Drunken Monkey

and tradition has nothing to do with this. the guy used the wrong terms from another language. it's like calling a potato a 'pomme du terre' in your english class.

the most effort i've ever put into a halloween outfit was a t-shirt with "boo!" on the front.

...right. i think i get what you're saying now. we tend to work mainly on the centre line. that is our 'key' to fighting. a little tidying up. as i was taught: i) the centre line is the line that bisects your body. following from this, a horizontal line is drawn across your navel to separate upper and lower. another pair of lines is drawn at your nipples and the base of your crotch. this is a sort of 'middle' section. ii) the mother line is the kebab stick i mentioned in the other thread. this is the line around which you pivot. iii) the plane drawn by the central line and the mother line is what creates the central plane. this plane should be the thing that points towards your opponents centreline and what we work along/around. (conversely, you should aim to not be on his central plane) so i guess in terms of your triangles when entering, it's all there (if you draw the lines). in wing chun, we tend to shoot hands out when they are free. (the way we work, if our hands are free, it means yours are not....) as such we don't actively search for targets as you seem to be suggesting with the triangles concept. also, going back to the six strengths/gates. these tend to be natural targets, cos they're what we make contact with anyway. i guess we don't really have a triangle visualisation. not all places teach using the 6 strengths/gates but nearly all places teach using the centreline, motherline and central plane. we judge good technique/positioning by how it affects these things. as i said in the balance thread, if your technique is good/strong, you don't need to make an attack cos you would've 'shut him down' by completely disrupting his ability to maintain any control of his centre plane (and structure) i.e he collapses/falls/trips but like i said before, i think i'd have to cross hands to really get ya.

"We move quickly in any direction, even with one side facing more forward to the opponent" well, regarding the square on hips. think of it as the ideal start position. in theory, once you start to move in wing chun, you don't stop moving, so you'll find that the hips don't stay square on for long periods. it's only square on when you're not moving. there is only one HARD rule and that is your hips should not be pointing away from opponent, (unless you are letting him 'leak' in/away but that's something else again) "The joints would be targets you access by going into an open ended triangle" hmm, we don't openly target a joint. we really do mainly aim to go for body or head shots. there are moves that are arm/elbow breaks but this is just an extension of the natural guard hands position (kinda but that's a different topic...) i think i have to say we would go for a target that we know would get a certain type of response. what i mean is, if we feel the arm is weak for an arm break, we would just go for it BUT it wouldn't be the main objective. er.... y'know, if it presents itself, take it. generally, we use ourselves a guide. you'll have heard me talking about the 6 gates (ankles, knees, hips, shoulders, elbows, wrists) you'll notice that wing chun movements always involve contact/feel with one or more of these gates and when we engage, we make contact with one or more of these gates. i.e enter, check knee or foot (doesn't mean we have to break/attack these) and bridge or force a bridge. i've said this is another thread but we work in pairs. if i've stepped on your foot i'm going to work your head or arms. i'm not sure if we have anything like a triangles way of thinking in how to find targets. if anything, i think i have to say that wing chun is still prettty much about attacking 'pressure'/nerve points when not going for body/head (like most other chinese styles) when i was being taught, i really was shown points that are good to hit. (yes, there was a chart...... ) hmm, chances are, if i were to cross hands with you, you could point out all of the 'triangles' i actually do.....

"For example, an eye poke is often primarily to get his head to jerk violently back, effecting his ballance." and this is something else that just sounds like wing chun. the darting fingers thing is often done after or accompanying a jerk/tug/push. part of the wing chun way is to work opposites (to get that jerking motion). i.e i pull you into a punch or i push you then pull you back (into a punch or many as the case may be....). what the jerking also does is to force you to commit to something. i.e make you stiffen/deaden your stance or might make you step when you didn't want to. in drills, if you're strong enough, you don't need to complete the attack cos your partner falls into it. sometimes, attack isn't needed cos the jerk can completely 'shut you down'. also, what the eye poke can also translate to is, after (or instead) of aiming for the eyes, aim for his forehead and jerk/slap/tilt his head back to open up the throat. step foward into his base to prevent him from recovering and land any type of elbow into throat. oops. got a bit carried away there......

