In this scenario, the aggressor is gesturing
aggressively, as Sergio guards his space. Contact
with the man’s leading hand makes reading his
body cues easier......and Sergio cuts off the swinging
punch with a simultaneous lap-sao
and punch...... taking the centreline and moving his
body through the opponent’s, whose
forward momentum adds to the strike’s
penetration.WING CHUN vs KING HIT
22 ƫđƫ333ċ (%06) #ċ*!0 | (^) FEATURE STORY
student of Tang Yick, Sunny So,
became my reference point.
Every time I found
something better, it’s like some
energy led me...because even
though I’m pretty stuck into
something when I’m focused,
I’m still always open-minded. So
when I find something and say,
‘with my current ability I cannot
handle this’, I have no choice but
to go and try it.
I had some instructors who
were totally against this, and
who will nowadays speak very
badly about me, but Sifu Sunny
is a very good exception — he
encouraged it and just said,
“Okay, we keep on training and
whatever you learn, you share
with me.” And then he became
like a training partner, and I
share with him the knowledge I
acquire from other lineages.
So why is it that Western
Wing Chun people think ‘Hong
Kong’ and they just think ‘Yip
Man lineage’, and that’s it?
It’s just a misunderstanding.
People believe movies too much,
and of course all the marketing
over the last 40 years, with
Bruce Lee and everything. It is
more that it is promoted — it’s
what sells magazines and stuff,
so people are not interested in
anything else. They say Yip Man
was the first one to teach Wing
Chun in Hong Kong, but it’s not
true! We had Tang Suen and
he taught Wing Chun in Hong
Kong well before Yip Man, and
some other people from other
lineages also taught before Yip
Man. You could maybe argue
that Yip Man was the first one
to publicly open a school.
The biggest thing that
bothers me is that Yip Man’s
system became the blueprint
for Wing Chun. People don’t
realise that it is just his personal
expression of the art that
became famous. And even
through the years, he changed
his training methods because
he was learning from different
sources, and then [his former
students] argue and fight —
‘who is the real one’, right? But
they’re all right, actually; he just
taught different things, from
his own experience, at different
time periods.
An important thing to note
is that he learned only a part
[of the original Wing Chun
method] from three different
sources in the wider Wing
Chun world. So, in my opinion,
he didn’t even have the whole
system or experience everything
that is out there.
People just think, Wing
Chun: three empty-hand forms,
a wooden dummy, a knife
[butterfly swords] and a pole.
But even if you just look at the
pole... first I learned Sifu Leung
Sheung’s version, from a student
of a student of Leung Ting. I
later learned the Leung Ting
version, and I always wondered
why, if you compare it to other
kung fu styles, it’s so short. Then
I found out it’s actually only a
small piece of the original Luk
Dim Boon Kwan (Six-and-a-
Half-Point Pole form] that you
find in China. The Yip Man
version is maybe 70 per cent
of the first section of a form
that has 18 sections! So it’s a
very small piece, very limited,
but that became known as ‘the
Wing Chun pole’. If you look
at the original Luk Dim Boon
Kwan, where Yip Man also got
the name from, it is not limited
at all; it is one of the most
complete and best pole systems
out there, comparable with
many of the pole systems in
the north of China. People just
don’t know!
So are any other systems
teaching the full version?
Yip Man groups have a very
small piece; Yuen Kay San (who
was a very close friend of Yip
Man), his lineage has some
more sections. Tang Yick lineage
is the only one that I know of
that preserves the whole thing,
and then of course, through
them, my association as well.
Why do you think that is?
Because people are too
closed-minded. I was the one
to bring the Tang Yick lineage
out in the open, actually; it
was around 2004 that I started
to talk about them having the
original pole form. Back then
in Hong Kong, there were three
people teaching it but they had
other main jobs, so it was just
on the side, and unless you were
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