Do you ever feel as if the Wing Chun we Learn today isn't original?

Yep.

 

I'm not familiar with most of the names you posted...but if you post pics of them I could comment better... thx.

 

1. horse stance - 50%-50% weight distribution. It's used for hip throw.



2. 3-7 stance - 30%-70% weight distribution. It's used in the XingYi system.



3. 4-6 stance - 40%-60% weight distribution. Most common wrestling stance.



4. bow arrow stance - 70%-30% weight distribution. It's used in Karate punch.



5. empty stance - 0%-100% weight distribution. It's used to avoid foot sweep.



6. twisting stance - 60%-30% weight distribution. It's used for stealing step and covering step.



7. golden rooster stance - 0%-100% weight distribution. It's used for single leg standing.



8. striking tiger stance - 20%-80% weight distribution. It's used for dodging a kick.



9. monkey stance - 80%-20% weight distribution. It's used in forward advance.



10. 7 stars stance - 30%-70% weight distribution. It's used for shin bite.

 

Master Wong is right.

 

When you list the percentages, is the first number corresponding to the person's rear leg and second number their lead leg?

 

Well no. Wrestling has been a part of combat since the dawn of humanity. Chinese Wrestling has been documented back a long long time, as a methodolgy.

Do you really believe that wing chun people from a couple hundred years ago never encountered wrestling, and had absolutely no idea how to deal with it?

 

leading leg - 1st number.
back leg - 2nd number.

 

Chinese wrestling is popular in the north part of China. It's not popular in the southern part of China. It's trained by the Chinese Muslim people around the area of Beijing, Tijing, Baoding in Heibei province, and Mongolian. There are Yi Chinese minority that train in the GuanXi province. As far as the WC original, the Guangdong province, Chinese history has never recorded any Chinese wrestling was taught there.

Here is the Yi Chinese minority wrestling.

 

No no no. Wrestling of some sort is one of the most intuitive methods of combat, and I will never believe that Southern Chinese never wrestled. All people across history have had some sort of wrestling/grappling. All.

 

Ok, thanks. So, to get back to your original observation then...you seem to think that WC only uses that goofy knock-kneed posture. Then you asked "what stances"?
From your list, there are several stances that WC has. I.e. #1, #2, #4, etc.
Whether one uses them or not is up to the circumstances I suppose. But, there are other stances in the WC system other than the usual "restraining a goat"

 

I'd have to agree with that. There may not have been a formal system, but I find it impossible to conceive that they would simply never have wrestled, as a people. And it seems likely there was some "formal" training in it, perhaps not widespread, of which there is no record that survives to today.

 

Kind of seems that way.

 

Heck, I don't know about what WC would have looked like a couple of centuries ago. But it sure seems that way if you look at the WC of the 1970s and early 1980s, before BJJ and MMA burst onto the scene.

By the 1990s WC was at least acknowledging the grappling issue by trying to developing "anti-grappling," ....and now many WC/VT/WT groups have moved beyond such half-baked attempts, and have realized that the only way to deal with a grappler is to train real grappling. Even the EWTO has brought in renowned grapplers for those who want to learn that.

That said, there are a lot of really change-resistant people out there in the WC world. And as long as we don't have a venue for "pressure testing" what we do, they will hang on to their beliefs.

 

Yes, but wrestling is really popular in some cultures, and on the other hand is looked down upon and held in disrepute in others. It could well be that southern China in the 19th and early 20th century was such a place. If Chinese boxing was respected and wrestling looked down upon, then boxers wouldn't much concern themselves with wrestlers.

Sort of like my old uncle John who died several years back. Growing up in the U.S. '20s and '30s, he believed that real men fought like boxers. You used your fists, no low blows, no take-downs, and definitely, no kicks. Anyone who kicked was nothing but a low-life, or worse, a Frenchman .

Needless to say, he disapproved strongly of my interest in Wing Chun. He couldn't understand why I'd want to study that damn ka-rotty when he and his buddies went to war to beat the Japs.

 

How many rounds does a MA guy

- spar?
- wrestle?
- spar and wrestle (like Sanda, or MMA)?

If you don't

- spar, you can't develop your striking skill.
- wrestle, you can't develop your wrestling skill.

Many WC, long fist, preying mantis, Baji, ... guys claim their MA system has wrestling. But if they don't wrestle, how can they develop their wrestling skill?

 

What are you going on about??

 

You can drill the hip throw 10,000 times with your training partner. It doesn't mean that you will be able to pull it out on the wrestling mat. What you can do on the wrestling mat is your true wrestling skill. It has nothing to do with whether your MA system has wrestling element in it or not.

There are difference among MA systems that

1. has wrestling and wrestle.
2. has wrestling but doesn't wrestle.
3. doesn't have wrestling.

IMO, 1 > 2 > 3

 

What does this have to do with anything I was saying?

I simply hold that some form of wrestling has existed in all cultures across time, since the dawn of humanity. Whether that wrestling was formalized or not, whether it was seen as low-culture or not. It has always been there in some form.

 

True enough ....which is why I was shocked when they were going to drop wrestling from the Olympics a few years back. IMO running and wrestling in some form or another are probably the most universal competitive activities of the human species. Compared with these, all other sports, no matter how enjoyable, seem contrived.

 

Bit of a bit peeve of mine here. The question of whether WC as taught today is or is not the same as "original" WC is not a matter of feelings. It's a factual assertion and factual assertions should be evaluated by looking at the available evidence and using reasoning to evaluate said evidence. "Feelings" aren't relevant to the question of what the facts are.

That comment is primarily about the post title. Once you've determined that WC has evolved over the years, you're entitled to feel whatever you like about that fact.

From an historical research perspective that would be interesting. Not necessarily from a functionality perspective. I can tell you for a fact that Helio Gracie's BJJ knowledge and skill were not on the level of today's top practitioners and teachers. I suspect the same may apply in other arts as well.

From what I can tell, Ng Mui probably never existed (except as a literary figure) and probably wasn't the creator of WC if she did exist.

Yep. See my note above regarding Helio Gracie.

I'm not so sure about that. The rise of modern MMA (and its immediate predecessors, such as Vale Tudo, and relatives, such as Dog Brothers gatherings) means that we have many fighters who have dozens (or in rare cases even hundreds) of well-documented professional fights against tough, well-trained opponents with different martial arts backgrounds from around the world under different conditions. We have video footage of thousands of these matches and that footage is studied intensely by many martial artists looking to improve their game. We also have video available of thousands of non-professional violent street encounters.

In contrast, the challenge match experience of a martial artist from a couple of centuries ago was typically with whoever was available locally, was not documented by objective witnesses (let alone video) and was often exaggerated greatly for marketing purposes over the years.

Eh, maybe, maybe not. If you just pile on additional techniques without a coherent set of organizing principles I don't think you do much to improve your fighting ability. You may even make yourself less effective.

Here I agree. (Assuming you are talking about overall combative ability and not just performance in one specific scenario.) My experience is that grappling arts such as Judo, BJJ, Sombo, Wrestling, MMA grappling (and I presume Shuai Jiao from the looks of it) all are based on the same underlying set of principles. The differences in application are just contextual and cultural.

Michael, I think you and Gerry are saying the same thing using different verbiage. Since an instructor cannot transmit 100% of his/her experience to a student, each generation of students must bring their own hard-earned discoveries and experiences to the table in order to keep the art from degrading over time.

I'm sure there was some sort of wrestling in Southern China during the time WC was being developed. However if it wasn't culturally valued it may have been at a much lower level (technically) than wrestling in other parts of the world. If we have no records of its existence, than I suspect that may be the case.