Honest HFY Question-

[Ultimatewingchun]

It would seem that, contrary to how you described what you thought I meant, JP...the 45 degree angles go in the direction such that the elbows are closer to the center of the body when in ready position - and not in reference to the 'X' positions used in the opening of SLT.

So I see no difference between the two systems in this regard. I've seen photos of the HFY ready position (ie.- jong sao when in the neutral side body stance, for example). The arms/hands are in a 45 degree position - the same as TWC.

............................................

Other simple questions:

As to the movement at the beginning of SLT - I see the upside down 'V' you referred to when we (TWC) do the 'X' (it's half of the 'X') - just like you can see it on your computer screen as you read this.

That said - what's different here than from the motion used in the HFY SLT?

The actual "look" of this part of your SLT high and low position - anything different? Or is it the same motion? (I'm referring to the 'X' and you are looking at that part of the 'X' that looks like a 'V'). So what's the difference if the motion(s) signify the same thing?

DO YOU SEE MY POINT?

No?

Well then look at it this way: the 'X' and the 'V' both point to 4 gates - IN BOTH SYSTEMS...but I was talking about 6 gates because wing chun (all wing chun) uses the defense of 6 gates in the final analysis.

Is this not true of HFY?

So technically, when referring to the move at the beginning of SLT - we ARE defining 4 gates - that's true. 4 of them - two high and two low - from the middle of the body on up. (The other two being below the waist, ie.- the leg and groin areas...HEAVEN (head)...MAN (trunk of the body)...EARTH (legs) - combining your terminology with ours.

So you got me on that - I mis-spoke when I said 6 - but my doing that doesn't change the meaning of the 'X' motion used in TWC. It still defines 4 gates.

And besides defining the gates - it also defines how the arms are to be used within the proper FACING (deui ying?) so that both arms won't go outside the BOX (theory) wherein they reach to the same exact distance simultaneously without so much as having to turn a shoulder at all.

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You also wrote his:

"From what I have read here and seen in pictures, there is an X created, where the hands/finger tips point to the corners of a box when crossed at the low and high bounds out to the shoulder dimension. This can clearly be seen in the pictures Phil provided...Are you saying that these pictures are wrong? (JP)

***NO, I'M NOT.


"Also, it looks as if the fingers are at the shoulder dimension when crossed at the upper bound, and the arms clearly look to be at an X shape (the lines in the picture help illustrate this point. Further, the elbows seem to point at almost 45 degrees in the opposite direction.
From a HFY perspective, this would be incorrect, as it goes against our CL theories, our distinct ref. points of the formula, as well as 4-gate TYD (I say 4-gate since 6-gate is not present with this facing..." (JP)

***Don't understand what you mean by how the elbows are at 45 degrees here? 45 degrees in relation to what/where?

[Phil Redmond]

Post #319 shows pictures of the Central line defination. And the SLT form here shows it:
http://www.wingchunkwoon.com/empty.asp

[Nick Forrer]

Alan posted-


re-


Thats awesome the Sifu and his student from the WC line that is made up are excited about the WC in a book thats not about WC.
Real f'ing genius coming out of that (Robert Chu) WC family.

Matt

It was an in joke. Jokes of course require a sense of humour. I suggest you look in to how to go about getting one.

BTW wrt 'made up' wing chun - if people kept things how they found them rather than trying to improve upon them we wouldnt be much further on from where george stevenson, the wright bros and henry ford left us. Thankfully we now have ferraris, boeing 747s and japanese bullet trains. Its called evolution. Then again maybe you guys are like the wing chun Amish and stuck in the past. Think about it.

[anerlich]

Anerlich,
Savi does make a good point about the history link on your site.
Yip Man WC has always traced it's lineage back to the Reb Boat opera. Does your family of TWC trace their lineage back to the Hung Gun Boxer society?

Matt

(yawn)

If Savi makes a point, let alone a good one, it escaped me. What "good point" do you think he made?

It's not my site, it's my academy's site. I haven't discussed history with my instructor for a long time, and never discussed it with the webmaster.

I have no idea who the Hung Gun boxer society are/were. I had always assumed TWC came from the Red Boats, hence Hung Suen. I don't know, I didn't do it. The org needed different marketing from the WWCKFA, and this is where it ended up.

