Everybody was Kung Fu fightin’

Dec 27, 2002
Johan Svensson

I’ve been talking quite a bit with Breki about Wing Chun, a martial art that he recommended, since he’s going to start training it this spring. I’m seriously considering joining him. It seems to be pretty much what I’m looking for: it’s based almost entirely on speed and dexterity, not strength. It’s equally offensive and defensive, with the following meme:

Wing Chun is a counter fighting system. Ninety-five percent of Wing Chun hand techniques are countering applications. Only five percent of the system can be used offensively and then in only the direst situations. The system is heavily influenced by the Buddhist founders and lacks offensive opening moves. In Wing Chun, defense is the offense.

In other words, Wing Chun isn’t about starting fights, it’s about ending them. Making the last blow is better than making the first.

But I’m not interested in beating the crap out of people. As mentioned in a previous post, I’m mainly interested in improving my physical condition. Going to the gym would probably bore me very quickly, and I’ve never been the kind of guy who would enjoy running around on a lawn chasing an inflated pig stomach. A martial art, however, sounds more fun. The philosophy intrigues me.

Historically, it’s 2-300 years old, depending on what sources you read — here’s one, for starters. Wing Chun was, supposedly, the martial art that Bruce Lee started with.

Update: here is a video (3,0Mb, now hosted locally) showing Wing Chun sparring against a dummy. Looks very swift and fluid. Yup, I might like training this.

3 Comments

3 Responses

  1. Tomas says:
    December 27, 2002 at 21:10

    I practiced Wing Tsun for a couple of years myself, note the different spelling. Wing Tsun is, regardless of what Wing Chun-aficionados would have you believe, modern Wing Chun, passed on from the last great Wing Chun Sifu; Yip Man.

    Before retiring, Grandmaster Yip Man took in Leung Ting as his last closed-door disciple, to teach him the complete Wing Chun system to pass on the knowledge in its complete form.

    Unlike other popular forms of martial-arts (I’ve also practiced Judo, Karate and Taekwondo) Wing Tsun is more of a system while the others are loosely bundled techniques, in a somewhat flamboyant comparison. As such, it’s not for everybody. Hope you learn to appreciate it. If you want to know more about the differences between different types of Wing Tsun/Chun and japanese/korean (same thing) martial-arts, e-mail me.

    Here’s a ten year old clip of Emin Boztepe, former Wing Tsun spokesperson and at the time aspiring Wing Tsun practitioner, beating up Wing Chun “grandmaster” William Cheung.

    Reply
  2. Tomas says:
    December 27, 2002 at 21:10

    http://www.mcdojo.com/dl_goto.asp?id=25

    Seems no HTML is allowed, after all.

    Reply
  3. Johan says:
    December 28, 2002 at 02:13

    Oops. Had disabled HTML in comments by mistake. Fixed now.

    Reply

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