Wing Chun the name

[Hendrik]

Yesterday, some one told me he had heard that GM Yip Man is the first one to use the word Wing (praise) Chun and before Yip Man everyone is using the term Weng Chun before that.



I have always honor different perspective from different people. However, I have my own view.



My view is :


1, I dont think Yip Man is the first one who use the term Wing Chun. We can trace into different lineages.

2, According to Yik Kam's presentation from the red boat era. When Miu Shun created the system, Miu Shun called this new creation Siu Lin Tau. That is how Miu Sun passed to Yim Yee.
So, that is not Weng Chung either. This stuffs exist before Gm Yip Man was born. The presentation said that " Siu Lin Tau was created by me (Miu Shun) fusing the White Crane art (White Crane from Fujian as we have found out ) and my own art (Emei 12 zhuang as we have found out by evident), Thus, the art I have taugh you (Yim Yee) is not the same with the White Crane art."


In more details, some of The DNA of SLT consist of There are 8 points in SLT's kuen kuit which is uniquely diffferent compare with general Nam Kuen. SLT has inherit White Crane's Suck Spit float sink, also the Emei's Open Close ascend (raise) and descend (drop), or Tun Too Fou Chen, Kai Her Sen Chiang in madarin. while using a NON Broken arrow platform.





IE:
as the Kuen Kuit of SLT said,

a, Hui Her Dan Dien Du Mai Chiang..... b, Tun Too Ru Hoong Fa Li Kang (madarin)

or

a, Meeting and combine in the Dan Dien, the Du Mai (Du Medirian) Descent...

b, Suck Spit similar to Rainbow (spontaneous without flaw) generate the force



a is for internal alchemy cultivation process which deal with breathing, Zhen Qi, medirians, and Spine. Yes, this one link with the Nature Lower Abdorment breathing and handling. This stanza was adapted from Emei 12 zhuang almost word by word.

b, is describing one type of many power generation process in SLT.







3, In the mean time, in my understanding, There is only one wide spread and officially recorded documented Weng chun since 1650 in the history of southern China, that is the White Crane Weng Chun of Fujian.

It will be great if there is official recorded documentary presented similar to the white Crane Weng Chun of Fujian with the trace able identity of every generation and DNA of the art about other Weng Chun, So that we know more about different Weng Chun.

So, Which Weng Chun is the Weng Chun the rumous said others were using before Gm Yip Man?





What is the agenda I post this post?

1, is for discussion.

2, is I concern about the DNA and platform of SLT being biasedly distorted. When that happen, we cannot restore SLT and we cannot turn on the Enginee. and all our training go down to drain and become useless. So, here I present a different view quoting the Red Boat Era kuen kuit. I can be wrong however at least we have another view and different perspectives.


Hope that with the above 2 more kuen kuits, one can see more into SLT in 1800's. and remember, the sequence of the training process is that the internal archemy has to be done before the power generation cultivation.......Enjoy.

[reneritchie]

Yuen Kay-San used Wing Chun.

I believe there was also a story from Foshan that, following Chan Wah-Shun's death, and argument ensued between his students with most of them maintaining that Wing Chun was the character set for their art, but Chan Yiu-Min maintaining that Weng Chun were the correct characters.

Literacy was not always high in China, however, Yuen Kay-San, Ng Chung-So, Yip Man, and others were wealthy and had education, and were probably very knowledgeable about which character they used for their systems.

Likewise, with Leung Jan being an apothecary, he probably had an idea as well.

Rgds,

[Jim Roselando]

HS,


Yip Man's teachers and grandteachers all called their art "Wing" Chun!

Leung Jan called his stuff Wing in Futshan and Koo Lo.

99% of his students in Futshan call their stuff Wing. The only ones calling it Weng are the ones who trained in some Weng and or combined some Weng into their Wing.

Yuen Kay San's lineage, another one from Wong Wah Bo, called his stuff Wing even tho he did do some training with Fung Siu Ching the Weng guy.

Yik Kam called their stuff Wing.


Leung Jan first set was called "Siu Lin Tau"!

Yuen Kay San first set was called "Siu Lin Tau"!

Yik Kam first set was called "Siu Lin Tau"!