Rick Spain and Alf del-Brocco spent some time about a decade ago discussing various matters related to history with Benny Meng. Alf and Benny collaborated on an article, and perhaps other things as well. Perhaps those discussions came up with something I don't know about (and don't really have much interest in).

The history of KF, WC and TWC is filled with lies, half-truths, and exaggerations. I don't see anything much different coming out of the VTM, MKF or anywhere else. No worse, but no better.

Should anyone wish to stir something up about the website with its owners about false claims about relationships with other variants of WC, go for it. Personally, I would prefer that no one infer such links, as they can at best not improve our image IMO.

There's no dead horse here to flog, but if you want to waste bandwidth looking and implying accusations for conspiracies that aren't there, be my guest.

Nick is correct. In every other field of human endeavour, especially the scientific ones (as many claim WC to be), continuous improvement comes about through personal innovation and exploration. Sticking to stuff allegedly developed on a battlefield centuries ago and not entertaining change is fundamentalism, not science. This is the flaw in the "Popular Wing Chun" argument taken in MKF.

[YungChun]

Nick is correct. In every other field of human endeavour, especially the scientific ones (as many claim WC to be), continuous improvement comes about through personal innovation and exploration. Sticking to stuff allegedly developed on a battlefield centuries ago and not entertaining change is fundamentalism, not science. This is the flaw in the "Popular Wing Chun" argument taken in MKF.

It depends at what level we see the "last rev" (the version past on by Ip in some cases or by our teachers in others) of the system as.. Some see this last rev of WCK "technology" as a half step above bear skins and stone knives, others see it as closer to a Lear jet.. In the case of the latter the "technology" should be well understood before any major "improvements" could be possible IMO. In the case of the former (stone knives, et al) you might as well just start over, as some others do and completely forget the name of the ancient and nearly useless "technology"..

[Ultimatewingchun]

Btw...

When I said that I have a problem with the story that both men tell - I was not implying that I think they are "liars".

I believe that William Cheung is an honorable man - and have no reason to think otherwise about Garrett Gee.

It's honorable to obey the wishes of your instructor if he wants you not to tell anyone that you learned the system from him. And if I'm right about William Cheung learning TWC elsewhere than from Yip Man - than what better way to honor and respect both of his instructors than to credit the first instructor for teaching him what the second one didn't want his name attached to?

A perfect solution to a big dilemma.

And an honorable one. Someone who does that is not a liar in my book. He's a wise man.

[reneritchie]

Although Cheung sifu could have gone the classic route of saying he met a Shaolin/Wutan Monk/Priest with white eybrows/hair/beard and learned it from him in a secret cave/grotto/mountain top/temple, probably saving himself like 30+years of aggravation along with the Sihingdai and general smart-alec community...

Why not Yip Man sifu, while working as a detective in Guangzhou, chanced upon another branch, learned some of it, but so as not to cause problems with his Foshan classmates, only ever passed it on to William Cheung under strictest vow of not-make-publicness?

And don't we just know there's an HK TV show/movie spec sitting somewhere on all of this?

[anerlich]

Some see this last rev of WCK "technology" as a half step above bear skins and stone knives, others see it as closer to a Lear jet.. In the case of the latter the "technology" should be well understood before any major "improvements" could be possible IMO.

If no one has been able to understand it well enough to innovate successfully for more than two centuries, then truly WE ARE NOT MEN, WE ARE DEVO....

This isn't well, rocket science. It's not as complicated as that or medicine. You should be grounded enough to start experimenting in say ten years, otherwise there are big problems with the pedagogy.

BJJ is a more complex martial art than WC (more complex, not necessarily "better", O mighty forum vigilantes), and has improved greatly in a matter of decades through sharing, exposure, individual innovation, and most of all, testing it out all the time in an environment which rewards exposure and abhors secrecy.

[YungChun]

If no one has been able to understand it well enough to innovate successfully for more than two centuries, then truly WE ARE NOT MEN, WE ARE DEVO....

