Wing Chun

[Ebondale]

Well. I'm starting Wing Chun this coming tuesday with a group of my wingmen here in Alaska. (There isn't a lot to do around Anchorage so some of them are taking three or four different martial arts).

Is anyone familiar with Wing Chun and/or other forms of Kung Fu? Is it true that Wing Chun is the only form of Kung Fu that was created by a woman? (I had heard that somewhere in the past.)

Who are the martial artists on PC? :D

[Sean of the Thread]

Dude what do you mean there isn't anything to do around Anchorage???!?? STALK DEV FOR THE LOVE OF <insert diety> That woman is HOT!

[Ebondale]

Meh... I'm married. :) My wife would stab my face eighty seven times with a plastic spoon-fork.

[Tisket]

There isn't a lot to do around Anchorage

Not much more than any other city of 300,000 people.

[Tisket]

I was curious so googled it. Apparently one of its most historically famous practitioners was female, however she didn't invent it.

[Ebondale]

I'm from Washington, D.C. myself and I'm not saying this to sound like an elitist or anything like that but personally I wouldn't even classify Anchorage as a 'city' more like a big town. I mean, buildings over 4-stories high are a rarity (due to Alaska's earthquakes).

Hell, the only good bar in town (Chilkoot Charlie's) has the floor covered with sawdust to soak up the blood from the fights.

How did this conversation move from martial arts to the inadequacies of Anchorage? :)

[Tisket]

How did this conversation move from martial arts to the inadequacies of Anchorage?

Don't worry, I moved back to the topic at hand in my second post. My bad.

[Tisket]

Psst, Chilcoot Charlies has peanut shells on the floor. Not sawdust. Oops, there I go again. Bad Tisket!

[Kainen]

I can't say that I have heard of it.. is it anything like Wang Chung?

[Sean]

Originally posted by Xyelin
Dude what do you mean there isn't anything to do around Anchorage???!?? STALK DEV FOR THE LOVE OF <insert diety> That woman is HOT!

Um doesn't DEV live in Chicago?

[Trinitis]

Originally posted by Tijay
Um doesn't DEV live in Chicago?

Indeed.

[Ebondale]

Originally posted by Tisket
Psst, Chilcoot Charlies has peanut shells on the floor. Not sawdust. Oops, there I go again. Bad Tisket!

Either way I avoid the place. Violent sexual predators in this state and all... you know. ;)


I can't say that I have heard of it.. is it anything like Wang Chung?

Honestly couldn't tell you. It could very well be the same thing but just a different translation of the name from Mandarin to English.

[Kainen]

Sorry.. that was my lame attempt at humor.. Wang Chung was an 80's band. :lol:

[Ebondale]

Originally posted by Kainen
Sorry.. that was my lame attempt at humor.. Wang Chung was an 80's band. :lol:

LOL damn you! :lol:

[Terminator X]

Kenn is second degree Ken-po. I think.

[AnticorRifling]

I did some wing chung and white eyebrow in the Marines. It's good stuff but until I started get decent at it I used to get worked over during sparring. Like don't know your own name and tasting the color blue worked over.

[Ebondale]

Originally posted by AnticorRifling
I did some wing chung and white eyebrow in the Marines. It's good stuff but until I started get decent at it I used to get worked over during sparring. Like don't know your own name and tasting the color blue worked over.

Oh, I expect to. :)

One of the guys I'm going with has a 3rd Dan in Karate, I don't know what in Tae Kwan Do, and several other 'qualifications' and he came back from his session all kinds of banged up.

[AnticorRifling]

Kung Fu is probably one of my most favorite memories from military service.

That being said I can't get that damn Wang Chung song out of my head now.

Everybody Wang Chung tonight.

[Skeeter]

I just round house mutha fukkas.

[Ebondale]

Originally posted by Skeeter
I just round house mutha fukkas.

lol

You hard, son! You hard!

[DCSL]

Originally posted by Ebondale
Is it true that Wing Chun is the only form of Kung Fu that was created by a woman? (I had heard that somewhere in the past.)



I don't practice Wing Chun myself but I know my boyfriend studied it a bit, so I asked him about it.

Wing Chun is viewed as a more feminine martial art. The horse stance is viewed as more feminine because one stands slightly pigeon-toed. The same for the standard fighting stances.

