Re: Wing Chun, Yip Man and Sifu Ross
I'm not sure what David Ross's beef is with Bruce Lee or Yip Man.
He studied with neither gentleman, nor apparently has he trained in Wing Chun. Perhaps the Lama guys had a thing against Wing Chun, who knows?
Did Yip Man have an opium habit towards the end of his life? Yes.
Did Yip Man bring Wing Chun to the public eye in HK? Yes.
Did Yip Man have a core group of students he taught the system to LONG before William Cheung or Leung Ting were around?
Sure. Leung Sheung, Lok Yiu, Chu Shong Tin, Yip Bo Ching, Wong Shun Leung
Did Wing Chun gain popularity in HK it's challenge matches? Yes.
As Yip Man became famous in HK, did he have a lack of interest in teaching teenagers either one on one or in class? Yep.
Did Wing Chun gain international popularity due to Bruce Lee being a former student? Sure enough.
Is Wing Chun one of the largest and most popular TCMA? Yep.
Did Bruce Lee have a lot of students with either extensive Boxing, Streetfighting or Kenpo experience before becoming his students? Yes.
Jesse Glover
James DeMile
Ed Hart
Dan Inosantos
Larry Hartsell
One has to wonder WHY guys like this who were physically larger and stronger than Lee would have become his students and stayed with him--if he had nothing to offer. The same goes for Chuck Norris, Joe Lewis, and Mike Stone.
Has there been a lot of "diefication" of Bruce Lee and JKD? Sure.
Was Bruce Lee's training in Wing Chun incomplete? Of Course!
But as one can see, a lot of this can be said in a way that doesn't sound petty envious or disrespectful. Why be a player hater?
That said, what are Mr Ross's contributions to either Wing Chun OR JKD? Other than sideline sour grapes?
Guys like Matt Thorton or Tommy Carruthers are keeping JKD alive in their active approach of training and doing.
Both Yip Man and his former student Bruce Lee did a tremendous amount of good in terms of general exposure to Chinese Martial arts literally around the world. In the end they were both only human and had their own personal mental and physical frailties.
Even with those, they have influenced and brought awareness to millions of people about martial arts in general. And each had their core set of students with amazing talent and martial skill. Pretty amazing things for two "skinny little" chinese guys.
Perhaps that just eats at the insides of Mr Ross--at this point who cares?
Why spit on two dead men's graves, jealous of their place in history, and what they did and didn't do with their lives?
Originally posted by jimbob
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
David Williams
http://www.wingchun.com
Kim sut, Lok ma, Ting yu, Dung tao, Mai jiang