Drunken Monkey

......y'know, sometimes, you shouldn't give so much free info.....

lapsang souchang.... man, i'm chinese and even i don't drink that stuff. but then i'm not a fan of the grey teas. i'm a red tea man myself. nothing like a good 'po-li' or 'monkey picks'.

well, it's just a spelling thing. nothing to do with lineage. the odd thing is, the name is prounounced almost the same in cantonese as it is in mandarin so it isn't a language thing. technically (phonetically) yip/ip is pronounced closer as 'iyip' except the first 'i' is no more than an exhale and without the slight 'ee' sound. if that makes any sense....

.......this isn't going to be easy....... more than anything, wing chun has to be felt to be really understood. TRAINING IN TECHNIQUES 1: THE FORMS i guess the best place to start is by describing the purpose of the forms. each of the three hand forms represents a stage in training. the things featured in the forms are not only done as they are in the form, nor are they taught exclusively in the forms. if you need to turn make something work, i will tell you to turn. BUT technically, the turn isn't shown until the second form. the forms are just a reference point; something that has been collected, that contains the core movements so that you can practice them in an orderly fashion. (i'm gonna give direct transaltions of the names of the forms as i can't be bothered with the romanisations....) "LITTLE IDEA in your HEAD" the first is your catalogue of hand positions/techniques/movements. everything is in this form (except about 5 'moves') you only 'use' one hand at a time in the form. there is no foot movement in the form. (footwork is shown 'separately'........ almost) as you are learning/training in this form, you should be shown how to take it apart and apply it in a live scenario. as such, there are no fixed techniques or sets of applications of techniques. what you use depends on what you are good at and what is happening. 'sparring' at this point would be no more than drills of which there are many....... we like to let the students think of drills and then they'd run them by us. we would then give our opinions and offer an alternative if neccessary. the nature of these drills is to let the student get used to be able to i) recognise what a movement can do ii) decrease the amount of time spent thinking in a 'live' situation iii) let the student get used to using what are quite 'un-natural' hand/arm positions. iv) get used to someone coming in with a 'hard' punch. as you can imagine, this kind of drilling easily leads to almost 'free' fighting as they test different possibilities. how hard you go during these drills depends on how comfortable you are and what you are training (i.e training position is different to training footwork, even though you might use the exact same steps+hand techniques) as i said before, the first form has no foot work in it. as such, during the first stage of drills/sparring, the student will come across some problems that the first form does not deal with (as it it shows 'perfect' positions). this is where the second form comes in. SINKING the BRIDGE this is all about i) bridging ii) closing iii) use of turn iv) use of step basically, the second form answers questions that the first form doesn't deal with. for a start, this form uses both hands at the same time, as well as using stepping and turning in conjunction with technique. (i should point out that during the course of the rest of the training, stepping, turning etc etc would already have been shown. the drills+sparring wouldn't work otherwise) because it features the step, kicks are also shown in the form. not much else to say cos it basically dissected as you do with the first and the individual parts used as neccessary. once again, now that turning and stepping is introduced, even more questions arise. enter the third form DARTING FINGERS. this deals with what to do when things go wrong. basically, if you step, you may sometimes overstep or your opponent closes. the same is if you turn; you might turn too much or your oponent might 'pull' your turn. this form features two extra 'concepts'/movements this form features the elbow techniques. also, the 'flaws' in the first two forms are covered here (e.g correct gan sau) this form shows the ways you can recover your position should anything like that happens. also, the basic 'rules' as shown in the first two forms are now 'broken', as it assumes you are now familiar with what they are and why they are. this breaking of 'rules' plays a part in tactical-play as well as freeing you even further, allowing you to be more open in your techniques. again, the movements in this form are to be take apart and used as necessary. to explain this better i shall have to go into the principles and ideals of wing chun. but before i go into that a few extra bits of info should be given. the forms are generally unimportant. there is in fact a form of wing chun that is a collection of loose techniques. as i said before, the purpose of the forms is to give you a reference of techniques/movements as well as give an idication of what stage you are in your training. in this way, you are actually shown all of the movements that feature in the form before you are actually shown the form. i.e before you are shown the second form, you should already be able to turn and step and before you are shown the third form, you should already know when to use your elbow. the emphasis in training is crossing hands. drills, chi sau and sparring is the main focus in class. forms are left for you to do at home. the basic punch is never neglected and will be the most practiced thing no matter what level you are at. what is encouraged is for you to find your own answers. after all, the movements are all there in the first form. it is up to you to find it. if you really can't see a way out, someone be it another student or the sifu should be able to help. think of the training hall to be a giant test bed where lots of people get together to see if things (techniques) work.

