both the fighters and by armchair theoreticians.
From the snake idea we get the kind of feel your body and arms should have in fighting. The good people feel like snakes and slippery fish. The idea is not to be tense but also not to be limp. You should be like a good grappler. Of course a snake can also strike.
From the Crane idea we get that Wing Chun attacks are perfectly timed, and are fast, sharp, crisp, accurate and direct. You should be like a good striker. A Crane doesn’t normally grapple.
After one has the right idea about the art, a person trains to be a good grappler and striker and investigates fighters who are those things and train in similar ways. And that's all there is to it. Since Wing Chun is a theory for a practical art and since all theories need to be tested then testing is a natural part of the art.
So the stupid made up legendary marketing story above is just the shortest possible way to explain to someone what Wing Chun style fighting is like. The truth of the story doesn’t matter at all. From the idea of the legend, the whole art can be reinvented again. So you don't need forms, chi sau or anything else that we constantly argue about. .
Is there a shorter way to describe the essence of Wing Chun than in the first sentence above? (note: all other wise crack alternative stories are similar: watching a turtle and a rabbit, watching Ali beat Foreman, watching the wind rip down a tree etc.)
The above is just a device that works for some people to give them a new idea. For example one student was very stiff and tense all the time and just relied on speed and strength. So after I told him something like this he got a new idea and his Wing Chun started to change for the better. He just needed a new way to think.
Ray