My big question about the modern "Weng" that was on the Red Boat coming thru Dai Fa Min Kam is what was combined into their Weng to create the Som Bai Fut based art versus the San Chin based art of most Weng?


Regards,

[Phil Redmond]

I'm not much of a Wing Chun historian as some here are but when you say,
Yik Kam's presentation from the red boat era, do you mean there is a written document for this? If so, where can it be found?
Phil

[Hendrik]

I'm not much of a Wing Chun historian as some here are but when you say,
Yik Kam's presentation from the red boat era, do you mean there is a written document for this? If so, where can it be found?
Phil


One dont need to be a historian.

One who found the SLT kuen Kuit, one found it. It was a documentation writting about how the art transmitted within the Kuen kuit. When the kuen kuit was copied to the next generation, it always add in another name. IE: Phil passed to June, June passed to John....etc

The one I have seen updated to my late Sigung Cho On and Cho Chun. The next copied will be update to Cho hong Choy....etc

[Hendrik]

Yuen Kay-San used Wing Chun.

I believe there was also a story from Foshan that, following Chan Wah-Shun's death, and argument ensued between his students with most of them maintaining that Wing Chun was the character set for their art, but Chan Yiu-Min maintaining that Weng Chun were the correct characters.

Literacy was not always high in China, however, Yuen Kay-San, Ng Chung-So, Yip Man, and others were wealthy and had education, and were probably very knowledgeable about which character they used for their systems.

Likewise, with Leung Jan being an apothecary, he probably had an idea as well.

Rgds,


Rene,

Yik Kam was literate. He used Wing. As he called his art "Ban Chung Wing Chun Kuen" or Wing Chun kuen from the Opera House.

[reneritchie]

Hendrik is being far to modest again.

Let's just say we're all lucky to have a KFO source who inherited the writings of Yik Kam, and who has kindly shared some with us, and much with the other Yik Kam descendants in the world.

[Hendrik]

Hendrik is being far to modest again.

Let's just say we're all lucky to have a KFO source who inherited the writings of Yik Kam, and who has kindly shared some with us, and much with the other Yik Kam descendants in the world.


A thought to share,


Eventhought I am a buddhist,

This is a guy
http://www.padrepio.net/
I bow and respect whole heartedly, a humble model similar to late Chan patriach Ven. Hsuan Hua who taugh about compassionate and loving kindness.


So, I am still far away compare with these great people who had done great job.




Yik Kam Kuen Kuit is a tool.
and we can use it to make war, to make power, to make fame, to make money. However, I decide to make peace and hope and empowerment and set one free with it. It is not for sale but it is free for peace and hope and honesty.



St. Padre Pio above is called a man of hope. Hope is Spring. Love is spring. Praise the Spring is about praise Love or Praise Hope. Peace is about Living in Now. Eternal is about Living in Now. one can fuse the Eternal and Spring with the bridge of Love and Hope and peace.

One doesnt have to be a top fighters to be cruel cold sadistics and evil. Infact Love and hope open up one's horizon of perspective, peace help one to live in now. These all are qualities upgrading oneself --- to be much broader and much down to earth. our next hundred years might call for these qualities..IMHHHO

[Firehawk4]

Wong Kiew Kitt said there was a hall called the Weng Chun Dim or Din that a art called Flower kung Fu was practiced in this art is called Hua Quan and is supposed to have been practiced in the Weng Chun Dim or Din . Maybe this is where Weng Chun was developed in the Shaolin Temple the Southern Shaolin Temple , The Hua Quan Art is a Southern version of the Hua Quan Art or Flower Kung Fu .

[CFT]

In this KFM thread: http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?t=38689

Tony Jacobs posts a link to another discussion thread: http://hfy108.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=1388

Which in turn links to an interview with Chan Gwok Gei (http://www.sc168.com/file/sdnews/sdnews/200411090028.htm), the great grandson of Chan Wah Shun. The character used is "Weng".

