Is Wing Chun an IMA?

[IMAS]

Wing Chun claims to be internal, and does not use brute force. It can stick and follow like Taiji pushing hands, and techniques similar to Xiingyiquan. It sort of stepping back and forward in a semi-circle around the wooden dummy similar to Baguaquan.

[TrainingDummy]

Same as the "internal" arts... depends on the teacher.

Chu Shong Tin threw me across the room with a simple wrist movement from the Sil Nim Tau, at a seminar in Sydney about 10 years ago. I was pretty impressed.

EDIT: Just found the seminar, I'm the skinny kid in green shorts. I think the fajin move on me got cut out

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTE3Nzk4MTI0.html

[Coiled_Spring]

Wing Chun is purely an Internal art because it relies on Nim Lik (Intention force) at the highest stage, not brute force, not even Fa Jin. Although, it can certainly be played more externally like Hung Gar using dynamic tension (like how Chris Chan does). It was practiced by a woman, and women can rely on internal force instead of muscular force to defeat the male opponents.


You should check out videos of Chu Shong Ting (Tseu Tsong Tin) in youtube. He demonstrates wing chun internally using Nim Lik, and he was one of the longest student of Ip Man, if not the longest. All Ip Man's inner disciples can manifest Nim Lik but they are more obscure compared to the more famous other disciples. Some say that Chu Shong Tin integrates Tai Chi Quan to "internalize" his Wing Chun but this is false. People in the west make this false perception because the external wing chun styles were the ones popularized in the west earlier - which makes most of them think that that is the original Wing Chun because they encountered it before the internal wing chun styles.

[Coiled_Spring]

As far as I know, most of the arts based on Snake and Crane are internal, where as most of the arts based on Tiger, Leopard, Eagle and Monkey are comparatively more external (by external, I mean they use "Fajin").

[Andy_S]

Depends upon what one means by "internal." If you mean an art that uses slow motion in solo training and sensitivity in two-man training then yes.

But looking at its shenfa, it is at odds with the orthodox IMA (Taiji, Bagua, HsingI); nor does it use spiraling motion.

Take it or leave it.

[Bao]

But looking at its shenfa, it is at odds with the orthodox IMA (Taiji, Bagua, HsingI); nor does it use spiraling motion.

Sums it up for me.

I have never seen any wing chun that resembles anything similar to IMA. Here everyone just waves their arms like a crazy fuck while leaning backwards as far as possible. I met a teacher though saying that wing chun is softer than tai chi. His wing chun didn't look very soft to me.

[kenneth fish]

Andy:

Sorry, in this case you are just flat wrong. The problem is, most of the Wing Chun taught in the West is a very poor bastardization of the art as originally taught (and still practiced in Foshan). Real Wing Chun employs all of the same mechanics as Xingyi and Taiji, and yes it includes coiling as well as Fujian crane style whipping power - it is simply visually more subtle. The alignments are the same as Xingyi and Taiji too - its just not been taught that way by most of the teachers who came out of Hong Kong and spread it in the West when it was being ballyhooed. Real Wing Chun also has very advanced breath work. In many ways it has much in common with Jook Lum mantis as well as the softer Fujian crane styles.

Coiled Spring:

I think you buy into mythology without discrimination. The entire "Wing Chun is a women's style" "It was developed by a woman" thing is a recent invention. The idea of "intent force" by itself is also a meaningless term. At the higher level Wing Chun force is very much like Xingyi's "huajing" - highly refined and subtle use of deep muscles not normally thought of as under conscious control for the purpose of redirecting and exerting force.

[chud]

The problem is, most of the Wing Chun taught in the West is a very poor bastardization of the art as originally taught (and still practiced in Foshan). Real Wing Chun employs all of the same mechanics as Xingyi and Taiji, and yes it includes coiling as well as Fujian crane style whipping power - it is simply visually more subtle. The alignments are the same as Xingyi and Taiji too (snip) Real Wing Chun also has very advanced breath work. In many ways it has much in common with Jook Lum mantis as well as the softer Fujian crane styles.

Dr. FIsh, are there any videos available of this Wing Chun from Foshan?

[bailu]

Although I've never really studied Wing Chun, I've always been interested in the style.

Recently, I've gained more interest into 'Foshan' Wing Chun, particularly wanting to learn how it differs to 'HongKong' Chun, so I would be really interested to see if anyone does have any clips of FWC to compare against HKWC?

[bailewen]

Coiled Spring,
All the way over there in India, how do you know about Chris Chan and what do you know of his teaching?

Training Dummy,
That clip was great. I actually don't have the time or patience to watch the whole thing, just skimming it but one thing that jumped out at me was how he was using that ring thing as a demonstration tool. Brilliant. There was one part about 35 minutes through where he was disarming some grabs with basic Siu Lum Tao movements and my first reaction was, "Yeah? So. I can do that..." but then my second reaction was, "Oh yeah. That's the whole point: make these really abstract, difficult skills look easy." That ring makes chin na stuff that was very hard to learn suddenly seem so simply and obvious. Great teaching tool.

[NoSword]

First off, I should make it clear that I'm really not qualified to speak on "Wing Chun" in general or what's "internal" since I only know what I've studied. I didn't learn Wing Chun for very long, and I learned it from a very unorthodox teacher. I don't know much about the different lineages and their politics. But I learned some really important stuff which I don't think I could have gotten out of the traditional IMA's, things which made me see the IMA material I'd learnt in a very different light. Until I tried it for myself, WC looked like a bunch of silly, slappy bullshit (and from what I can tell, most of the WC on Youtube is exactly that); now I think it's (potentially, at least) one of the most genius martial arts out there.

