Stan Henning Wing Chun history piece

brianlkennedy

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For folks interested in the history of Yong Chun Boxing (Wing Chun Boxing) there is an outstanding article by historian Stan Henning in the current issue of Classical Fighting Arts magazine (Vol. 2 No.15).

In that article Mr. Henning talks about the relationship between Yong Chun Boxing and Crane Boxing and how various works of Chinese fiction (novels and short stories) provided fuel for the Yong Chen creation legends.

He also talks a bit about how the Short Boxing described by Ming General Qi may have influenced the development of martial arts in Fukien, including the area of Yong Chun.

It is a well documented and well thought out article.

take care,
Brian
 

David Weatherly

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I'm looking forward to that article. Now to track down the magazine, it's become hard to find. Time for a subscription I guess.
 

exile

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I'll look forward to seeing it! I respect both the magazine and that author.

Ditto to both...

I'm looking forward to that article. Now to track down the magazine, it's become hard to find. Time for a subscription I guess.

... except that even a subscription is no guarantee that you're gonna get your magazine. I've got a subscription and they haven't sent me an issue for months....
 

AceHBK

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never heard of the magazine and would put good money on me being unable to find it.

Who is gonna scan it?
 

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never heard of the magazine and would put good money on me being unable to find it.

Who is gonna scan it?

Very, very high standard journal (more that than 'magazine'). Almost in a class, so far as scholarship is concerned, with Journal of Asian Martial Arts; and Henning has written for both. I believe CFA is refereed.

You can tell the difference between CFA and JAMA, on the one hand, and the real MA rags such as TKD Times, BB and so on, on the other, pretty much at a glance: the text-to-ad ratio is the giveaway. The former two have way more column space than ad space, and their articles are continuous blocks of text—none of that breaking-up of articles into two, or even three discontinuous section to work around the all-important adverts. The latter class of periodical is a delivery vehicle for commercial messages; CFA and JAMA are there to convey important information and serious, well-thought-out analysis, from the likes of Henning, Dakin Burdick, and Harry Cook.

Guess which are the ones that are scrambling to survive.... :rolleyes:
 
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brianlkennedy

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The history is actually somewhat interesting. And I am not talking about the nonsense with the Southern Shaolin Temple. That is absurd and that story owes its start to various “hui” (mutual aid societies) that picked it up from Ming dynasty novels and short stories.
One of the more likely scenarios for the origins of the southern systems (in particular White Crane/Wing Chun) is that they derived from systems that were brought south by various Ming armies. The Ming armies were waging amphibious warfare along the coastal areas, the rivers and deltas of Fukien in an attempt to drive out Japanese, Chinese and South Asian pirates in the area. The systems the Ming military left behind were known in a general sense as “Short Boxing”. And then this “Short Boxing” was developed into the various “Southern Shaolin systems”.

An area that I have specifically looked into, and it is of interest to me because I studied a bit of Taiwanese/Fukienese Crane Boxing, is the technical overlap between Crane Boxing and Wing Chun. From a technical standpoint, it is very clear (to me at least) that Wing Chun is an offshoot of Crane Boxing and that the break came not more than 150 years ago at the most. Now one can say Wing Chun is an advanced development of Crane Boxing or one can say that Wing Chun is a simplified version of Crane Boxing---which you say depends on whether you heart belongs to Crane Boxing or Wing Chun!

In any event it is an interesting area.

Take care,
Brian
 

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