Pure Wing Chun

Nowadays the thing to do would be to go online if you want to research virtually anything… the wonder of internet and www!

I would like to make an analogy. The illegal drug dealer will always point out to a prospective buyer that his “stuff” is the purest available on the scene. He would even let the prospective buyer “check it out”. Unfortunately, illegal drugs being illegal, we are unable to check them out online, or can we? Amazingly enough, we can indeed! I minimized this page and searched drugs on google and spent the next half hour reading the most amazing information on drugs: the history, side-effects, etc.

What I would like to write about is Wing Chun (phonetic reproduction of Cantonese which could mean “beautiful springtime” or “eternal springtime”) - the fastest growing martial art in the world today. It has grown from one known “master” to hundreds of thousands of them in roughly sixty years. Although I don’t consider myself a master, I find myself included in the list. Moreover, there are some names on that list that I would rather not be associated with.

What should a prospective practitioner do? It would be confusing for anyone, to say the least. I typed “pure Wing Chun” on google and then clicked on search and I got no less than fourteen pages worth of schools, masters and books. Each school professed to have the real or the true original version, each master was the best and some had secretly been taught by some grand master and others by even grander masters. The question now arises, does pure Wing Chun exist? Without wanting to sound disrespectful, did Yip Man learn the real thing? How is it that his students all preach different things? Did he secretly teach anyone? Did he save the “real stuff” for his sons? Did he have a “best” or “favorite” student? These are just some of the questions that pop up in my head and here is another one…How is anyone going to find out where genuine Wing Chun can be found?

In my seminars and workshops, I ask everyone attending to listen and not believe anything without thinking first and deciding whether or not what I say make sense. I also point out that it is not a question of believing rather than one of agreeing or disagreeing with what is said.

Another important thing is that among all the people who have learnt from me, there are no two that are alike. Likewise, among all the people who learnt from my sifu, there are no two that are alike. One could say that we all learnt the same language but we all have different hand writing or speak in a different style. But despite all that, there are also different interpretations of what has been learnt. Many people come from previous martial arts background and come into Wing Chun with a “preset” programming. Other “personal” preset programming also plays an influencing part in the formation of each individual. By this I mean religion, tradition, education and upbringing. This will inevitably give rise to the dreaded “I’m right, he’s wrong” syndrome which in turn causes political rife.

How can a potential future practitioner decipher and select from whom to learn? Many have had to go through years of learning from the “wrong” teacher before finding the “right “one. The old cliché “when the student is ready, the teacher appears” must have come from the “student searches right master” syndrome. Then again, when moving from the “wrong teacher” to the “right teacher”, the influence from the previous learning will affect the new programming thus complicating things even further. My own experience is that often when I look for something, I don’t find it. The moment I stop looking for it, it appears.

I believe that this also applies during chisao. When I want to execute a technique it doesn’t happen and when I’m not thinking about it, it happens. Is the secret then to not think about it? The thing to do would be to study and experiment till enough skill is developed to be able to “set up the ideal situation” to enable the execution of the desired technique.

Another point is to see what is actually being shown and to hear what is being said rather than to see what you think you see and hear what you think you hear. This often occurs when learning. When information is regurgitated, it often comes out “different” and so do techniques. I believe that information should be clearly understood and techniques personalized. This way, students have the space for their own geniuses to develop rather than become clones of the teacher.

When I teach, I want the student to understand how I was taught and how I now interpret what I learnt. My sifu often highlighted how he disagreed with some of his sifu’s teachings. I used to find that a little disrespectful but today I know that he was not at all disrespectful, he was simply making certain important points clear for the students. In so doing, he set a precedence which influenced me to tell my students not to believe but to listen carefully before taking the decision to agree or disagree.

So, to finish my analogy of Wing Chun and drugs, the dealer will always say that his is the purest available. The Wing Chun dealer will do the same. Anyone in search of “pure” Wing Chun will have to research and try out very carefully.