Drunken Monkey

sorry but is it me but does he sound like a one man band???

well wushu means martial art (wu=martial, shu=art). it IS a type of kung fu but you would never call it "wushu kung fu" because in a round-about way kung fu=wushu, so it would be like saying "karate karate", if you get my drift. it is simply called "wushu". it is also the name the chinese government has taken for their school training program. before that it was called guoshu meaning national art. this wushu is the flowery display patterns.

(too many typos) well, i know i strayed a little bit from topic but the post made me think. i had the chance to learn a lot earlier than i did but what would've happened if i did? would i be better or worse than i am now? if i learnt then would i know the things i do now or would i have developed bad habits? well, to this day i firmly believed that i started to learn at the right time because i was ready then. i wasn't ready when i was 7 and i wasn't ready when i was 12. at 16 (and during my g.c.s.es) i decided that it was time to take things seriously.

you will never find what you are truley looking for if you don't go and find out if everything else is wrong for you. why not go to a few classes and see what they have to offer? why dismiss all those others without even tasting from them? what have you to lose? if you are going to dedicate a big part of your life to something, why not make sure the right one for you isn't something else?

well, not everyone is here everyday like me...

interesting. no one actually calls wushu kung fu technically its wing chun kuen (and um, we don't have belts....)

i remember when i was first introduced to wing chun i just wasn't interested. that was when i was about 7. five years later i was shown it again and i wanted to be able to do them things but wasn't keen on the hard work. 4 years pass and another chance cropped up for me to learn. haven't regretted a day since.

ok fair enough, i must admit, i strongly agree that if it's lasted this long then it must work. but i still have doubts on whether battle field=effective... i am not saying that any art that developed for battle field is not effective, just questioning whether JUST BECAUSE it was developed on a battle field, does that automatically make it effective. hope you understand what i mean. and back to the cars. i made a point of bringing rally drivers into it as well because they too are among the best drivers in the world and their style is dramatically different.

well wing chun does have a different purpose.

well, the roman way of warfare was actually quite simple, you fight the guy is in front of you to your left. that way, your shield is held in front of you constantly while the guy NEXT to you stabs him for you. well, my point was, in a real war scenario, how much time do you really have to use complex movements when you have three of four guys trying to stick their swords in you? i am not in anyway belittling your art, rather i am asking a few questions that have always run around my head. whenever i hear someone say that their art is the original battle field tested martial art i am always a little suspicious about it. maybe not suspicious but i think you understand what i mean. i go back to my favourite analogy; cars. formula one drivers are among the best in the world but if you drive like that on the road, it doesn't work. the same goes for rally drivers. amazing drivers but you can't do that in a F1 race. so i ask again, just because it was good for war does mean it is automatically efficient/effective.

one day people will realise that what they see in films is carefully choreographed routines. the moves might come from any style but that does not mean the actor is good at that style. it doesn't even mean that the actor knows the style. what it does mean is that the character is supposed to be good at the style and the fight choreographer set up the scene using that style. and as for whether the style would work or not, you can't tell that from a film. film=fiction, remember that folks. ta-taaa!

i don't think battle field techniques are neccessarily the most efficient way. if you look at modern methods, they appear to be techniques that could be taught and learnt quickly. after all, what army wants to spend ten years to train their soldiers then watch them die? it sounds a bit harsh but it is often better to teach them simple, quick to learn techniques that may or may not be the most effective. and true war battle fields of old are a very specific fighting ground, the idea of which was just to kill the opposing army, with an army beside you. lets look at the most effective, efficient army ever in history, the romans. as an army, they were virtually undefeatable but how good were they as individuals?

but is more neccessarily better?

is the one with the funny drum thangs?

well isn't that your own personal touch comes into it? part of learning is discovering what you can do. i don't think it really matters if it part of the forms original intention, if it works for you then it works. after all, everyone is different. i will use a technique from a form differently to how you would use the technique. we both might get it to do what we want it to do but neither of us would have done it like how the form shows us to. but it is our training in the form that would have given us our familiarity with the technique.

i have no idea but a few of my friends have gotten some really unlucky names...

and don't expect to kick serious behind after two weeks...

your mum was surprised about an injury in karate? man, most of the time my knuckles and forearms and covered in bruises. well, on those two parts of my forearms. i'm sure you wing chun guys know where...

well, we could ask the ladies about your level of kung fu... BUT you did also bring up another point. in traditional kung fu, there are no belts. this is because the old system was based around the family (sifu=martial father) and your "rank" in the family depends on when you joined. this does not however, have any bearing on how good you are. you could be the youngest member of this family but have the highest kung fu because you work a lot harder. belts don't really mean much to us. we always know who is better because they will be the one we cannot beat.

is anyone teaching what they did in pre 1800?

if you are going to learn anything of wing chun from books, websites or anything then try to read about the theories and principles. if you already know a martial art quite well then knowing HOW another art looks at things might be useful. learning their techniques however, will not. the thing with wing chun is that at the start, you learn how they punch, then hoiw they switch hands. after a bit of forms training, you should be familiar enough to beging to use the techniques against a partner. all this goes on whilst learning about the underlying principles. my point is, you can't just look at a website, copy the moves read the words and say you have learnt wing chun. it's the same with any martial art.

if you know what it is, why are you asking us for a name?

(still chasing them typos) i know i haven't been too clear about this but i'll try to explain what i think forms are for. kata/forms is for practicing the moves not for practicing fighting. fighting is you using the moves you know in a combat scenario. but before you do this, you have to learn the moves and to learn moving between moves etc etc. forms training just does this in an organised way. because the training is in an organised fashion, you are more likely to remember more moves and be more able to execute them continuously. more importantly, forms training helps develop muscle memory better because of the complexity of the sequence you are practicing. training for fighting and hence, training applications is a different matter.

(typo correction) just a point. personally, i am always dubious whenever someone says that they use kata/forms to fight. past experience has shown me that sometimes some kid just copies things he reads/sees in a book and learns the form pretty well and then goes around saying he knows the art. he will then go around showing off his form but he will not have gone through the process of disecting the form and practicing the moves against a live partner (sorry for the terrible sentence structure)

not really a good analogy. i agree, forms are not the best way to train for fighting but they are a good way to practice the art. it helps you remember your techniques which you practice with a partner. you don't have to practice forms. you can just practice loose moves and chain things together yoursef. both produce the same result.