Comprehensive and In-Depth Course on Wing Choon Kungfu

[Ronny]

Do you think practitioners in the past also had that much fun during and after training like we have? Maybe it's another Shaolin (Wahnam) top secret

[Anthony S]

Journey to Kuantan

After the fabulous Wing Choon course some of the attendees made a trip to Kuantan to visit our Sisook Hoo. For those interested, I've started a thread at the link below

http://wongkiewkit.com/forum/showthread.php?p=94617#post94617

[yasminejade]

Came back from Wingchun course, one day i saw in the news on TV that there was a Wing Chun Festival held in Kuala Lumpur for 5 days, and it features World Wing Chun Championship. There were sparring competition for Chi-Sao and free-sparring. In the news, chi-sao looks fine although participants look tense.

But when come to free-sparring, I am disappointed. It just don't look like Wingchun.

This festival received great publicity in M'sia and Malaysia Internatonal Ving Tsun Federation made big efforts for this. The federation is the only Wingchun association recognized by Ip Man Wingchun in Hongkong. Even Ip Man's son Ip Chun attended the festival.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LmHMV0TjLA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tS58WBVAHP4

[Tim]

Hi Jason,

Thank you for the link and videos, it would have been a good opportunity to meet with the school and discuss Wing Choon as well as see the demonstrations.

I won't judge too harshly as I do not know how much experience the particular practitioners have with systematic free sparring. The stances start ok and the guard hand does reflect that of Wing Choon but very soon it turns into chain punching and boxing. When you look at much of the Wing Choon sparring it does tend to fall into this category, of course there are some exceptions to this.

It is doubtful that the first fighters are high level practitioners and therefore the display is almost expected.

The Chi Sau was better, whilst the stances were quite high and ungrounded there was better control. It is clear to see that one of the practitioners was of higher level than the other and made good use of upsetting the others stance after covering from the outside. This part of the sparring or free flowing Chi Sau was quite interesting, he had fairly decent control and when pressed from the centre he sometimes moved to the side to defend. Of course if this was a real fight he may have tamed as he did and strike with his Phoenix Eye Fist or Snake or finishing kick or fell. As a demonstration it was interesting. So don't be too disappointed there are other decent Wing Choon videos to see.

With the exception of a few videos though it is interesting to note that there is a lack of force demonstrated and lot of the use of chain punches, this is the style in which they train so perfectly acceptable, but also interesting as there are many differences in the Shaolin lineage we have inherited. One main difference is our use and understanding of the centre line theory, the secrets of this are seen in Phew Chee.

Thank you Jason for the posting, it was great to train with you.

Best wishes

Tim

[drunken boxer]

Wing Choon - The Course

Well its time I got round to writing about a crazy rollercoaster course! By rollercoaster I don't mean ups and downs but an exciting ride at the fairground, with a little trepidation at times but with excitement fun and laughs too.

I'd have to say once again that it would have been worth it for the first day alone. But it was more worth it than usual. The lessons about performing a set at form, chi or jing level, and using hard or soft force were a revelation to me. The biggest revelation since chi flow itself I think!
Tim Siheng has put it perfectly, its impossible to explain it here.

And as a few people have said - to watch Sifu perform the sets at the Jing level really was indescribeable.
I have seen amazing things before, but this was more than that, new words are needed.

The next couple of days we did a lot of Chi Sau - I've never done Chi Sau before and must admit I found it tricky - will have to ambush some fellow course participants to practice it more back in UK! Lets see if they sense the ambush approaching...

Then we went to combat, from boxers (which I enjoyed more than usual... progress, yay!) then a special section on sluggers for some reason which I still have trouble with but hopefully won't have in 6 months time then on to Muay Thai, Taekwondo etc. Culminating in a section on groundfighting which I thought was brilliant! I'll admit, I want to spar with other martial artists one day, and I know that despite my best efforts there is a high chance they'll take me to the ground if they are any good. This has happened to better kungfu exponents than me. So I always had considered that it might be worth looking into a plan B - and learn a few counters from the ground. I did not know that such counters existed within Kungfu but we learned them! I loved this section of the course and am very keen to explore it further! Does anyone remember the name of the kungfu style Sifu mentioned that contains a lot of groundfighting moves?

