субота, 27. септембар 2014.

Wing Chun History - Taiwanese conncetion

Wing Chun history is shrouded in mystery .There are many versions of wing chun history , many original and superior styles, many holders of the only complete wing chun system. Every now and then some new original Wing Chun style appears supported with newly discovered secret history. Every style , even every school from the same lineage has
different version of history which puts them somehow in a position of only and
last keeper of the best and true original, version of the art . Over the years
stories changed , new stories appeared , new ‘old” , secret styles surfaced ,
people from other styles fought for the “truth” by searching the evidence to
prove everybody else wrong, endless discussions are still ongoing all over the
internet …

Among all that mess, false claims and constructed “histories” some people actually did some real research , as much as they were able to. Today we can take some things regarding the origin of Wing Chun with a great certainty, although , real history research , conducted by
real scientists was never done. We can trace Wing Chun to the Red Boat opera
trope . We do not know whether Red Boat people practiced Wing Chun per se or some
other art which later became known as Wing Chun. We know what people brought
from the Red Boats , but we cannot be sure who actually taught those people. We
can trace Wing Chun history and development with some certainty from the beginning
of the 20th century , not before.

What is still unknown and a subject of many speculations is the ancient origin of Wing Chun. What art, and by whom was brought among Red Boats and who created it. There are many different stories,some similar, some totally different  but they all share one common feature , they all lack any real evidence and cannot be considered more than a legends .

I have met some interesting people in Taiwan, some of them are practitioners of “Taiwanese” version of wing chun , the others are White Crane practitioners. They have some interesting stories regarding the ancient origin of Wing Chun .

 Some White Crane people claim that Wing Chun is nothing more than a modified sub
style of White Crane that was brought among Red Boats from Fujian province by Yim Wing Chun and her husband around 1720’s .Story about Ng Mui taught Yim Wing Chun , how the girl met her husband and fight against the local official who wanted to marry her ,was no different from Wing Chun origin story , onlt difference is Yim Wing Chun was taught White Crane , not Wing Chun . That Crane style was modified later by opera people for the purpose of fighting on the confined quarters on the boats .

 Michel Yeoh as Yim Wing Chun


Other group of White Crane practitioners claims that Wing Chun is a sub style of White Crane brought to the Red Boats by Taiwanese master around 1780’s.They couldn't give any details , like what style of White Crane that master brought to the red boats ,they told me the name of the master but i forgot it ( i have real trouble remembering Chinese names )and to be hones  I was embarrassed to go back and ask again for the name.Taiwanese master was a member of anti Ching movement , but why he joined the red opera troupe and what secret organisation he belonged remains a mystery ( or they didn"t want to tell me , which is also highly possible ),

 People form “Taiwanese” Wing Chun claim that their style was brought to Taiwan in 1661 by direct student of Ng Mui .They consider their style as a "male" version of the art and red boat opera style as "female" style. They also consider Ng Mui as founder of Wing Chun.

What is interesting , all of them have some old documents to support their stories. White Crane people keep good record of historical development and spreading of their style , if nothing else , many of the events and data points can be connected to the real historical events and people involved in those events are real people whose existence can be verified
. On the other hand , without a real research and expertise done by the real archaeologists and historians these stores , like all other wing chun origin stories cannot be taken seriously .
What I can say with a great certainty as being practitioner of Wing Chun and White Crane (zonghequan) is , both arts have same origin , same source . I will DNA analogy ( like some people did before ). Just like in a case of primates where people and for example chimpanzees have 98% of DNA which is exactly the same and the rest 2 % defines the differences between two species , same thing can be said for Wing Chun and White Crane , they have identical basic principles , only difference is in expression of thous principles.

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