This thread is an offspring of a General Chinese Arts discussion regarding internal arts. I have received more than skeptical feedback in my listing of Wing Chun as an internal art.
"It is widely believed that the Wing Chun Kung Fu system was developed by a Buddhist nun named Ng Mui, trained in Shaolin Kung Fu, over 300 years ago in China. She synthesized all of the martial arts she had learned at the Shaolin Temple down to a simple and direct fighting style that anyone, regardless of size, could use. Her first pupil was a young woman named Yim Wing Chun. The nun named her style of Kung Fu after this student." -- from the Hawkins Cheung site (http://www.hawkinscheung.com/), under "Wing Chun."
So if we are to assume this nun didn't steer clear of three very powerful arts in particular, this points toward Wing Chun being of a secondary category, according to one of the contributors to the conversation -- an art derivitive of the internal arts. Many practitioners of these three arts, Tai Chi, Bagua, and Tsing I (SP?, sorry no time to cover my *** on the spelling of that right now) have been through my school and noticed the influence of their arts very clearly.
I don't have investment in making anyone else believe what I know of my art form -- Wing Chun is the "bastard that got away" of the internal arts, and its reputation will likely always put it in its own category for many reasons -- however I don't have to swallow statements of confidence that do not take into account many subtle aspects of what I've enjoyed training for sometime now.
http://www.romerowingchun.com
"It is widely believed that the Wing Chun Kung Fu system was developed by a Buddhist nun named Ng Mui, trained in Shaolin Kung Fu, over 300 years ago in China. She synthesized all of the martial arts she had learned at the Shaolin Temple down to a simple and direct fighting style that anyone, regardless of size, could use. Her first pupil was a young woman named Yim Wing Chun. The nun named her style of Kung Fu after this student." -- from the Hawkins Cheung site (http://www.hawkinscheung.com/), under "Wing Chun."
So if we are to assume this nun didn't steer clear of three very powerful arts in particular, this points toward Wing Chun being of a secondary category, according to one of the contributors to the conversation -- an art derivitive of the internal arts. Many practitioners of these three arts, Tai Chi, Bagua, and Tsing I (SP?, sorry no time to cover my *** on the spelling of that right now) have been through my school and noticed the influence of their arts very clearly.
I don't have investment in making anyone else believe what I know of my art form -- Wing Chun is the "bastard that got away" of the internal arts, and its reputation will likely always put it in its own category for many reasons -- however I don't have to swallow statements of confidence that do not take into account many subtle aspects of what I've enjoyed training for sometime now.
http://www.romerowingchun.com