[canglong]

With regards to the Yim Wing Chun element of the legend, consider once more the relevance of secret rebel societies. `Yim' can be translated to mean `prohibit' or `secret.' The term `Wing Chun' referred to a geographic location - the Siu Lam Wing Chun Tong (Always Spring Hall), where the rebels perhaps practiced martial arts and orchestrated their seditious activities. The use of the term Spring symbolized the rebirth of the Ming Dynasty and Always referred to the reestablished dynasty lasting forever. After the destruction of the Southern Shaolin temple and its Wing Chun Tong, the survivors changed the character of Wing from Always to Praise. The term Praise referred to the fact that the revolutionaries had to spread the word about the revolution after the destruction of their base. Thus, `Yim Wing Chun' was actually a codename, meaning (protect) the secret art of the Wing Chun Hall.
---VTM research team The finding of the Ving Tsun Museum on why the character Weng was changed to Wing....

[reneritchie]

Adding roots to characters was not unknown in Guangdong. The Taiping added all sorts of roots to different characters to change their meaning in a positive or nagative or merely proprietary manner.

Others have suggested you can take apart the Wing Chun characters to their componants, thus rendering:

Speak Always of Great Heaven Day (Yan Weng Tai Tien Yat)

Pao Fa Lien that it came from the first two characters and last character of:

[Speak Always] with Determination; Never Forget the Han Nation; Again will Return [Spring]

There are lots of interesting stories out there.

[Hendrik]

Adding roots to characters was not unknown in Guangdong. The Taiping added all sorts of roots to different characters to change their meaning in a positive or nagative or merely proprietary manner.

Others have suggested you can take apart the Wing Chun characters to their componants, thus rendering:

Speak Always of Great Heaven Day (Yan Weng Tai Tien Yat)

Pao Fa Lien that it came from the first two characters and last character of:

[Speak Always] with Determination; Never Forget the Han Nation; Again will Return [Spring]

There are lots of interesting stories out there.


Rene,

IMHHO, Chinese from different area has thier "reserve word" which they love to use.

"Weng" is kind of reserve word for the Fujian people in the old time. When the Fujianese open stores.... etc they use "weng" this or "weng" that.

Cantonese doesnt use "weng" that much. so seeing "weng" character people will have a tendency of leading to "fujian " related.

Now, Red boat is in Canton, futsan is in Canton, and so, it is not common for Cantonese to use the Fujianese reserve word. So, I think we need to take this into account since the Cantonese and Fujianese are tribal and competators instead of a big happy family.



just some thoughts

[Hendrik]

Adding roots to characters was not unknown in Guangdong. The Taiping added all sorts of roots to different characters to change their meaning in a positive or nagative or merely proprietary manner.

Others have suggested you can take apart the Wing Chun characters to their componants, thus rendering:

Speak Always of Great Heaven Day (Yan Weng Tai Tien Yat)

Pao Fa Lien that it came from the first two characters and last character of:

[Speak Always] with Determination; Never Forget the Han Nation; Again will Return [Spring]

There are lots of interesting stories out there.


Rene,

all is true, the Yik Kam has the full set of stanza and salutation as the Tien Tee hui stuffs too.

However, a question needs to be reallly really look into.
IMHO,
the creation of the Art is not equal to the gang or group the practitional join in.
We cannot make that equal sign. and we cannot make a relationship link without any solid data.




It is similar to the Japanese used the Winchester fire arm is not equal to Japanese made Winchester, as in the Movie the last samurai.

So, are we searching about who build Winchester or who use winchester.


Just some thoughts.

[omarthefish]

Yesterday, some one told me he had heard that GM Yip Man is the first one to use the word Wing (praise) Chun and before Yip Man everyone is using the term Weng Chun before that.



The word "wing" has nothing to do with "praise". What are you trying to say?

Actually, without at least one representation of the Chinese characters this whole discussion is meaningless and smells a bit of.....nevermind.

Weng....Wing..........whatever. They are all just vague attempts at romanization of a Cantonese word. "Weng" and "Wing" could be exactly the same thing. Without a pic or someone who can type the characters onto the thread, there is no way to even hold the discussion.

