Wing Chun origins

[Drunken Monkey]

and you got all this from that film you mentioned?

 

is it a China chinese film or a HK chinese film?

 

and um, from what i know, Mok gar and Iron Thread Fist form looks and works nothing like how wing chun does.

 

i don't really see how you get iron thread+ a mok gar form = wing chun.

[Zhong Gau]

i think its a china chinese film. the film quality was b&w and small lensed, filmed by a hand held on a tripod. on loc at emei.

 

in the ironthread form there are eight maneuvers in the last third of the form where it starts to look like a hand form instead of a qi form.

 

Ali has posted a vid of it in another stream.

 

from what i understood from my teachers of tiger styles, mok-lau systems were used instead of hung gar sys to stylise the manuevers for small statured women whom would benefit more from an angular tiger than a circular one.

 

isn't that why wing chun is a principle and not a style, per se?

 

have you seen mok gar and who learned it to you?

Edited January 5, 2005 by Zhong Gau

[Master Jules]

Wing Chun was created by the head nun, Wu Mei.......and I think your friend either misquoted, or misunderstood Kayo.

[Zhong Gau]

sorry jules, much respect in other areas and willing to defer often to your encyclopedic knowledge of printed vs oral traditions: but i heard it this way from several in the Hung Gar, Fut Gar, Hung Fot arenas. indeed, she has the credit of it and that helped draw female recruits to her temple, but the other systems did not train in it either. or feel the need to.

[superleeds]

I know that Wing Chun was created my a woman.

 

My friend says that his sensei(Kayo) of Chi-i-do goju ryu sed that

 

wing chun was created from goju ryu is this true because i have found nothing that says goju ryu is the origins of wing chun.

Its common knowledge that karate comes from kung-fu not the other way around.

 

Take care

[Hudson]

Of course karate came from kung fu - that's why it's called "chinese hands"

 

(That's a joke. I know it's written and accepted as "empty hands")

 

I'm pretty sure that Wing Chun came from Pak Mei.

 

When the Monk Pak Mei (Founder of course, of the Pak Mei White Eyebrow School of Kung Fu), left the Shaolin temple, he travelled to Emei. (Hence that would be where the founder of Wing Chun learned her kung fu - which would make Wing Chun simplified Pak Mei)

 

[EDIT - Also, if you look at some of the sets in the Pak Mei system, they very well could become Wing Chun - such as Chi Lim Kuen, Pak Mei's "Sticking Fist/Punch" set. Also, they have a set called Ying Jow Neem Kiu Kuen - "Eagle Claw Sticking Bridge".]

[pvwingchun]

There are as many different histories of WC as there are lineages. I have said this before and I will say it again, WC origins are shrouded in myth and legend. Ng Mui, Yim Wing Chun and Pak Mei who some claim is also Ng Mui, they are all "rumored" to have existed yet we have no actual records of their existence to my knowledge. There is much research being done now by several credible sources as well as those that have a vested interest in how it all turns out but at the same time you cannot discredit their work either just how it is put together. Rene Ritchie probably has the most complete information on his website at this time of the various lineages. There is also another out there by the name of Hendrick Santo who seems to have access to information that no one else has and understands what it means and his theories are quite expansive. The Ving Tsun Museum under the direction of Master Benny Meng has also done work in the history. The VTM has some very credible evidence that a man by the name of Tan Sao Ng existed and several other opera performers who may have a hand in the development.

 

I will tell you this if you look at the Mainland China, particularly the Fatshan WC you can see the White Crane as well as Tai Chi influences. There also needs to be more research done into the village of Yong Chun and its connection, IMO. As most know martial arts were passed within families and village's and based on that the village or town whatever it is these days may hold some amazing clues.

 

I do not doubt though that it is possible for one person to have had a hand in creating an art that flourished yet with time came to be known and develop into many different systems or styles through what Hendrick Santos calls, I believe, localized evolution. That would explain common ancestry, yet at the same time I have a hard time believing it is that simple.

 

I do believe though that we need to tell the history as it was told to us by our ancetors. Yet at the same time we need to keep an open mind to the possibilities that it may not be what we learned.

[Drunken Monkey]

from what i recall of pak mei, it doesn't look that much like yip man wing chun.

 

it does however, have more resemblance to pan nam's wing chun,

 

especially if you take apart their dummy form.

 

chow gar mantis looks/plays like wing chun as well.

 

i think though, that this has more to do with the period in which they were developed and the current 'trend' of less fancy more upright styles.

 

i don't think it is all stemmed from one person, rather a group of people.

 

as you mentioned tan sau ng is a recoreded individual who was the founder of the red junks.

 

he was known to be a shaolin trained man who specialised in the tan sau (although this has been questioned....), something that up until hung gar and wing chun, something that didn't exist in that form in the older styles.

 

it's known that he's the one who trained/organised the red junk members.

 

it's also known that the guys after him (leung yee tai, wong wah bo, dai fah min kam, fong do duk etc etc) were the real developers of wing chun as we know it in it's various forms today.

 

don't forget that the red junks were constantly moving around that area of china.

 

i think it's pretty safe to say that each port of call would have their own version of training.

 

also, bear in mind the actual set-up and organisation of the rebellion.

 

each group is in actuality a separate entity from the other so it is logical that each group would also have their own customary pecularities.

 

of course, this is just educated conjexture from me....

 

in anycase,

 

before the red junks and cheung ng, nothing is known.

 

everything that goes before is total myth.

 

i've never really cared who/where the art came from as i believe that the reasons and the contextual history is more important.

 

don't get me wrong, it's not that i don't think it's important to know a truth,

 

just that in the case of wing chun, the events and situations surrounding it are more important.

 

in terms of where my art comes from, if i was asked where my (direct) lineage comes from i think i'd start with yip man.

 

if pressed a bit further, i think leung jan has to be recognised as well,

 

although seeing as he taught at least three versions of wing chun, i think yip man is a better 'starting point' for me.

 

oh, and the iron thread is a bit of both.

 

it is a hand form as well as an internal form.

 

it is the culmination of leung kwan's internal studies combined with his fighting studies.

 

and yes, i have a litte experience with mok gar.

 

my cousin's other grand father was a choy li fut guy in the 60s.

 

(tang family, sun wai)

 

i wouldn't say that i know it.

 

most of what i learnt about it was in reference to choy li fut and the phrases regarding how the styles work.

 

y'know, the things about not letting a mok gar get the under bridge line, or not letting the choy gar get the outside unless you have the over bridge covered....

 

that sort of thing.

[BakFuPaiGuy]

To read the story as I have learned it visit:

 

http://www.tigerkungfu.com/articles.php?page=wingchun

[Zhong Gau]

There are as many different histories of WC as there are lineages. I have said this before and I will say it again, WC origins are shrouded in myth and legend. Ng Mui, Yim Wing Chun and Pak Mei who some claim is also Ng Mui, they are all "rumored" to have existed yet we have no actual records of their existence to my knowledge.

 

I do believe though that we need to tell the history as it was told to us by our ancetors. Yet at the same time we need to keep an open mind to the possibilities that it may not be what we learned.

 

i, too, have heard most of what you said elsewhere. and i agree that our dogmas should be peserved. but also that ethohistory should be performed on our knowledge such that some reconcilable truth may be established.

 

in our/my tradition Pak Mei Pai was attributed to a monk who lived to be in his thirties. not the same guy who is from the hung gar line, but a contemporary of his and not from the same temple. his student, Pak Mei, refined it into Pak Mei Pai.

 

another story from the same teacher indicates Pak Mei Pai and the iron thread techniques tradition to wc are parallel developments. thus the various systems that look like wing.