Drunken Monkey

evidently it helps bruises heal faster well, i've always wondered if it's the stuff that helps the bruise fade or the fact that you have to really rub it in. horrilbe childhood memories of the application of the stuff hurting more than the injury.

might've been my fault.... i just assumed that we were talking about teachers of martial arts. anyway. how often do you hear kids say that they are smarter than their teacher? and how often is that really the case? are/were you smarter than your math teachers? physics? biology? chemistry? do/did you know more history and more of the circumstances around the history? does/did your reading of a poem compare to your english teachers'? i think the only subjects where you can possibly have an edge over the teachers, prodigies excluded, are the computor sciences. smarter than the teachers? or just more smart-a$$?

i did? oops. sorry, my memory is really bad......

but that's kinda it. it shouldn't be hard to trace lines in wing chun. after all, at most you're gonna be three generations away from a recognised name. you should be able to name the one who taught you. and they in turn should be able to name the one who taught him. and so on.... (someone somewhere must know him/her and verify things) it's a simple case of ask. i guess the hard part is confirming what they claim. so um, anyway, what's wing chun like in the states? i mean, what are the typical 'names' you hear?

maybe. it's just that are lots of very close ties between here and hk. some of most respected yip man students have students here that teach. most of them are based around london. the fact that people like wong shun leung, yip chun and lee shing (and many more) all have students here teaching kinda means that if you're not legit, it's hard to 'lure' students from those that are. you want a hard to authenticate style? how about mantis? in the uk i only know of ONE mantis line that i would trust and that is again because of the uk/hk ties. (the recognised 'guardian' of the style was a chef here in the 70s.....)

...noticed that.... y'know, mate, that's verging on being an obsession....

i know.... just wanted to press the point a little bit further..... anyway. i'll let you carry on now.

well, actually, here in the uk, it isn't that obscure and most people that teach on a semi-pro to pro basis are easy to 'trace'.

me? nothing really. what i write down was for my own purpose and only for that period when i needed to do it. afterwards it was disposed of but every now and then i sit and write it all down again, mainly cos it helps me remember my chinese as well. it's.....theraputic. the process here is more important than the result. it forces you to really look at the form and how to make your own 'style'.

well, only if you look at the 'english' versions of things and not look at the original language. what i mean is, some people read the romanised things then equate the meaning with the literal translation (using english language type grammatical rules). as the cucumber thing shows, you can't do that, especially with chinese. cheng gwa= green vegetable. but cheng doesn't mean all green and gwa isn't always a vegetable. this is not even taking into account that 'cheng gwa' always means cucumber. this has nothing to do with context or subject or even spelling as the chinese characters are fixed things anyway.

...sorry. there was only so much i can take before i had to add a little post. at least this time i'm a bit more restrained than my usual self. blame my old age. or pehaps it's the girl who's teaching me to calm down a bit. or maybe it's just cos of the constant warnings i get from the mods here.

'kuen tou' is closer to be 'hand/fist set' like i said, there isn't really a term for 'drill'. you end up saying something along the lines of 'practice this movement' the chinese for (power-)drill is the same as in the verb 'to spin' (juen). juen is the same as the verb 'to turn' juen is also the same as (one form of) the verb 'to change/exchange'. 'to change' is also 'bien' although this is closer to being 'turn into' as opposed to 'exchange'......

so you don't hit anywhere else? i guess i was learning a different type of snake fist then..... and um, how many chinese styles don't teach you to hit those places? i have a question. what school of snake-style are you talking about?

... well, saying that you wouldn't let him grab you in the first place is nice and all, but I'd still train for it fair point but i guess i say this cos that is the mentality of my training. specifically the part about 'catch-up'. everything in wing chun is about intercepting and interrupting. if something is entering our space/centre/guard then it will be intercepted. if the person has grabbed on AND has fixed/secured his grip then in my style, you are considered to be two steps behind already. in that situation, you wouldn't want to do two things to catch-up. you either equalise or overtake.

for a beginner? that is a very hard question. i have about seven wing chun books. i've seen about ten others and have flicked through the pages on a few occasions. i have no idea how many there are out there but one thing i have noticed is that they don't go into much detail. what they show you is very superficial. but then, unless you know what wing chun is like, you won't know this. another thing is that wing chun is in the hands. but again, if you are a total beginner how do you tell good technique from bad technique? but then again. how would a complete beginner tell good karate from bad karate? hmm...... this is a tough one. i think i'm tempted to say a good wing chun guy will always prefere to show you rather than tell you. a good wing chun guy would hardly ever tell you to throw a punch at him in a certain way (for a demo), he'd just say 'hit me'. not because of anything other than that is how we train/drill. but then again, much of this can be faked......

....that's why i'm not too keen on use of 'complete'. it suggests too much. it implies that it is well, 'complete', has everything, (is perfect?) in my opinion, 'comprehensive' is a better word because it doesn't mean anything more than saying one has more things than the other.

not quite a training diary. when i started wing chun, i had a little homework to do. if you're familiar with the wing chun forms and how they are trained/learnt/used then this'll make more sense. anyway. what i had to do was disect the form and give a use for each movement. i.e list what was a lock what was a break what was a 'block' what was a parry wahat was a bar/shield what was an attack.... and so on. then we had to make up our own drills i.e think of a type of attack and then see/think of what we could use to receive. that kinda thing.

so, 'complete' or 'comprehensive'?

ok.... i guess we've gone a little off topic. but it leads to a valid point. what do you classify as complete? is complete the appropriate word to use? does a style have to be complete to be good? do you need to learn to use a knife if you know how to use a gun or a tank for that matter? (how's that for a recovery?)

"impurities" hehe, i would say the impurities are in HRD.....

well, you remember what leon says. the better you are, the closer you get to your target.

hehe guns for show, knives for a pro. jerry plays with knives.

....well, if it's 'interfering' then that isn't a good thing, especialy if you are still 'learning'. i know that it's always hampered my learning of other things. at uni, there was a tkd class. i couldn't ever really get into it. good work-out, but not for me. i couldn't get over the fact that it kinda overcomplicated things (when they talked of fighting and self defence) and as most of you know, my 'kick-boxing' doesn't resemble kick-boxing of any sort...... but then again having a base in wing chun has helped me to 'see' things more clearly in other things. i mean, it cetainly helped me to see into five animals more clearly.

i remember how the opening credits/sequences always had better animation than the actual content. that always made me feel like it was a bit of a con. and seeing as we're talking animation. in case you've all forgotten, go watch "tomb/grave of the fireflies"!!!!!!

no no no no yes no