"We might move into a similar stance, but would almost never start from this type stance." well, as i said, this is done if there is sufficient space between you and the threat. it exists only for that fraction of a second that you need to judge the direction to move. if you like, it is more of an instant reaction "ready position". even if you fail to make the bridging step, you are still neutral and should have a guard up. this means that theoretcally, you are on an even ground, as opposed to being one/half step/beat ahead (timing issues: beats, half beats, off beats....) and can still receive safely. in most cases, you'll find yourself stepping straight to that direction without 'settling' into the neutral stance. the key here is basically to have your hips square on to allow unbiased movement to either side. "except it sounds like you are more side on to your opponent" nope. you face the other guy face on. the feet are at the 45 degrees position but your hips are rotated to face squarely. this moves your weight forward slightly (and creates some tension in your hip unit ('coiled like a cat'... sorry, saying from chinese) and is part of the constant forward pressure you hear about. if you move your rear leg, it will want to go forward naturally (falling). even if you move to the side, your hip unit (and weight) also moves forward slightly, again, forward movement which equates to the otehr wing chun thing you hear about: there is no back step (but this is up for debate as to what constitutes a back step....) generally, the important of the stance is the direction your hip is facing. if it is turned to one side, it is going to be biased towards that side. the only time when it can be turned is when you are going/stepping forwards and the hip is turning to add torque to hand techniques as you enter/force forwards. "AK does this, but we look at it as an "open ended triangle'" i think i'm beginning to understand what you mean when you talk about triangles. i guess it's more or less the same thing we are talking about when we talk about joints/points. wing chun tends to disect other styles using it's own rules. (not too literally....) we use what works. if we stand in a certain way it's because it works. in wing chun's case, the odd standing postion maintains structural integrity. i.e to disrupt the stance you have to 'attack' the point that affects your own stance i.e base (ankle), root (knees), or connection (hips) the same for the top. to disrupt weight you 'attack' the bits you focus on yourself: (breathing/stomach area - any target), the shoulders or the head. hmm, not sure if we are talking about the same thing now that i've typed that..... um, not entirely sure what you're asking.... how/why we choose certain targets? how/why we find certain targets?

hmm, yes, almost as funny as 1000+ posts, all saying "good point".

are you talking about the drunken monk story?

"It turns out that Bruce Lee was actually a house guest of Mr. Parker for 1 year, and during that time, they exchanged principles/ideas frequently. Thus the probable reason Lee's style has Kenpo influences, and visa versa. " in case you missed it the first time he said it.

still waiting for the day when people who actually know about these things would come here and talk about it...... just a little request. i know i'm not anyone special and shouldn't really be making requests, but if you're going to ask a question about tiger or crane or whatever, can you make your question more specific? asking about a tiger style is almost as bad as asking what kung fu is like. there is more than one tiger style. in fact, there are more than one of each of the animal styles. ddepending on what school the form/method you are asking about comes from, the answer will be different and sometimes, even the same sschool will have different aspects of the same animal in different forms. e.g the dragon techinques from hung gar's 'fu hok sueng ying' are different to the dragon techniques from their 'ng ying'.

"but wouldnt it be kind of respectless of me to call him by another titel, eventhough it means the same" it's not another title. it is the same, just pronounced differently. "But I figured. Why not just let the kid. Afterall. In the end, it doesnt matter, because its only tradition" if this is what you think, then why ask about it in the first place?

"the toes of the left foot would touch your left side of the line. The heel of the right foot would touch the right side of the line " ok. let's see. if i am facing someone with the intention of attacking and i am at a safe distance, i would be facing him square on with hands up in the wing chun guard hands position. (place hands in a 'prayer' position in front of you, palms together, extend one hand until the forward elbow is at the rear wrist...... kinda..... it's down to your personal preference). we call this a neutral stance. this allows you to sidestep properly to cut in at an angle when we are at 'engage' distance. i.e when you step (commit to a direction), i can cut. again, like all things wing chun, this is down to personal preference and the situation. all other times a forward stance is taken. this is like the one you describe except the ankles, knees, groin, wrists and elbows all lie on the central plane (the plane between yours and the other guys centreline) feet, as i've been taught are ideally 45 degrees but when moving, generally, the position/direction of the knee is more important. hip is tucked in slightly, back is straight, head is up. best described as imagining you have a skewer stuck in at the top of your head and coming out of your fudge tunnel..... variation of this is the side stance, which is the same except your feet are parallel to your shoulders. very much like the neutral stance except you are commited to a direction.

um..... a worthless post but yeah, them characters are the ones for kuen (chaun-fist) faat (fa-art/skill/technique).

um, not quite what i was hoping for but along the right direction. i guess i'm asking about more fundemental things. like how wing chun (at a basic level) has an almost rigid structure whereas the more traditional long fist styles (at a basic level) has a more flowing, 'torqueing' structure. (ignoring the times when both diverge slightly....)

