WingTsun
WingTsun
" If it meets the principles is
Wing Tsun..."
Yip Man
Styles within a style
A few days ago, thanks to the curious world of the Internet, I read on the blog of a well-known Wing Chun Sifu, an interesting article about verbal incontinence of many Wing Chun practitioners that, on observing the practice style of someone who is different from theirs shamelessly affirm: " That is not Wing Chun ". Definitely, at some stage of our lives, we all have been tempted to comment or " judge " the work of others by comparing the outer aspect of what they do without looking any further. It is a very serious mistake that, in my opinion, entails a constant source of tension and arguments in Martial Arts in general and in WingTsun in particular.
In a system like ours, in which the learning method has undergone major changes in recent years, coupled with its very nature that strongly emphasizes the personal feelings, it is not uncommon to find different forms of " DOING ". Different STYLES within the STYLE. This is certainly one of the most important features of WingTsun. On the one hand, less advanced practitioners with a lower criteria at technical level, dare to say, " that ' s not WingTsun ". I imagine that you, reader of this publication of Martial Arts, regardless of the style you practice, will find this familiar... Evidently, we pose this question to try to clarify the issue and, at the same time, to " unite " instead of " separate ". Being able to say whether something is or is not WingTsun, requires that we look back and review the history of the style. On this subject I ' d like to refer to the Master of Masters: Yip Man.
He was one of those who had to cope with similar situations in the time in which he had to live. Finally, you come to understand that history swings from side to side, like a pendulum... and that facts related to humans beings are repeated in a cyclical fashion. Yip Man was an peculiar case in the tradition of WingTsun. He had TWO Teachers: Chan Wah-Sum and Leung Bik. This fact, which at first seems of no relevance, absolutely changed GM Yip Man ' s way of practicing and understanding WingTsun and the evolution of the system. They say that when Yip Man first met GM Leung Bik, in an almost fortuituous way, he hardly recognized him as a practitioner of his own system. Yes, it is surprising!! Asked by his style, GM Leung Bik responded it was Wing Tsun, and Yip Man, who claimed he practiced WingTsun, couldn ' t believe it, astonished by the " aesthetics " of Master Leung Bik ' s workout. They were absolutely DIFFERENT things! The question that I dare to launch today is: How could a style be so different between two students of the same teacher?