Wing Chun/Tsun Tattoos
- Thread starter bully
- Start date
My si-dei has a plum-flower about two inches in diameter on his lower leg. It's outlined in black with the inner part (the flower) in yellow). He's got awesome technique... he passed me in skill many years ago... but you can keep the tatoo. Looks lame to me.
Actually, the only tattoo I've ever considered is a simple five-petaled plum flower on my deltoid, and maybe the Chinese characters for Wing Chun flanking it. But I've never gotten it done. I guess I'm just not a tattoo person at heart. And I'm really glad I didn't get anything specific to a particular lineage, especially now that I hang with the WC "Ronin".
You know, a pair of crossed Bart Cham Dao on the other arm would look really nice. But nawwww....
Nabakatsu
Brown Belt
Not much of a fan of tattoos myself, and it's a good thing, not sure it would look to fantastic with my tall scrawny build 
almost a ghost
Blue Belt
I had "Shaolin Kempo" in kanjii tattoo, got it covered up not too long ago. Never making that mistake again. LOL
zepedawingchun
Black Belt
Most chinese sifus frown against tattoos. Tattooing is considered one of the 5 major punishments in chinese culture. It is a way of marking the bad people so the rest of society know who they are and to watch out for them. See 'The Art of War', it lists the 5 punishments.
Just curious, why did you get it covered? Was it an ugly tat, in the wrong place, have you changed styles or what?
BTW I see so many younger people so covered with bad tattoos that their bodies end up looking like my old yellow-page phonebooks --covered with doodles. And expensive doodles at that! As an artist myself, I don't condemn tats, but for heaven's sake they could at least put a little thought and discretion into what they put on their bodies. I'd recommend studying real tribal stuff like the Maori tattoos for a start. Some awesome design work there.
almost a ghost
Blue Belt
Changed styles, haven't done Kempo in over a decade, also the negative association in my mind between the tattoo and the kempo school I use to go to.
A close friend of mine has a sister who is a tattoo artist and a painter. I gave her a laundry list of things I like, she sketched up something in her particular style.
I'm getting a tattoo removed on my left arm of a tribal dragon. Decided I'm not going to be that white guy with Asian tattoos LOL.
I gocha. Besides, there are plenty of cool tribal traditions for people of European descent to draw on too. Heck we all have tribal roots, give or take a millenia. Celtic and Norse warrior cultures come to mind. Plenty of others too. Unfortunately, some of these have been co-opted by racist groups, but not overwhelmingly so.