......in hk i was not allowed any sort of 'show' that i knew any martial art. the reasoning was that basically, why let people know and be prepared? better to not let them know then let them regret having tried anything....

well i'd believe him to be the greatest well, that's just it. he presented himself as 'the best' in the public eye, mainly cos he had a product to sell but in private, he knew who the better people were. it's a shame that there are too many worshippers of bruce lee but too little simple recognition of those that bruce lee himself looked up to. you can say that the defeats of bruce lee are unverifiable but then again, where are the records of his wins? you can't say that just cos you can't prove he lost, then he must be the best. * * * * * when i typed them words i was really talking about bruce lee worshippers. i'm being very general here but a lot of them have never trained seriously in a martial art before. a lot of them only read the books and copy the pics and say they do jkd. bruce was good in that he actively went out and trained with the best. what bugs me about his worshippers is that they just read the books. you have no idea how many kids i have met who say they know 'jkd' and can spout the quotes but couldn't even step forward to meet properly because they've never faced someone in a training environment who isn't their little brother and the only 'practice' they've had is posing in front of a mirror. granted this doesn't just happen with jkd cos you get it a lot with wing chun too, mainly cos the forms are so easy to 'copy' but the sentiment is the same for them too. i just don't get it. if they can spend so much money and so much time getting and reading the books why not spend the time and money and get themselves into a class? anyway. back to an earlier statement about jkd being a grappling style. should just point out that YOU see it as a grappling style cos you trained with larry hartsell, who has concerntrated on TRAPPING and GRAPPLING. if you trained with dan inosanto, you will be learning different things. if you trained with chris kent, you will be learning different things. jkd is different things to different people.

....pasta and noodles....

.....i have never been to a gym before in my life nor have i lifted a weight.... that should give you an idea of how much i do (or should that be don't) know... in any case. thanks for the details. time for some reading....

.....um, would it make sense if i said we try to interrupt/control the elbow/forearm to control/stop the backfist motion? well, y'know, what we do depends on where out chosen blocking hand is.....

At any rate, the Bubishi (basically a White Crane training manual) is considered an incredibly important part in the heritage of Okinawan karate. whoa.... so at the heart of karate is a chinese book? i feel a smug smirk coming.... anyway. so what did they do with the white crane manual in it's transition to karate?

In the roll roster according to skill, he was ranked last... well, i wouldn't go that far. don't forget that he was one of the active wing chun fighters at the time, although he was far from being another wong shun leung (sorry if i keep mentioning him but in my mind, he is more of a 'legend' than bruce lee is).... he was accepted by yip man as a 'proper' student as shown by his participation in the after school class that the likes of wong shun leung, william cheung, cheung hok kin etc etc took part in and this recognition showed that he was skilled in wing chun but um, well, that was at the beginning of his training.... as you pointed out, apparently he didn't get much better during his years away. it has been said that the 'flaws' he found in 'traditional' kung fu (i.e wing chun) is purely based on the fact that he stopped his wing chun training. in fact, if you list all of the jkd principles, it reads like a list of wing chun principles. but then i would say that wouldn't i.... anyway, y'know what i say? leave the man alone. enough has been said already. don't worship the legends, go make your own legend. don't look to whether or not he was the best go and make yourself the best. don't try to be like someone else. try to make other people want to be like you. martial arts is a very personal thing so why spend so much time worshipping someone else? you should be concerntrating on yourself.

...that's what the class is for....

...but, what are they and what do they do?

okokok, okinawan style guys..... sheesh, so touchy.

....i'm still kinda in shock that it actually is the characters for 'shao-lin' (little forest) (you might remember me asking this a looooong time ago...) i've mentioned this before but i've only found one shorin ryu class in the whole of london and it seems like it is the only shoring ryu class in the whole of the uk. is it really that rare? also, the more i read from you guys the more chinese and less japanese (i.e shotokan like) it sounds.

.....pah. you japanese style wimps. us chinese style guys break rocks! big fat rocks, with our balls, whilst standing on a bed of nails, on a board floating in a pool of water, whilst being forced to listen to spice girls and watching bey-blade... my opinion, breaking things is a demonstration. as such it has a certain degree of value but is not the be all and end all judge of power and technique. forget 'boards don't hit back' boards don't even bend or move.