In some respects, I was left with the impression that WC can be more "internal", or at least "softer," than the "big three." In particular, WC made me appreciate how much emphasis there is in the IMA's on power training, despite all the rhetoric we hear about softness and efficiency. This is especially true of taiji. That's not to say that there is no power training in WC, but for the most part it seems to be subordinate to other aspects of the art.

In general, WC seems to take the opposite approach from the IMA's, but they meet in the middle at the advanced levels. For the most part (I'm sure there are exceptions), the IMA's tend to emphasize waist integration and gross, telegraphed whole-body movements for beginners, gradually shrinking things down into a more usable frame as the student advances.

WC seeks to use the smallest possible frame from the very beginning, totally isolating the waist and only working in power once a certain "no power" baseline has been established. It emphasizes weakness and disadvantage from the get-go. The form is designed as a handicapping device to totally eliminate the possibility of inefficient movement -- that is, if you can build an effective base from the WC stance, you can build one from anywhere. In contrast, the wide, deep and powerful stances of many of the IMA's allow you to cheat and 'fake' an internal structure until you actually have one.

So, the IMA's tend to emphasize integration, and WC tends to emphasize isolation. These are two sides of the same coin. If you can really do one of these properly, you should be able to do the other -- but to quote Mick Goodrick, "When a student asks me, should I do A or do B? I usually just reply, 'Why not do both?'"

From what I saw, WC is a brilliant and nasty little martial art, but a highly specialized one -- it is more just a single "little idea" than a comprehensive fighting system. Its principal advantage is that beginners can experience grounded, connected, efficient movement in a short period of time. The disadvantage is that it achieves this through contrivance, by drastically restricting one's possibilities for movement. It doesn't show you "how to move" in general but rather provides a set of limitations to help you discover new ways of moving.

If you want to take the insights gained from WC practice outside of that environment, it takes some research and experimentation, but in that respect it's not much different from any other martial art. In particular, it takes some serious interpretive faculty to figure out it all works with stepping. The way I learnt, stepping was THE key to the art, but you would never be able to figure it out just from looking at the form. Fortunately, my teacher had already figured that out and was happy to share!

I'd be curious to hear what more experienced WC and IMA practitioners think about my impressions, especially Dr. Fish but really anyone who has the background.

AK

[chimerical tortoise]

+1 what TrainingDummy and Dr. Fish and NoSword said.

[Sean]

Great post, No Sword. Some good observations there. May I ask with whom you studied Wing Chun?

The specialization of Wing Chun is "Loi Lau Hoi Sung, Lat Sau Jik Chung", or "when it comes stay with it, when it leaves accompany it, when the hands are released attack instinctively."
Wong Shun Leung understood this to mean (according to his long-time student David Peterson) to intercept the opponent's attack with a springy, pliable energy, counterattacking into their attack and following their center when they withdraw. This strategy also involves the concept of "Lin Siu Dai Da", or simultaneous attack and defense, another Wing Chun specialty.

Now, what I find so ingenious about Wing Chun, is that these strategies start to be ingrained in the body in the very beginning during SLT training.
The stance itself is the basis for all future stepping and kicking techniques, and provides the structure necessary for cutting off/into an opponent's attack with our own counterattack. The whole tan sau/fook sau/wu sau section is there to develop the constant forward springy energy and to show us at what angles it should be applied in relation to the opponent. Tan sau representing the vertical punch attacking from the center and deflecting outward, and fook sau representing the vertical punch attacking from the outside and deflecting inward. While withdrawing the wu sau, the intention should be forward like the potential energy of a spring being compressed. In this fashion the body learns instinctively that there is always the capacity for attack in defense.

Through progressive levels of chi sau training, the structure and strategic principles learned in the first two forms are further ingrained in the body's muscle memory. Training the wooden dummy helps us to see how we can recover when we make errors and further solidifies the necessary footwork and angling needed for applying Wing Chun's strategies. In the system's third form, Biu Ji, we learn that sometimes the rules have to be broken in order to "cut our losses" and survive.

So, the forms themselves are very abstract and internal, developing not only the body structure or "delivery system" necessary, but also a sort of physical understanding of the strategy involved.
Within the "little idea" are very profound ideas.

Sorry I don't have more time to write at the moment, my son is bugging me to use the computer!

Hope this contributes to the thread.

[edededed]

The only wing chun I have been exposed to is the Hong Kong (Yip Man) line (and all its bastard kin), but even despite its apparent lack of spirals and qi, I think that its system is well-thought out and systematic, making it easy for its exponents to get useful skill in a short time.

My main stay is bagua, and I have noticed that many bagua lines are so different from each other that it is often hard to talk in a general way about bagua - it would not be surprising if this is the same for wing chun...

[Eric_H]

I'd only venture so far as to speak for my branch, as already noted, WC is a pretty wide arena.

My Sifu is also a master of Wudang style kung fu; his family's style had 5 lines of taiji, private styles of fu zhen song and the curriculum from the jing wu association in it. In short, he's probably forgotten more good kung fu than I'll ever have, and is uniquely qualified to speak on the subject.

From his teachings, Wing Chun is neither internal or external, the way we view and express energy is more in a sense of "on and off" as opposed to the internal method of Taiji or the muscle, tendon, and bone method of the Shaolin styles.