Well from what my understanding is, the system has evolved.. Ip made changes to the system, my teacher (MoyYat) and others who I trained with (my seniors) also contributed to what and how the system was trained. In fact, just going by what happened at MY's old school, I see very much an evolutionary process that started when the school opened and never really stopped, even up until today... Change? Evolution? I see it as a constant.. But that doesn't mean that the core of the system has radically changed or that the system has moved far off the course of its core objectives.

[Ultimatewingchun]

You wrote the following:

“Another key concept…is HFY’s 5-line theory (which describes width) and how it also supports the structure in space along the center line based on reference points." (JP)


PLEASE EXPLAIN HOW THIS DIFFERS FROM THE FOLLOWING TWC CONCEPTS:

1) the main centerline
2) the line parallel to the main centerline that runs down your right side chest line
3) the line next to that which runs down your right side along your shoulder line
4) the line parallel to the main centerline that runs down your left chest line
5) the line next to that which runs down your left side along your shoulder line

[osprey3883]

It was an in joke. Jokes of course require a sense of humour. I suggest you look in to how to go about getting one.

Nick,
Smileys and wit don't change that you are here to stir things up.

Matt

[sanjuro_ronin]

...and has improved greatly in a matter of decades through sharing, exposure, individual innovation, and most of all, testing it out all the time in an environment which rewards exposure and abhors secrecy.

This needs to be re-stated over and over and over tell those that believe in "closed doors" and "inner circles" understand.

[osprey3883]

You wrote the following:

“Another key concept…is HFY’s 5-line theory (which describes width) and how it also supports the structure in space along the center line based on reference points." (JP)


PLEASE EXPLAIN HOW THIS DIFFERS FROM THE FOLLOWING TWC CONCEPTS:

1) the main centerline
2) the line parallel to the main centerline that runs down your right side chest line
3) the line next to that which runs down your right side along your shoulder line
4) the line parallel to the main centerline that runs down your left chest line
5) the line next to that which runs down your left side along your shoulde

Hi Victor,

Reading over the above it looks like the TWC definitions of these reference points is wider than the way HFY expresses them. HFY bases it's structures on these lines, from a HFY perspective deviation from these lines undermines the strength of the structure.

Matt

[Ultimatewingchun]

When you say "these lines", osprey...which lines are you referring to?

Can you be more specific when you say that the TWC lines are wider?

In other words, where exactly are the 5 lines used in HFY drawn?

[Wayfaring]

You wrote the following:

“Another key concept…is HFY’s 5-line theory (which describes width) and how it also supports the structure in space along the center line based on reference points." (JP)


PLEASE EXPLAIN HOW THIS DIFFERS FROM THE FOLLOWING TWC CONCEPTS:

1) the main centerline
2) the line parallel to the main centerline that runs down your right side chest line
3) the line next to that which runs down your right side along your shoulder line
4) the line parallel to the main centerline that runs down your left chest line
5) the line next to that which runs down your left side along your shoulder line

Victor,

From MKF book p.80 - Five-Line Concept (Width)
There is a Figure 5.1 "The triangle" noted on the page that visually shows you width and alignments in detail, including hand, elbow, and foot positions.

The five lines can be identified on the body from left to right as follows:

0 - Left shoulder line - Yang
1/2 - Left nipple line - Yin
1 - Centerline - Yang
1/2 - Right nipple line - Yin
0 - Right shoulder line - Yang

I am also at this point to encourage you on your detailed journey actually say that picking up a copy of MKF would be very helpful. Chapter 5, entitled "Wing Chun Formula" describes all of this in exact detail, including diagrams, and sequential pictures of the Wing Chun Formula exercise.

At Amazon.com, the book is currently priced at $14.96. If that's too high, used copies are selling as low as $6.43 + $3.99 shipping.

Whatever semantic reason you've had for not doing this to date, if you're trying to investigate in detail the systems, that book would be an awesome start, better than sorting through all our posts on the internet.

Your time that you are spending on this is probably easily within an hour worth more than $14.96, and if it can save you some work, then why not? The 1st 3 chapters are history and a perspective, which you may have no interest in. The other 6 chapters are all on the HFY system itself. I'd say you'd be well along your way to proving or disproving in your own mind your point by reading through those chapters. With your 33 years of experience you would probably be able to draw conclusions in much more detail than most on this forum.