Many thanks to Sifu for allowing us to see and feel the marvellous.

[Tim]

Thanks Paul, it's good to hear from you, trust you are enjoying your practice immensely.

Even better than highjacking some other students you can join the Wing Choon course I will be running. It is likely to be in London first, so easy for all of you to get to.

More details on this soon...

Best wishes

Tim

[drunken boxer]

Wing Choon - aftermath

Since the course I've been on another rollercoaster! When I got back for the next 3 days I felt exhausted! All the incredible flow and force I felt on the course, I was not feeling it, in fact I was feeling lethargic. My eye started to really bother me again, and indeed I felt emotionally down and drained too. I didn't know whether to train hard through it or rest so I told myself I would practice Siu Lim Tao, Cham Kiew and Phew Chee at least once each day, and that I'd try and listen to my body/chi as to how much to train. This is where one tool from the course came in, I thought I'll practice it at least on the form level each day if I'm tired or if I feel better on the chi level, or even more on the jing level. So thats what I did.

Then about 4 days after the course, in the evening I just started to feel energy start to pulse and charge me again. It felt like when a new spring first starts to break through the surface of rocks/earth on a hill, then starts to trickle then the flow gets stronger and stronger. By the next day I was supercharged and this carried on for the following week. Emotionally I started to feel on top of the world again and I had some feelings and realisations about the cosmos, my life, things that I can't even describe. This stuff is lovely, but how about the real world benefits? Coming next.

[drunken boxer]

Wing Choon - for real

A couple of days later I attended a wedding with loads of friends and family in attendance and I felt so good and I was able to share this joy with others a bit by joining in the traditional irish wedding fun, dancing, joking around, making a fool out of ourselves playing daft wedding games etc giving a laugh and nice conversation to old friends and relatives.

Two days later it was back to reality - I had arranged to spar with my friend because we were both attending the wedding and it was a rare chance for us to be in the same part of the world. This friend is a tough guy, a boxer - though not the most skillful or experienced boxer he is very experienced in streetfights and he is big and powerful externally. He has a good heart too but even though we would be doing in theory light contact the last time I sparred with him I was pretty nervous and for good reason. But this time - my emotional joy and relaxation and chi flow carried on. In the hour before we sparred I couldn't wait for it to start. And it carried on throughout the sparring, even though the sparring was very very difficult it was good fun, and I did much better than last time. I took a lot of hits but I got a few in myself, including a few decent kicks for the first time, and even a 'bad' but effective bong sau that he was kind enough to admit could have ended things if it was a real fight. Though I must also admit in a real fight he'd have knocked me out long before this!

But it was still fun, and what made it so was the chi at my dan tien and relaxation throughout my arms and legs that were developed in practising Siu Lim Tao.

[drunken boxer]

Even better than highjacking some other students you can join the Wing Choon course I will be running. It is likely to be in London first, so easy for all of you to get to.

Brilliant! Wing Choon on my doorstep! This has generated some excitement in the London Kungfu class last night.

Its a good time to start saying thank you's here, to you Tim Siheng for being a great training partner particularly on the boxing and groundfighting drills and enjoyed our chats about Wing Choon.
Shout out to Troy too for helping me in the boxing drills by giving me the right amount of pressure to allow me to learn.
Many thanks to Robin Siheng for many illuminating chats and demonstrations of combat principles with other stylists.
Thanks to Wei Foong Sije for the organisation, the video and all those things which help us to learn.
Thanks to Anthony Siheng for sharing the great Treasure of the Iron Wire.
Thanks to Damien Siheng and Rosaline Siheng for sharing much wisdom enroute to the airport.
Thanks to everyone who took part for being great fun to train with, learn from and hang out with.
And as I said earlier, but can'tbe said too much - thanks to Sifu.