I've seen it (Wing) in print only 2 ways. One with the mouth radical 口 on the side:咏 and one without: 永. Neither one of these means "praise" or "secret" and it is kind of hard to see what the other version is supposed to mean since "Wing Chun" is hard to separate into separate words. "Chun" meaning "springtime" and "Wing" meaning "eternal". The alternate "spelling" with the mouth radical is a strange one as it only represents a sound like a chant or something so it doesn't pair well with "springtime". "Eternal Springtime" is the standard modern name and is a girls name with some really nice associations and can be construed to be code for something else like "rebellion" or "rebirth and renewal" and so on.

I'd really like to see what this supposed other "spelling" for WC is as I have never heard that before and that would be interesting if true. Is "weng" supposed to represent the version with the little mouth on the side?

Renerichie posted some really interesting stuff though and explains the alternate "spelling" just referred that never made sense to me before. I love that kind fo code:

Speak Always of Great Heaven Day (Yan Weng Tai Tien Yat)

If I may add a visual:

Wing Chun:
咏春

Speak 口 always 永 [of great]heaven 大天 day 日

I had a hard time figuring out "great heaven" because the 大 and the 天 are overlapping in the character "spring" 春.

[CFT]

Your wing is the simplified (and ancient) version of 詠

It means recite, chant, sing ....

詠嘆 means sigh in admiration - praise?

[reneritchie]

The traditional root (Yan) represents 'words coming from the mouth' or 'speak', the simplified just uses 'Mouth' for the root, and once in a rare while I've seen the simplified Yan radical as well.

[Phil Redmond]

The word "wing" has nothing to do with "praise". What are you trying to say? . . .
Some Chinese characters are a composite of two characters. In other word a main character will have a radical added to it. Like the charater, fuhk is a composite (sp)? of two characters. It represents a man standing over a dog.
If you look at one version of "Wing" it'll have the radical "gong", which means to speak, praise, recite, etc. One version only has the character "Wing" (forever) without the radical
Phil

[omarthefish]

Your wing is the simplfied (and ancient) version of Ô�

It means recite, chant, sing ....

Ô�‡@ means sigh in admiration - praise?

Thanks. That works. Are you saying that in this case though the simplified version is actually a return to an older version than what is used as "traditional" in Hong Kong and Taiwan? Because with the "yan" radical attatched the . . .nevermind. I just realized either "yan" or kou both work for "Speak".

btw,

If you look at one version of "Wing" it'll have the radical "gong", which means to speak, praise, recite, etc

is "gong" Cantonese for ¿Ú£¿

I'm having a slight difficulty following this clearly because of the Cantonese pronounciations being used. Traditional characters are no problem for me. I just can't type them on my computer but it's always a guessing game for me to know what you mean by your romanizations of Cantonese pronounciations.

[Phil Redmond]

Yale Cantonese is widely used in books and dictionaries for Standard Cantonese. Developed by Parker Po-fei Huang and Gerald P. Kok, it shares some similarities with Hanyu Pinyin in that unvoiced, unaspirated consonants are represented by letters traditionally used in English and other European languages to represent voiced sounds. For example, [p] is represented as b in Yale, whereas its aspirated counterpart, [pʰ] is represented as p. Because of this and other factors, Yale romanization is usually held to be easy for American English speakers to pronounce without much training. this is what I learned on college. Yes gong in Cantonese means to speak. I don't speak Mandarin, only Cantonese, some Toishan and I'm learning Chiu Jiao and Haak Ga now.
Phil

[Phil Redmond]

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/cantonese.htm
Phil

[CFT]

The "yin" radical is 言. In putonghua pinyin this is "yan" (as romanized by Rene).

The "hou" (mouth) radical is 口. In pinyin this is "kou" as you have stated.

I think the "gong" that Phil was refering to is 講. It is not a radical but a full character and is typically used by the Cantonese to refer to talking/conversation, e.g. 講話 instead of 說話 which is a more literary way of saying the same thing.

I tend to find that Cantonese is more colloquial whereas putonghua speakers use the language a bit more like how it is written formally; although you'll see alot of colloquiallism in HK popular press, magazines, etc.

[canglong]

originally posted by hendrik
Yesterday, some one told me he had heard that...Omar,
this thread was doomed from the start with an opening statement such as this one.

[omarthefish]

That's what I thought but then later a few interesting things actually came up and I learned a thing or two.

This however:


If you look at one version of "Wing" it'll have the radical "gong", which means to speak, praise, recite, etc.

