Drunken Monkey

as for southern styles being developed for the stability on a certain terrain. while this a very rough generalisation wing chun still stands separate from the other southern styles such as hung gar, choy-li-fut, lee gar etc etc... take wing chun's closest neighbour, hung gar. both were developed in futshan, both were heavily involved with the anti-ching rebellion yet hung gar does not have a stance that is remotely like the yee gee kim yeung ma. hung gar trains in the older way featuring sets that move in all directions yet wing chun moves, at most, three steps to one side.

it is not and he is not legend. there are records of his exisitence and of starting and organising the red junk opera boats. personally i haven't come across anything saying he was crippled. but yes, the "five" stories, to me, seem like a story to hide the identies of the high ranking members of the anti ching rebellion. if this is the case then the stories have no real bearing on the origin of wing chun as a style as the characters then become arbitary. you cannot say that yim wing chun and ng miu and cheung ng are the same person.

there wasn't really much tension. i seem to recall that even after he left, bruce kept up the old traditions and even "took tea" with yip man publicly.

you don't fight for the last beer. you fight over who has to go and get some more!

well, that's the one i was talking about. he snikt his own brain to get his healing factor to concertrate on one major crisis in order get it working in a more organised way (instead of healing lots of little bits of damage all over the place). man, that didn't make sense. hope you understand my appalling use of the english language.

yeah but i like my swords old, blunt and rusty. so that even if i don't kill you with cuts (well, tears from blunt edges), you'll die painfully from septicemia...

well, when he first taught in america he was teaching his kung fu which, at the time, was wing chun...

just take the stories of the other style's histories. there's a wing chun in the hung gar stories and a wing chun in our history and there was a wing chun hall in shaolin and it there's an anti ching saying containing the words wing chun... it's a hell of a lot of wing chun. too many to be coincidental in my opinion. i think that "wing chun" was like a call sign, much like the ming hand symbol/gesture, used to identify fellows. i also think that the yim wing chun story was created to hide the identities of the senior people (in the training/developing) of the style. after all, if the founders were people who never existed, how can you find them? this is important when it meant your life if you were even connected to the anti-ching movement.

as for where wing chun came from. i firmly believe that it was developed on the boats. cheung ng was the guy who started the red junk opera boats. he was noted for his martial skills (especially his tan sau, a move that is almost exclusive to wing chun up to that time period) and he taught on the boats. the forms do not move and flourish like the old styles because the training was done on the boats (narrow in nature) and the stance was designed to train stability and hence strength) on the boats. so it wasn't a case of them seeing the need to train for use in tight alleys but just a case of training in their environment. the fact that it suited the alleys is secondary. as for cheung ng himself, he lived almost 100 years before the story of yim wing chun and about 50 years before the supposed burning of the temple. i would add though that he WAS noted for his shaolin skills but he was not a monk.

it's something to do with where the knives came from. i'll try to find the source. as for the wing chun knife set, it is also said that miu hin taught the knife set to the wing chun people. this would suggest that it was, like the pole form, something that was brought from outside the original training. the miu hin story doesn't work for me because the principles and moves of the knife set are almost the identical to biu gee. i cannot see how an external knife set would match biu gee so closely. even if it was modified to suit wing chun, would a classical old master allow his prized knife set to be modified?

um, about wolverine being hard to kill... while he had all the adamantium in him (which hindered his healing factor) he was still able to survive having his blades shoved up into his brain. how hard would it be if his healing factor didn't have to worry about the metal in his body?

but isn't it also a bit coincidental that these supposed five survivors go on to create nearly all martial arts in southern china?

any of you guys seen the manga book "blade of the immortal"? some of the things they create in that look pretty cool.

well, in the uk, pretty much everything is illegal in the streets. AND there's the fact even if you use an everyday object as a weapon you can be charged with something that relates to "use as an offensive weapon" (or something similar). haven't actually given this much thought but if you're talking about sheer versitility (in martial arts terms) then the good old 9 foot staff would be quite good. it has range, can control without really hurting and yet still hurt when you need it to. takes a hell of a long time to master though but then most good things are. also quite partial to three section staff as well but only because they're so much fun.

or in the case of martial arts in china, add a level of magic and mystery. in the past a system was considered to be inferior and not good if it didn't have some connection with the ancient orders. for this reason there are stories of old monks on the run and magical apperances from the gods themselves to hand down a pair of knives and knife set...

it just seems too convienient that one of the very few survivors of the burning just happens to be a woman with lots of martial training. it all just reeks of old chinese story telling...

yeah but how about all them kung fu master wannabes that dress like that all the time? surely if anyone should be arrested it's them...

er... how solid was this block of ice? for that matter, how big was this block?

love truely or don't love at all

the one thing that scares me right now is not seeing the person i love ever again. the thing that scares me about death is the thought of all the wonderful people in the world that i never got the chance to meet, the things that i never did, the places i've never been to and things i never learned. i guess i'm scared that i might end up on my deathbed regretting all the things that i've done or all the things i haven't done. am i afraid? yes. it kinda makes me appreciate things more. it's been said before but the only certaintly in life is that it ends. for that reason we should make our short stay worthwhile.

well, in a mcdojo it depends how much cash you got to spare...

well, a poke in the eye is just as effective whether it comes from a guy or a girl. same goes for a kick in the nads. at the end of the day, the winner will be the one who uses the more effective move.

not really a question of entertainment. there was a post sayig that bruce was more dedicated but i'm sure that both of them train just as hard.

someone should do a survey on how many people got seriously hurt because of a bad school...

and also the old "just hit them" is an example of no frills. you know when you are doing some light sparring and you block your partner's strike with a kwun sau then feed up to biu gee to lap and hit back. your sifu stands there watching, and shakes his head and asks you, why didn't you just hit them after the kwun sau?