[drunken boxer]

Wing Choon - question

Finally I have a question. Course participants please remind me if this was covered on the course.
One of the two main reasons I've always wanted to do Wing Chun (one of them being that I was a Bruce Lee fan) is that it is known as being a style for small people. But I don't think we discussed why this is so on the course, ie which elements of the style make it good for small people? I never thought about it on the course, it was clearly an awesome style for any sized person, its more of an intellectual question now for fun.

My thoughts are that it involves a lot of fast close range movements, and a lot of strikes. Not too much Chin Na and Gripping as opposed to some styles. Which makes sense to me.

I always have trouble, for example, using a tiger claw to grip and tame the arm. A person with even external force can usually hold me off when gripping arms is involved. But when we clash arms, or I strike their arms, usually they get hurt/bruised and I am fine. I think this is one of the ways a small person with internal force can hurt a large person with external force, ie less gripping/felling/grappling/wrestling and more striking. Any thoughts?

[yasminejade]

Thanks Tim Siheng.

It was an honor to with train all of of you, and thanks for all the guidance during the 5-day course.

(Tim Siheng, I am still amazed with your solid arms )

Hi Paul,

Your experience with your boxer friend is inspirational.

[Anthony S]

Hello Paul,

I'm sure you will get a lot of responses and many will be correct. Furthermore, different people will view things with their own insight that may reflect their own deeper perceptions of the many aspects of Choe Family Wing Choon.

When I consider how powerful the "jing" force is, which Sifu demonstrated, I think that if anyone was struck by that force, they are going down to the ground and likely more than that. Thus, if a small person masters this force it doesn't matter how big or fast or strong the opponent is, they are in big trouble.

[AlexBaranosky]

Hi Paul,

If I'm not mistaken, Wing Chun also has a lot of strikes to vital parts like neck and eyes, which cold be used effectively by small people against bigger folks.

[Chiahua]

Sihing Paul thank you for sharing your down to earth and more lofty experiences, they're an inspirational read. I don't have much to add to the answers given; a massive amount of internal force from Siu Lin Tao and direct strikes to vital points seems to cover many bases. The observation that there is less qin-na is interesting to me. Given the eagle claw discussion on "controlling stars", I could see how a larger exponent might have an advantage with qinna.
I'll be curious to hear how that contrasts with the strategies offered by Praying Mantis, another art to be advantageous for smaller exponents---Praying Mantis in contrast to Wing Chun would have comparatively more qinna techniques.

[drunken boxer]

Your experience with your boxer friend is inspirational.

Hi Jason it was nice to meet you and train with you in Malaysia. I don't think my experience with the boxer was inspirational to be honest (unless you are a boxing fan lol!), it was an improvement but I've got LONG ways to go versus boxers.

When I consider how powerful the "jing" force is, which Sifu demonstrated, I think that if anyone was struck by that force, they are going down to the ground and likely more than that. Thus, if a small person masters this force it doesn't matter how big or fast or strong the opponent is, they are in big trouble.

Ha, yes Anthony Siheng I like this answer!

I think in terms of the answers given, namely force, and hitting vital points, there is still the question for a small person of getting past a big persons long limbs to hit the points or apply the internal force.
When I sparred the boxer it would have been nice to show that I could touch a vital point or do a powerful palm strike but most of the time I would eat a jab on the way in.

As for chin na and gripping, I think I should have made a distinction, I think gripping alone, like gripping a boxers jab and trying to press his arm to his body is difficult for a small person on a big person. But there are other ways to grip which go with the momentum more that can work more easily, and I think chin na is higher level, ie a grip by a small person with internal force to the vital points.

However, as Anthony Siheng says, with the sort of force that Siu Lim Tao can develop, there is a level where even if I was a 6ft 6, 18stone boxer I still wouldn't want to risk striking a person who possessed that sort of force, knowing that even if I could land a punch or two, the risk of a getting struck back with that force would be too great.