...is confusing.

So it's not a "gong" radical at all. The word gong (jiang in madarin) is not the one at the side of the character wing/yong. The radical either yin/yan or hou/kou is.

Thanks for the lin Phil but I am not going to go and learn a whole new romanization structure just for the sake of the once every 6 months or so language discussion I have with English only speakers using Cantonese pronunciations. Clear communication with native speakers as the written language is pretty much the same. Even the term ÖvÔ’ is perfectly common here in Northwest China. Trust me, the spoken language is no more formal in Shaanxi than it is in Guandong. We have a local dialect here too that is every bit as colorfull and filled with words not found in the dictionary. We just don't have a movie and music industry around to popularize our slang.

Whenever possible I still like to see the characters because even with a romanization as perfectly accurate as pinyin, complete with tonal inflections and all, there are so many homynymns that it is still often not clear. Take the example we were just talking about, the two "spellings" for "Wing Chun". In Mandarin Chinese, wether you use the one with the "word" radical, the "mouth" radical or with no radical at all on the side, the pronounciation of all 3 versions is identical.

[Phil Redmond]

The "yin" radical is 言. In putonghua pinyin this is "yan" (as romanized by Rene).

The "hou" (mouth) radical is 口. In pinyin this is "kou" as you have stated.

I think the "gong" that Phil was refering to is 講. It is not a radical but a full character and is typically used by the Cantonese to refer to talking/conversation, e.g. 講話 instead of 說話 which is a more literary way of saying the same thing.

I tend to find that Cantonese is more colloquial whereas putonghua speakers use the language a bit more like how it is written formally; although you'll see alot of colloquiallism in HK popular press, magazines, etc.
Hi CFT, I know you're a native Chinese speaker but, the 7 stroke character that some use to the left of the character Wing is only part of the FULL character for gong and is not the FULL character for the Cantonese word gong. It is in fact the radical for the whole character gong.
Phil

[Phil Redmond]

Gong1 (http://www.sifupr.com/pics/gong1.JPG)

Gong2 (http://www.sifupr.com/pics/gong2.JPG)

Phil

[omarthefish]

3 things.

1. I think you meant to the left of the character. If not, say so but ÓÀ is the "wing" part AFAIK.

2. The links you provided both show ½² (sorry, no traditional input method on my computer) as a complete character, not a radical. So your pics seem to support CFT's view.

3. In the future, as a common courtesty, please reduce pictures to no more than 800 pixels wide or they take forever to load and are dificult to view as they require horizontal scrolling to see the whole thing or sometimes even just the part that's important. Most photo management software includes a funtion somewhere do this automatically.

Aw...what the heck....

4. What IME do you need to get traditional characters? It has always bothered me I could never find it. I've got EN and CN for English and Chines. I tried ZH for "Hong Kong - Special disctrict" but it still comes out English. I tried the "Chinese - Taiwan" but it doesn't seem to accept pinyin in favor of something like wu bi or some other system I don't recognize. Frustrating.

[Phil Redmond]

3 things.

1. I think you meant to the left of the character. If not, say so but ÓÀ is the "wing" part AFAIK.

2. The links you provided both show ½² (sorry, no traditional input method on my computer) as a complete character, not a radical. So your pics seem to support CFT's view.

3. In the future, as a common courtesty, please reduce pictures to no more than 800 pixels wide or they take forever to load and are dificult to view as they require horizontal scrolling to see the whole thing or sometimes even just the part that's important. Most photo management software includes a funtion somewhere do this automatically.

Aw...what the heck....

4. What IME do you need to get traditional characters? It has always bothered me I could never find it. I've got EN and CN for English and Chines. I tried ZH for "Hong Kong - Special disctrict" but it still comes out English. I tried the "Chinese - Taiwan" but it doesn't seem to accept pinyin in favor of something like wu bi or some other system I don't recognize. Frustrating.
There seems to be a communication problem between us. The character for gong that I sent is a complete character. But if you'll notice that to the left of the COMPLETE character is the same character used in Wing. That is what I was talking about
CFT was saying that the character to the left was the complete character for gong in Cantonese. As you can see it is not. As far as the picture goes my computer skills are obviously not as good as yours. I did the best I could do with my limited computer skills.
Phil

[omarthefish]

oh....