gonna be a pain and ask if any of you know/have the characters for 'kempo/kenpo'? is it really just the japanese reading of the chinese characters?

okok, how about a little divergence? this might spark a few *ahem* debates but what big differences have you seen, between your style and others?

the lepar? where real and fantasy gets very blurred? never read it but heard of it during my art school days......

chi sau is a feeling exercise. it is not the same as pushing hands. mostly it is done with your elbows, not with hand movements. no other style uses the elbows like wing chun. no other style does chi sau like how wing chun does it. again, we only have one stance and that is the goat stance. you yourself said that you don't use this. so how is it similar? and once again, we do not use a cat stance. our forward stance has weight on both feet. it's close to what you might know as a snake stance except the direction is different. "This is something completely else but, if you could tell me how you would get the bodypower behind your centerline punch, it would be great" you use proper body structure. if you have proper body structure and punch from the shoulder then you are not using your structure; you'd be relying on your shoulder joint. it's all about alignment. talk to your teacher. he should know what i'm talking about. "If you try to hit me in the face........ follow it down in a cirkular movement out from target" i guess this is something that i'd have to see. in anycase, as i said, the movement might be the same but the execution (i.e how/why it is done) might not. the things you describe seem to be things you do as a response. in wing chun, parrying and blocking tends to be (with the exception of the initial receiving) from what you feel on your bridges/elbows. this is hard to explain. something that i'd have to show you. long quan pai? hung quan pai? not that it means anything but i have never heard of these before you mentioned them. anyway. it's quite clear that you know very little about wing chun apart from what you have read in books (which books by the way?) and i think i've given more than enough reasons as to why the things you mentioned aren't similar to wing chun. maybe if you read more you'd understand what i mean. i can see that i'd be repeating the same things over and over again (whoa....deja vu ) if i continue so this is where i really call it a day. laters.

"Kenpo sometimes violates WC's rule of never crossing your own center line" something that isn't normally told about wing chun. a large chunk of the third form deals with concepts of what to do when you have crossed your centreline. when training this form, you begin to learn when it might be beneficial to cross your centre. you are told to not cross your centre from the beginning because it isn't safe for the beginner to do so. also, the non-crossing of the centre plays a big part in the knife-work but again, the third form shows you how to regain and maintain the centre. also, crossing your centre brings into play some really off the wall ideas about perceived and false centres. it's a chi sau thing..... not something i've ever done for real, not even in a one hit-break drill. "Wc uses a three point stance in its' kicks" not sure what you mean by this. the wing chun kicks tend to come from or finish with forward motion. i.e a step. but er, that depends on the kick. "one of the main reasons for seeing similar techniques is because most likely it was effective on the battlefield" not many of the martial arts we practice today have ever faced a proper battlefield. also, proper battle field combat normally involved weapons of some sort. the chinese armies used to train almost exclusively in three weapons, the dao (cheap and easy to make and learn), spear and bow+arrow. hand skills was taught but not to the extent of weapons. wiht regards to the chinese styles, the majority of ones we learn today, whilst having a basis in those that might've been taught at times of war, were not actually designed for war purposes. hung gar, choy li fut, mantis (any), eagle claw, wing chun, tai chi and many, many more never saw serious action on a battle field. if i recall correctly, the only chinese style that was known to have been taught to the chinese armies was the original long fist (cheung kuen). but i do get your point. similar moves appear in styles of similar intent beacuse they work and because there is only so much that can be done with the human body. but that's kinda what i wanted to 'chat' about. have you ever come across an article about some other style and thought "hang on, this is what we do too!"? this was started because of the things i've read about kempo. never before have i really had this thought about similarities between wing chun and another martial art. i know of the similarities between wing chun and mantis and tai chi and some of the ideas in other chinese styles but the way things were done were never really that similar. anyway. any more?

anyone read jonothan strange and mr norrell by susanna clarke?

hmm, two replies. i guess i should've figured that only the old hands would respond to a thread like this.... anyway. i think most of you would've heard me say this before but everytime i hear one of the kempo guys talk about their stuff, it always amazes me how much it resembles wing chun. what amazes me is that the similarities seem to begin at the most basic level and just seems to mirror the way we do things. for a start, the way we use forms is more or less identical; that of it being a way to practice a way of moving as opposed to 'fixed' examples of moves (of the classical shaolin ways and other related styles) then there's the way we both train singular moves, slowly building up the level of 'trust' in the efectiveness of the move before applying more pressure and variation and extra 'moves' (as it were). a little further on, the way that we both eventually 'remove' the taught movements and learn to use principles instead. looking at the history of wing chun and kempo i guess there were bound to be similarites (esp with the bruce lee/ed parker link). just out of interest, when did they meet? was it before or after bruce had decided to stop teaching 'pure' wing chun?