Wing Chun also emphasizes speed over strength, uncommited blows, and efficacy over form. Which is all feminine, apparently, to the Chinese. I know my boyfriend finds it harder than me to be in certain of the "feminine" stances.

There're lots of stories about who began Wing Chun, from Indian noble men to a Shaolin abbess and a girl named Wing Chun who didn't want to marry some old fart. I dunno which is true, but the presence of females in many of the stories might or might not be just a way of explaining the more feminine aspects of the art. Or they could be true. Who knows?

[Xandalf]

I know quite a bit about the particular art, and most arts. If you have specific questions let me know.

Legend says that Wing Chun was the name of a girl in a small village outside a Southern Chinese Shaolin Temple. The monks of the temple became upset that so many of the Chinese had learned their "secret" martial art (Martial Arts were generally kept secret until the past few decades when it became utterly devoid and commercialized... but I won't go into that). The monks of the temple began to develop a new Martial Art that they would keep for themselves. As more and more people joined the temple, the government soilders (who knew older Southern Shaolin Gung fu) the soilders attacked the Temple without warning and with overwhelming force and killed nearly all the monks. One monk who escaped was named Ng Mu, and she completed the new martial art.

While in hiding, Mu taught the martial art to her first and only student, a young girl from the village who Mu renamed Yim Wing Chun. The art was practiced only in secret for centuries, until Yip Man began offering the first classes in Hong Kong... one of his first students was a young man who was constatly getting into fights and getting beat up on the streets of Hong Kong. His name was Bruce Lee.

[Ebondale]

Hey, good information! Thanks for the input. :)

[Xandalf]

No problem. I'm a nerd and I love MA (Luke Coombs, anyone?) so I can answer most qustion you might have.

[Ebondale]

So I suppose it could be said that all Kung Fu originates from Shaolin or are only certain styles from Shaolin temples?

[Xandalf]

Well, the argument can (and has) that all Martial Arts developed from the Shaolin monastaries. They started as a series of breathing techniques which were developed to aid in meditation.

Over the centuries, they watched the movements of animals and began to mimic the animals, eventually developing the first Shaolin Martial Arts. These arts either slowly dissipated throughout Asia, or developed simutaneously throughout Asia (Japan, Korea, Okinawa, Burma, Nepal, India, Thailand, etc)

Kung Fu itself is just a general term for all Martial Arts which come from China.

The same was Karate is a general term for all Martial Arts from Japan/Okinawa (Mainly Okinawa)

[Ebondale]

So how do you feel about more 'mainstream' martial arts such as Tae Kwan Do and Karate? :)

[Xandalf]

Hah... I'm probably going to offend some people with the following statements...but here goes.

Tae Kwon Do...TKD. It was brought to America by Jhun Rhee after WWII.

Now, Jhun Rhee is an incredible Martial Artists.. I've met the man and even at around 75 or so, he's still in amazing shape.

That being said.. most TKD guys are athletic, flexible... but absolutly miserable fighters. TKD is the most commercialized Martial Art in the world. It has become a joke, seriously. You pay your dues, you go to class, you get belts. TKD instructors are generally full time teachers. They NEED their students to come regularly and pay dues.

The whole "belt" system is another joke. Most Asian martial arts don't even use belts. The belts just make us silly westerners feel good about ourselves.

As for TKD guys, the first time I ever sparred one was at the University Blackbelt club. I was fairly new to Martial Arts at this time.. I only really knew how to box. This kid was bigger than me and he had a black belt! I was so intimidated but my friend told me that I'd be fine....and I absolutly knocked the kid around. He was terrible.

TKD looks really good in the air. It's beautiful and it's good for teaching young children discipline. But it has become so commercialized that it is utterly worthless as a combative art.

Go to Korea and show them American TKD and they'll laugh at you, and then kick you in the face. Heh.

[Ebondale]

Haha, yeah I agree with you on the whole 'belt system'. When someone tells me they have a blackbelt I'm all like "Ooooh, scary."

I think it takes something like 3 years of study in karate to get a blackbelt but most people would tell you that you don't even really BEGIN until you have a blackbelt. Each successive dan takes additional years of practice and there are only a handful of 10th dan blackbelts in the world, whom I greatly respect.

