Talk:Wing Chun

I.m not an expert in Wing Chun, but surely the wooden dummy should be mentioned. Habj 22:41 Mar 26, 2003 (UTC)

LOL. I just noticed your comment after I impulsively stuck in some material dealing with the dummy. Quite serendipitous. (Not sure how to do the time stamp thingy you did there.)

With four tilde. Write "~~~~" Habj 18:58 Mar 30, 2003 (UTC)

Hmm, the dutch wing chun federation page has a lot more content in dutch than in english. I guess that means someones going to have to translate at some point :-/ 80.126.238.189 20:24, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)

This is the best article on a particular style of martial art that I've seen. I'd like to see more facts about the characteristics of various styles on other pages, not just longwinded explanations of their geneologies. That said, this article is very obviously written by someone who's very enthusiastic about wing chun, and it's dripping with praise. Perhaps it could be subtley revised, so that it's from a less personal viewpoint and is more encyclopedic in tone? --J.S. Nelson 09:35, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the compliment, and guilty! I agree that I am very enthusiastic. Any attempts to make the article more objective would be appreciated, but I would be the wrong person for this job :) I've spent a lot of time on this page because I had been looking for a comprehensive summary of Wing Chun to introduce it to friends, but couldn't find one. So I added a bunch of material to the existing Wikipedia article, with of course help from lots of other Wikipedia contributors. Yuenkitmun 10:49, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

For those wikipedians that can read Chinese, [1] (http://www.leungting.com/Chi/Feature02.htm) gives a very detail history of the Wing Chun lineage. Interesting reading, a lot of details on the earlier masters. It would be nice if someone can translate it into English. Kowloonese 00:47, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:List_of_Wikipedians_by_martial_art add yourself!

Wikipedia:List_of_Wikipedians_by_martial_art

History

We give several origin stories in this page. They all need to stay, but a discussion, with scholarly references, of the historical basis for each would be a very valuable addition. Any takers? Andrew 19:29, Nov 19, 2004 (UTC)

I believe most of these stories were passed down verbally. In some case, it was written down, but by then the stories had already deviated into contradicting versions. Since Yip Man's branch of Wing Chun is most widespread internationally and on the Internet. His version of the history is the most widely known though not necessarily correct. The Yuan Kay-shan branch of Wing Chun told quite a different version of the history. Two descepencies in the history are in the early stage and the period where Wing Chun was passed to the Opera performers. One version said there were a few more masters between Wu Mei and Yim Wing Chun. Another vresion said the few masters during the river boat opera era were all learning together, i.e. they shared the same sifu. One problem in researching into Chinese material is that these writings do not quote references. And some claims are impossible to verify. Kowloonese 21:48, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It's quite true that the stories differ. Even an account of who tells which story would be nice, though. But I think that there are probably lots of archives of information on this sort of thing for those who know where to look; I don't, and I'm not even in a good position to get the oral history straight. But here are some possible areas that could be filled in:

• The historical role of the Shaolin Temple, in this and in other martial arts
• The recent history of the art (masters in the last century, schools, Hong Kong, worldwide dispersal)
• Forks and off-shoots (Jeet Kune Do etc.)
• Wing chun in movies, TV, books, etc.

Moreover, dates for known historical events could be provided: if the Shaolin Temple was destroyed by the Chinese government, surely one historical record exists; if the riverboat opera troupe was operating against the government, which government was it? Why does modern wing chun come to us from Hong Kong rather than mainland China?

Anyway, I certainly don't know all this, but some of it must be recorded in reliable sources; even unreliable sources could be specifically quoted. Andrew 00:29, Nov 20, 2004 (UTC)

There are some brief historic accounts on many Kung Fu school websites. Many were written in Chinese. Again if you trace their lineage of these schools, most of the time you can trace it back to Yip Man because he was the first Wing Chun master to teach the art openly in Hong Kong on a school fee basis. Hence a large number of students under his branch. Traditional Kung Fu masters only teach selected talented students with the sole purpose to passing the art from generation to generation. These websites look like they simply cut and pasted from someone else's websites. The last student of Yip Man, Leung Ting branched off Wing Tsun (vs his master's Ving Chun) as an international franchise. He published some books in English about Wing Chun. No doubt, his view is based on the Yip Man branch. Yuan Kay-shan is not from Yip Man's branch and his school's website (see the external link in the article) tells quite a different story. However, I found that his writing is very confused especially regarding the sihing who trained Yip Man. That kinda discredited the accuracy of his website because I bet Yip Man didn't remember his own teachers wrong. Kowloonese 02:07, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I've split up the history section and added a bit of modern history (mostly based on the above). I don't claim it's good, or even especially accurate, but it's there, at least, and with luck people will expand on it in a positive way. Andrew 21:42, Nov 20, 2004 (UTC)

Personalities section (refactored)

I made some minor modifications to the personalities section, removing some potentially inflammatory remarks about a couple of the personalities. I'd like to help keep the wikipedia entry free of the politics that have plagued wing chun for so long. I think it would be appreciated if others would help do the same. Thanks! :) --alex 03:46, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

You didn't make "minor modifications," my friend, you reverted vandalism! Well done! I will place this page on my watchlist to revert any future vandalism, anyone else who is interested should do the same. Fire Star 03:51, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)