Not sure who else here visits the Underground forum but for those of you missing it, Sifu Ross has opened a jkd Pandora's box over there, and bless his furry little self, has the jkd population in quite a dither. David if you're reading this - inspired stuff mate!

In amongst it all, he raised some interesting points about Yip Man - his frail health, his "distractions" shall we say, that supposedly curtailed his teaching abilities.

Now - I know very little about wing chun and I have no desire to start more $hit here. But these thoughts crossed my mind in reading Sifu Ross's arguments.

If much of the wing chun we see comes to us through the Yip Man lineage (certainly seems to be a point of some prestige for a wing chun person), and Yip Man perhaps wasn't as capable a teacher as he could have been, and his students perhaps were not taught as completely as they might have been, before they themselves began spreading the word, then what is the true state of wing chun as most of us know it today?

I have visions of Japanese karate - a highly watered down misunderstood facsimilie of something else that has become shackled to tradition and ritual, and which has little bearing on either self defense or fighting. Of course, we could probably apply that statement to a lot of TCMA's too - but it was the wing chun example that grabbed me after reading Sifu Ross's post.

So - knowledgeable and open minded friends, I would love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks

Jim