By Derrick Ho
In order to use the Wing Chun, you would have to learn the whole system to understand it. (Siu lim tao, chum kiu, biu jee, mok yang jong, luk dim book gwun, and butterfly knives). If you understand everything, then you become a very skilled person. But you would NEED everything. This would not be a problem in a traditional world cause the student would merely stay with the Sifu and live with him and basically be a family with him. In that way, as long as the master doesn't die (before he has finished teaching) the wing chun skill would not be lost in translation and it would have an almost perfect transition to the next generation.
But yip man was teaching in a developing modern age. People didn't stay with their masters. At some point in time they would leave for their career or for their love. The point is that they would not stay with their master like they did in the old days.
Most people would learn all 6 forms and think they know everything. It takes 2-3 years to learn the form, But it would take several years to master it. Unfortunately, most people only learned for 2-3 years.
People like Bruce lee, Leung ting, and William Cheung; These three people alone are FAMOUS but they have a very shallow interpretation of wing chun.
It’s not their fault for it. Two things are to blame. One, the modern age always wants thing faster and quicker. That’s why most of them moved away from Sifu yip man. Two, it was yip mans fault for encouraging open mindedness. He would tell people to use a technique that works for them. He would also tell them to think about what makes more sense.
In a way, that saying is just like what Bruce lee's JKD philosophy is "Absorb what is useful; Disregard that which is useless"
That very philosophy is what YIP MAN lived by. Not explicitly, but he changed his wing chun to fit himself and basically threw away the extra stuff! Why else would the weng chun wiggle be absent from yip man's lineage?
Think about that....
Yip man was one of the first to modernize the wing chun. He learned from two masters: Chan wah-shun and Leung bik. Learning from more then one master was Already uncommon. Yip man took what he knew and made something for himself.
If the extra forms of weng chun are original then obviously yip man was one of the first generations to receive something incomplete. I believe yip man took what he knew and refined it so that it had no missing gaps.
Bruce lee is basically a guy that followed in his master's footsteps. Yip man was missing something, but he found away to make it complete for himself. Bruce lee only got to chum kiu form (according to his classmate Hawkins Cheung), thus he would be missing 4 out 6 forms.
As a result, Bruce had to fill in the gaps himself. That’s why he had to learn so many martial arts like TKD, mantis, boxing, judo, karate, etc. After he filled in the gaps, it was no longer Wing Chun anymore.
This is a trend that will continue. We call it MMA. Its growing and evolving to meet with the times. This is not a new trend. Every martial art that exists today was a result of a Mix of different martial arts. Each had their purpose but as time goes on, translation to the next generation will be less and less perfect. But its ok, at some point, MMA will become a style of its own. The day that happens, it will be at its prime. Inevitable, there will be another version of martial arts that can stand up to the mighty power house. More and more will rise up and soon there will be many. Many rivals, many challengers and many styles. All of them fighting for supremacy. This is evolution and it should not stop.
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