Bruce Lee's mother art: Wing Chun

[Toby]

Originally posted by KWUsCRD
I'm not sure what TTT stands for, so thank you.

To the top. AKA *bump*. AKA "Keep this thread current so everyone can see it easily".

[Nick Forrer]

I think that this is possibly the best article on wing chun i have read to date

[jmdrake]

Hello all,

I read this article several years ago when it was first published. While it is indeed a good article, there are a couple of instances where I take exception. For instance:

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When Bruce broke away from wing chun and his classical Jun Fan system, he pursued his own non-classical, personal style. Because Bruce studied wing chun so long, he made his tools into a wing chun product, which is why I say his students don't have his tools and attributes. To wing chun people, we feel that Bruce is not complete. Wing chun stresses ambidexterity, where as in Bruce's art, it favors the lead hand.
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As Hawkins Cheung correctly surmized much of JKD is about controlling distance. Usually in fighting arts where you are trying to control distance you establish some kind of "lead". Boxers "lead with the jab". JKD leads power side forward. But that doesn't mean the other side is ignored.

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Bruce's students are also approaching his art in the wrong manner. Jeet kune do was supposed to be non-classical, but now it has become classical. The practitioners fear to create and would rather obey the dictates of the style. Take the finger jab that Bruce taught. Bruce's students don't have the practical application. if it hasn't been developed or used in application, it is useless. Wing chun backs up its practical application with its sticking hands exercise and uses the partner as a dummy. You have to test your application in practice. I feel that jeet kune do is stepping backward, because of the lack of feel in fighting.
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Every Bruce Lee student I've ever trained with advocates chi-sao. (Admittedly that's only 4). I don't see how that's different from "Wing chun backs up its practical application with its sticking hands exercise and uses the partner as a dummy." And yes there are JKD practitioners these days who have abandoned chi-sao, but most of them have also abandoned the finger jab and trapping as well. Also the I don't think chi sao or "using partners as dummies" is the ultimate way to test things. Ultimately you need to try things out in the most realistic way possible (i.e. sparring) before you know that you can make it work.

Regards,

John M. Drake

[curtis]

Hi guys
I found a writeing from Jesse Glover that sorta takes a different look at how and why Bruce did things.(how much wingchun he knew...)


I do feel that Boxing,Wing Chun and fencing share a lot of the same lines. I also feel that the way that a person views Bruce's stuff depends on how they regard the Wing Chun system. If Wing Chun is considered a close system then Bruce Clearly went beyond it. If on the other hand Wing Chun is considered an open ended system that is subject to change then what Bruce do could be viewed as an extention of Wing Chun. Cleraly Wong Shun Leung looked at what Bruce did this way when he said that when he worked out later with Bruce in Hong Kong that he didn't see any Jeeet Kune Do only Wing Chun. One thing about Bruce that most people don't know is that he seldom let people know where he was in terms of his development. Whenever he revealed something usually he was already way beyond it.
I can't speak for Bruce but for me it always seemed that Wing Chun was at the core of what he did. I know that this true for what I do
Jesse Glover

Ive read Jesse's book, and I like his understanding of why and how bruce changed things.
It somehow offends me whin I hear a wingchun man put Bruce down because he did or did not know something.
I belive WingChun was his starting point, but he clearly went beyond where most M/A go.
Its to bad,he never finished his quest.

[Vash]

ttt