That was indeed hard to follow.

And yes, your web-fu is weak.

[CFT]

Eh? Talk about mixed up!

I thought that I said "gong" was a full character - just as you posted Phil.

The "yin"/"yan" radical to the left of the "gong" character is the same as the one in "wing" (praise, chant, recite, etc) - i.e. "wing" = "yin" + "weng"(eternal char.)

I thought that you were saying that the "yin" radical was pronounced "gong", but obviously you know your radicals from your chraracters. Gets messy this Internet chit-chat! ;)

[Phil Redmond]

oh....

That was indeed hard to follow.

And yes, your web-fu is weak.
Yes Master, my web fu is weaK . . LOL. I'm learning as I go and thanks for the tip. I'm going to ask some one how to re-size pics. Is there anything in widows that can do it or do I have to buy a program?
Phil

[Phil Redmond]

Eh? Talk about mixed up!

I thought that I said "gong" was a full character - just as you posted Phil.

The "yin"/"yan" radical to the left of the "gong" character is the same as the one in "wing" (praise, chant, recite, etc) - i.e. "wing" = "yin" + "weng"(eternal char.)

I thought that you were saying that the "yin" radical was pronounced "gong", but obviously you know your radicals from your chraracters. Gets messy this Internet chit-chat! ;)
Yes, I know it can. I've always appreciated the help you've given me in the past regarding Chinese characters. I'm quite illiterate in Chinese since I can only speak ;)
Phil

[omarthefish]

Yes Master, my web fu is weaK . . LOL. I'm learning as I go and thanks for the tip. I'm going to ask some one how to re-size pics. Is there anything in widows that can do it or do I have to by a program?
Phil

Picasa2

http://picasa.google.com/index.html

It's the photoshop for dummies. I find it invaluable. It's also free. It creates a nive easily browsable database for all your pics and videos and allows you to do most of what everyone not involved with graphic design normally needs photoshop for like cropping, optimizing for the web, adjusting contrast fixing red eye, but it's a small program, loads quickly, much easier to use.

It lets you go file--->export to folder. and voila! It sends the pics you have selected to the folder of your choice all nicely converted to .jpg and resized to whatever size you want OR left in their original size. It's free and extremely user friendly.

Did I say that it's free?

[Phil Redmond]

Picasa2

http://picasa.google.com/index.html

It's the photoshop for dummies. I find it invaluable. It's also free. It creates a nive easily browsable database for all your pics and videos and allows you to do most of what everyone not involved with graphic design normally needs photoshop for like cropping, optimizing for the web, adjusting contrast fixing red eye, but it's a small program, loads quickly, much easier to use.

It lets you go file--->export to folder. and voila! It sends the pics you have selected to the folder of your choice all nicely converted to .jpg and resized to whatever size you want OR left in their original size. It's free and extremely user friendly.

Did I say that it's free?
Who u callin' dummy Omar?. . . .:D
One of my favorite word is free. I really appreciate the help, thanks.
Phil

[Phil Redmond]

Eh? Talk about mixed up!

I thought that I said "gong" was a full character - just as you posted Phil.

The "yin"/"yan" radical to the left of the "gong" character is the same as the one in "wing" (praise, chant, recite, etc) - i.e. "wing" = "yin" + "weng"(eternal char.)

I thought that you were saying that the "yin" radical was pronounced "gong", but obviously you know your radicals from your chraracters. Gets messy this Internet chit-chat! ;)
Hi Chee, The computer I was using didn't show Chinese characters. I just viewed your post on my coumputer and saw that character gong you posted "was" complete, just like the one I posted. Since I couldn't see the character I presumed you were just talking about the left side of the character. My bad:(
Phil

[CFT]

No problems Phil. I try to help when I can on the Cantonese side of things since I don't feel I have much to offer on the proper technical discussion of WCK.

[Phil Redmond]

No problems Phil. I try to help when I can on the Cantonese side of things since I don't feel I have much to offer on the proper technical discussion of WCK.
Technical, shpecnical. We can all learn from each other. ;)
Phil