I told my wife I was going to take Wing Chun and she was all like "Oooh, I took Tae Kwan Do when I was a kid! Is it the same thing?" so I was like, "No, baby. Tae Kwan Do is kid's shit." No offense to people who take TKD seriously, but thats my opinion. :)

What do you think of Shotokan Karate?

[Latrinsorm]

Originally posted by Ebondale
When someone tells me they have a blackbelt I'm all like "Ooooh, scary."Tsh, yeah, everyone knows that class is basically worthless until you get a class change and become a Master.

[Ebondale]

:lol:

Blackbelt to Master was the most "Wow, that did nothing" class change. ;)

[DCSL]

Yeah, I don't really respect the belt system. I've studied three different martial arts but I haven't had a belt ranking of any color since I was eight. And my boyfriend, one of the best martial artists I personally know, has never had a belt ranking at all that I know of.

Screw that. Belts are for holding your pants up.

[Xandalf]

Well, there are some Martial Arts in the US that I have great great great respect for.

I'm not dumping on martial arts. Quite the contrary actually.

What I AM dumping on is the mass commercialization of martial arts and how it has become about money, rather than the art itself. I can offer advice if you're really looking for something good.

As for Shotokan, it's an excellent Okinawan Karate system. I've personally trained in it a bit, and I really like some of the holds. Reminded me of Akido. Good stuff. I don't know THAT much about it specifically, but if you can find a good teacher than I would certaintly enourage it. If your teacher is some stupid fat american who just wants your dues every month, then kick him in the nuts and leave.

[Ebondale]

Before I joined the military I was a manager at a tanning salon. A few doors down from my tanning salon was one of many in a chain of Karate joints called "Jeff Smith Karate". Anyway, Jeff used to come in for a tan and shit all the time and he seemed to me to be kinda out of shape.

Jeff was a nice guy and all but I honestly didn't take him or his schools all that seriously because of this. I just figure that a proposed martial arts master should be a regular at a tanning salon.

Meh...

Well, to his credit he was very good friends with Chuck Norris. ;)

[Souzy]

Originally posted by Xyelin
Dude what do you mean there isn't anything to do around Anchorage???!?? STALK DEV FOR THE LOVE OF <insert diety> That woman is HOT!

Besides his wife stabbing him in the face, I'm sure DeV would kick the shit out of him if he even tried.

[Souzy]

One of my freinds took Shotokan. I think it deals with mostly power hits? I wouldn't put any of my children into any American classes. I'd rather send them off to the temples if I really wanted them to learn the true techniques, haha.

[Edited on 11-18-2005 by Souzy]

[Latrinsorm]

Originally posted by Souzy
Besides his wife stabbing him in the face, I'm sure DeV would kick the shit out of him if he even tried. Telephoto lenses FTW!

[DeV]

Dang, Xye. You n00b.

[Ebondale]

Besides his wife stabbing him in the face, I'm sure DeV would kick the shit out of him if he even tried.

I'm telling you. I wouldn't live long enough for DeV to get to me.


One of my freinds took Shotokan. I think it deals with mostly power hits? I wouldn't put any of my children into any American classes. I'd rather send them off to the temples if I really wanted to learn the true techniques, haha.

If I had the option to train at a temple I would do that. My wingmen assure me that the Wing Chun instructor is very good so I'd like to give it a shot.

When I get back home from Alaska if I can I hope to continue Wing Chun and take up Kenjutsu with a friend of mine who has been taking it in Northern Virginia for about 5 years now.

[Xandalf]

If you come to N. VA, I can direct you to some fantastic schools. They're non-commercial schools... so you can only get into them by invitation.

Real training by people who are teaching because they're really passionate, not because they're making a living.

There's a BIG difference.

[Ebondale]

Xandalf, I didn't know you live in NOVA. I'm from Reston, actually. :) I hope to get stationed back at Andrews AFB after I'm out of Alaska.

Anyway! I went to my first wing chun lesson last night and met Sifu Marty. I love the way that unlike TKD and Karate there aren't set forms or katas or things like that which you go through and think "Okay, if they attack me like this then I move like this" or things like that, you don't think and react you simply react and the class is taught in such a way to build a fighter's instinct rather than focus on form and posturing.

Where in Northern Virginia are you, Xandalf?

[Xandalf]

I go to school at University of Maryland, College Park.

Just north of DC.

[Ebondale]

Good school.