Book Review: Complete Wing Chun

Complete Wing Chun: the definite guide to Wing Chun’s History and Traditions.

This incredibly informative book, written by Robert Chu, René Ritchie, Y. Wu, deserves to be on the shelf of every English reading Wing Chun Kuen practitioner. With it we acquire the power to dive behind the myths that have evolved with our system. Yes, the myth of its foundation, but also the myth of ‘original’ or ‘classical’ Wing Chun.

It’s not a ‘How to’ book, but rather one that deals with the extremely enlightening ‘Where,What and Why.’

So if you read English, and have an interest a little deeper than how to knock someone’s teeth out, certainly consider putting this book on your shelves.

Wing Chun Kuen in film – The Prodigal Son

The ’history’ of Wing Chun Kuen has been the story line of several Hong Kong martial arts films, one such film was realeased in Britain as ‘The Prodigal Son’ ,  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prodigal_Son_(film).

It’s a film full of great ‘Movie Wing Chun Kuen’, so if you ocassionally like putting up your tired feet after a night of training and turning on the DVD player this is a martial art film I would certainly recommend you buy.

This is the final fight between the Wing Chun Kuen hero Leung Jan and the fated Ngai Fai.

Review: The Immortal Freestanding Dummy

A number of years ago while searching for a dummy I could keep outdoors I discovered the Immortal Freestanding Dummy, by Immortal Creations, www.Immortal.co.uk .  I thought it would be the answer to my dreams and so eventually I bought it.

I really like the fact I don’t have to worry about it regardless of the weather. It stands in the garden come rain or shine, and the fact that it is made from recycled plastic makes me feel even better.

However there have been some challenges, firstly although it claimed that it didn’t need to be ‘bolted down or attached to floors and walls’ I found that I did have to weigh it down in order for it not to run and twist all over the place.  The back of the stand has plenty of space in which to do this. I’ve got a heavy planting box on mine which works quite well.

The second challenge was it limbs, I may well have been using it incorrectly, as the company suggested to me, but they snapped. The first time it happened I thought that it must have been a badly made arm, I complained and they kindly sent me out another, but then it happened again, to an arm and to the leg.  No replacements this time around.

As you can imagine It wasn’t the best situation, however it proved to be a valuable lesson as under a handyman’s guidance I produced a new set of arms, and will soon make myself a leg.

All in all I’m glad I got it as on one hand it provided me with a little piece of mind and on the other lessons in carpentry!

Book review

Wing Chun Kung Fu

by J.Yimm Lee 

Background

This Wing Chun Kuen manual is one of the few currently published in Italian. It is a classic originally published in the U.S.A. in 1972. Today, more than 30 years after it was first published, it is still widely available and well liked. It is an essential for any Wing Chun book collection. 

Contents

This book, just like all the other Wing Chun Kuen manuals, must not be considered the Wing Chun bible. What this book is, is a testament of Bruce Lee’s Wing Chun, i.e. Jun Fan Wing Chun Kuen, as its author was not only Bruce Lee’s student and assistant instructor but, as the Italian book cover clearly shows, Bruce Lee himself played a large part in producing the book.  Within this book we find Jun Fan Wing Chun Kuen’s essentials.

We are shown its:

 ·        stances, footwork and horse shifting methods

.        centreline and immovable elbow theories.

·        ideal of economy of movement.

·        theory of facing.

·        methods of attack and defence and their applications.

·        ideas concerning sticking and trapping hands.

·        Sil Lim Tao form 

So, this is certainly a book of substance and one that the Jun Fan Wing Chun Kuen and Jun Fan Jeet Kune Do practitioner needs to study greatly.  However, the book has perhaps created a challenge for the rest of us…  

Defining the art

Many martial artists of all persuasions seem to have a very limited idea of what Wing Chun Kuen is, by reading this historic book we can understand why.
The great Bruce Lee was Wing Chun’s first star and it is perhaps his notion of what Wing Chun Kuen was and wasn’t that still prevails today. He was a student and master of total combat, skilful at stand up and ground fighting, striking and grappling.  He was an advanced martial artist who changed the way all martial artists think and train. And yet as marvellous as he was we must remember that he didn’t finish studying the Ip Man Wing Chun Kuen system.
He obviously knew Siu Nim Tao (recorded not only in this book but also on film), and some say he also knew Chum Kiu (no recorded evidence) along with a number of sections of the wooden – dummy set (eventually becoming the ten Jun Fan dummy forms), but he didn’t know the complete Ip Man system.  And whilst this can be easily seen by modern day Ip Man Wing Chun Kuen practitioners as they flick through the pages of this book, it isn’t seen by martial artists who are not versed in Wing Chun Kuen’s ways.