"Chi Sao is from pushing hands" nope. the three seeds of wing chun are the three basic moves from which everything comes from and what everything turns into. they are almost exclusive to wing chun. wing chun, in a way, ONLY uses the goat stance. the forward/side stance is just the goat stance opened facing a certain direction. it looks like the cat stance but it isn't. as for what you call "mar-bu". again, it looks like this (which i know as a bare stance, not a horse stance) but again, there is fundemental difference. i.e not the same. kicks. as i have said, the main thing about wing chun kicks is not what it looks like but how it is done and when you would use a kick. the principles behind the wing chun kick i have only seen in two other styles. both of these were developed at around the same time and in the same regions as wng chun was. as i said, things might look similar but that doesn't mean that they are. and yes, there is a side-kick. (and some have a sort of round kick) the important thing about the wing chun punch is (once again) how it is done and how it relates to your body. " since theres isnt a very long distance betwine a punch from the shoulder and one from the center. I thoughed it may be something simulere" right. big difference here is that with the punch from the shoulder, you don't have your bodymass directly behind it. your punch from the shoulder does not have the same quality as the punch from the centre. i.e it is not the same. "Your parries are much simulere to our crane parries. and others like snake" what ones? please describe. "You stick to your opponent" sticking is a complicated issue in wing chun. in most cases it is only applicable in very specific moments and only exists for a very brief moment. so brief that if you are doing it correctly, it isn't like sticking. i have not known any mantis to sctively stick how wing chun does. grab and hold on to, yes. 'stick', no. as for the otehr animals, i don't know what you are training so i can't say. northern shaolin. that's a bit broad. it would make more sense if you can you give a few names to forms or something that you are doing or have done so that i can have a more useful point of reference? how long have you been training? "WC is a completely other system to ours, with many differences. But basicly, the way I see its at least, its about the same." y'know, this is the first time i've heard anyone who practices a northern style say that wing chun is similar, even in theory, to their style. this includes northern mantis guys.

like it says on the tin. we all know that there are always going to be similarites between styles. some are because of the origins (in the same style), some are because of the time period and the ways of thinking at that point in time, some are because of the environment (explaining why two things from opposite sides of the world could look the same). so this is just a little thread to let you talk about your style and what similarities you have found between it and other styles. or as the case may be, how something looks the same but isn't (you can then explain why/how it is different).

what can i say. i'm an easy monkey to fish for..... "Theres chi sao in both(well at least a little)" really? where? what style? "blocks, parries, grapes, stances(same stance I mite add), fists, feets, internal power, animal movements" if you're saying this then either you don't know classical kung fu styles or you don't know wing chun. granted some things like 'blocks' and parries look similar but they way they are done are not the same. here's a little challenge; try to find the three seeds of wing chun in ANY other chinese kung fu style. same stance? again, show me what other chinese style uses the goat stance as the main training stance. punch? classical styles tend to not punch like wing chun. the ones that do tend to be from the same period and even then i can only think of two others off the top of my head. kicks? again, the kicking in wing chun is very idiosyncratic to wing chun (in relation to chinese styles). again, the other styles that have similar methods/reasons for their use are of the same period and again, only two other styles come to mind. internal power? gonna ignore this cos it opens a very big can of very rotten and mushy worms. animal movements? wing chun does not concerntrate on crane movements. wing chun concerntrates on hand movements. it is kinda based PARTLY on old crane essence but that's as far as it goes. more than anything it is about use of structure. only difference being philosphy? if anything, that's one thing that is the same with other chinese styles. so the answer to your question are you wrong? yes. this is what happens when you copy things you see from books. you see pictures of things that look the same but you don't see how they are actually different. just in case you missed it. i asked you where do you see similarities. don't just give general things like 'punch'. tell me where you see a similar punch being done. same for the kicks and stances and everything else you mentioned. and what are you actually training in again?

.....there aren't many things in wing chun that exist in clasical shaolin. anyway. i'm gonna let this drop now. the guys and gals here know my opinion on people who think they can learn wing chun from a book.