.....i once trained in my local park with a friend. he's a jkd guy and wanted to learn more wing chun. we chose the park cos we intended to get quite rough and i didn't like the idea of ripping up my lawn, so the park it was. we were wearing NORMAL clothes. we were in a very quiet area of the park but near major paths so that if anything happened, we weren't secluded. an oldish couple walked by and asked us what we were doing. i explained the form and they seemed quite interested. tehy said it's nice to see young people using the park instead of sitting in front of a computer all day. i refrained from showing what the moves actually did... another couple walked by and the guy approached us and asked about wing chun and if i knew a wing chun sifu in london. then a little group of school-kids (15-16yrs maybe), approached us (there's a school nearby but on the other side of the park). started trouble. a bit of trash talk but no action. i had the benefit of a training partner so i had something to focus on and could 'ignore' them. when i asked if they wanted to try, they put on a little show and eventually backed off. now imagine if i had been on my own and wearing a martial art uniform of any sort. more fuel to the fire. now i am intelligent enough to know that if i am going to train in a public arena, i will try to keep as low a profile as possible. even so, i still attracted attention.

...it's all about perspectives. among his contemporaries in the west, he was probably right up there with the best of them. among his wing chun brothers, he wasn't and never claimed to be the best. as a teacher, he was far from the best (remember, most of his 'senior students' were proficient martial artists before they trained with him i.e he didn't need to teach them) but all that has to be taken in relation to his time period. is he really as good a fighter as todays fighters like frank shamrock? in reality you can't compare cos standards have changed. and besides, does it even matter? it doesn't mean anything. him being good or not has no bearing on anything that matters today to you or me. there is too much bruce lee worship going on. yes he has done a lot for martial arts but my problem is that a lot of people selectively choose to ignore the 'seedier' aspects of his life and his questionable training of people. it is well known that the majority of his students were not much more than punch bags. for every larry hartsell, dan inosanto, taki kimura, ted wong, there were a hundred nameless punchbags.

...hello. you all know who i am.... anyway. some of you might know that i am a scrawny little guy. probably underweight and not the most muscular guy around these parts. my little question is manily about how to build up your torso; what kind of movements build which muscles? what all the different sit up variations do, how to build up back muscles, sides, etc etc.... i guess these questions also apply to the other parts i.e arms, legs, chest.

If that were the case, then pro athletes whose livelihoods depends on lightning quick reactions, speed, flexibility, and endurance would never power lift as part of their training regimen um, i'm pretty sure this has been said before but they retain their reactions/reflexes cos they also train those elements.... y'know, it's not like all they do is power lift. the arguments in these type of discussions is normally because people take the extreme views in order to argue i.e they miss the big picture as it were and so to them, to power lift means to do no other form of strength, speed, endurance, reflex training... which you and i, as well as a great deal of people know, isn't true. so, by all means train with heavy weights. just don't skimp out on the other aspects of your training.

...i would advise getting a cup that is slightly larger then you need... no, really, not just so you ask for an XXXL cup but cos well, if it only just fits comfortably, getting kicked there still hurts like a broken bottle going in sideways... you'll be glad you have the extra room.

...harder training... too much emphasis and reliance on chi sau as a judge of technique. in itself it isn't a bad thing but sometimes you need to take it of the 'safe environment' to really be sure. whilst it is true that you can go hard when you cross hands but the chi sau mentality is hard to shake off and sometimes you stick when you should hit... y'know, you end up fighting with chi sau which is kinda 'wrong'.... it's part of the mentality really which too much chi sau can imbed into you. hmm, i guess what i'm trying to say is that wing chun needs more hands on testing like the not too distant 'old days' of wing shun leung in hk....

a wok isn't a wok unless it is used on top of a proper burner. i fired up the resaurant burner once with the tap on too high and lost all of the hairs on my hand.... quite an odd experience. i was making moules mariniere, in a chinese kitchen.... my uncle ordered in too many mussles and i was allowed to play and the kitchen guys were giving me the strangest looks. that was possibly the first time they had mussles NOT with black bean sauce...

the thing about bruce vs jet is that bruce has a background in FIGHTING jet has a background in performing.

...so once again and for the final time. you know that training in a public in any semblance of a gi, be it full outfit, or just the trousers, will without a doubt cause some 'trouble', especially seeing as the public place is school yet you still insist that you will train in your gi.