Self Teaching Wing Chun..

[Mr Punch]

If you've got a good Hsing Yi school, I'd just stick with that myself. Great style.

And try and find an open mat/some folks willing to roll full-on and safely nearby.

[YungChun]

Sent some info..

Check your PMs..

[A Soave]

Since there are no Wing Chun schools with in 60 miles of where I live I am trying to learn through books,dvds and some help from freinds. Does anybody have some advice that will help me progress??

Thank You

Much as the previous posters, I concur. As a matter of fact, if there was a way to learn DIY or without instructors, I would have found it. But the Sifu's are so essential to fine tune, correct, and essentially provide you with the knowledge they have that you don't have, it seems an impossibility to me. I also agree with the posters who assert that you might just have to drive - one guy drove over 120 miles, one way, 2-3 times weekly for several years. I think a more pragmatic approach would be to find another teacher in a related form, with an excellent reputation and go with that. I'd like to box, learn muay thai, BJJ, etc.

Hope this is a little helpful

A.S.

[southernkf]

Since there are no Wing Chun schools with in 60 miles of where I live I am trying to learn through books,dvds and some help from freinds. Does anybody have some advice that will help me progress??

Thank You

I'll add my two cents.

What is it you want to learn? What is it you think wing chun is?

I would say there is absoultly NO way to learn wing chun(maybe any art?) from a book. I am sorry if that isn't what you want to learn. But all isn't lost. What you can do is become familiar with wing chun from books and videos. Though, you will no doubt misunderstand things and pickup bad habits. You can find the closest wing chun teacher in your area even if he is far away. Try to train with them as often as you can, then practice what you learn until the next time.

The problem with this is wing chun is about acting to stimulus, at least in part. Without a partner you wont ever feel this and solo training wont train it.

I agree with an earlier comment, if you can't find a wing chun teacher, find another school. Perhaps you have a good or even great teacher in your area from a different area. I would prefer to learn from a great non-wing chun teacher over a crappy wing chun teacher any day.

Martial arts is partly about sacrifice or atleast dedication. The often road isn't easy or convenient. If your serious about training you will find a way.

Tom

[SAAMAG]

Just to be the devils advocate here...how many of you believe that some of your great grandmaster founders were all learnt by someone else? I've heard things here and there that some of the great fighters of old were self taught.

Highly unlikely to gain a high level of skill, but not impossible to gain a useable amount. Just won't be wing chun--just wing chun-esque.

[southernkf]

Just to be the devils advocate here...how many of you believe that some of your great grandmaster founders were all learnt by someone else? I've heard things here and there that some of the great fighters of old were self taught.

Highly unlikely to gain a high level of skill, but not impossible to gain a useable amount. Just won't be wing chun--just wing chun-esque.

HI,

I don't believe fighting and martial arts are unnecessarily the same thing. Funny comment, huh? Fighting is something that one can naturally do and may not have anything to do with martial arts. So great fighters can "teach" themselves. Some people know how to be aggressive and deliver solid shots while being able to take them. Martial Arts is more about gaining the skills to hopefully be a better fighter. Not every one makes it. Wing Chun is a skill that seems to me to have been designed in the past and honed over the years by various personalities. Can you figure this out yourself? Probably. Just the same as enough monkeys can get around to typing a great, or even not so great, novel.

Choreography and some ideas, principles, techniques, and other items can be taught in a book. But receiving energy, rooting, dissipating, yielding, sensitivity, etc cannot, right? Or can they? If you take the same book, one with substance, and pass it around to people with various degrees of knowledge of the art, I think they will all understand that book to different degrees. So how would someone without knowledge of the art fair without guidance other than the book itself?

I wish I was like Chan Wah Shun or someone who could learn a art by just waching through a peep hole.

[White Crane]

Er....Move out of the boonies.