White Crane tradition - short report

On Saturday, October 7^th, like every year in Master Hong school was held a ceremony and performance to honor the founder of Vibrating Crane ( Zong He) style , Fang Shi Pei.  Around 1840 Fang Shi Pei started his White Crane training and spent 10 years with his teacher refining new style of White Crane inspired by natural vibrations of plants and animals which he considered a the most sophisticated way to generate power. He had few students and couple of them came to Taiwan and brought this rare and probably the softest and truly internal style. Today there are several distinct lineages of this art on Taiwan and at least one in Mainland China.

On this day, in Master Hong’s school all people who are practicing or practiced this particular linage, are gathering to honor founder of the style. Master Hong’s Kung Fu brothers who learned the art alongside him as well as several masters who completed the system under master Hong and few current students.

The ceremony started with burning the incense sticks and offerings put to the little altar dedicated to Fang Shi Pei. After that everyone did a performance and demonstrated some parts of the system. After everything was finished , Master Hong gave a little present to all participants.

It is a great honor to be part of this elite group of martial artists and to practice this rare and beautiful style of White Crane .

True origin of Wing Chun

True origin of Wing Chun is a matter of research and debate for decades. At first everyone believed in Yip Man’s “history”. Mythical characters were considered as real people who participated in important events which led to the creation of Wing Chun. In time most of the story was proven false. Even a superficial research of historical sources proves that Five Elders never existed and foundation for their stories came from triad folklore. Southern Shaolin, mythical place of research and development of Kung Fu also never existed, there are not physical, written nor oral sources what so ever that can even remotely suggest such a place ever existed. While there are still people who believe in a stories of Five Elders and Southern Shaolin, majority of people today know the true facts.

Over the years many people invested a lot of time and energy in search for the origin of the art. What is important to say is that none of these people is a professional historian or archaeologists. They didn’t have enough knowledge nor enough founding to conduct the real scientific research. Furthermore, they all got caught up in lineage pride and their researches, if they can even be called that, were aimed to prove particular lineage or style superiority in historical sense over all others. In absence of real evidence, a lot of “researches” fabricated stories, sources, facts …Even those who approached Wing Chun history research from seemingly neutral angle had a problem of the style’s pride. Instead to collect available facts from all sources, validate and sort them out and then see what will be the result, “researchers” still dwell in a small , limited area of thinking and viewing the art’s history which was established by Yip Man.

People like to believe their art is special, exclusive, with some special or higher historical purpose. When stories about Five Elders, Yim Wing Chun, her husband and Southern Shaolin were proven false, connection to mythical ancestors , places and events , with a lot of prestige and pride , was lost.

In order to restore style’s prestige, “researches” turned to real, verifiable and important historical events and people involved in those events. There were numerous attempts to connect creation of the art to various to Taiping uprising, one of the most significant events in Chinese history and probably the bloodiest one. There were also numerous tries to connect people involved in these events to the creation of the art or to give the art a significant place in Taiping uprising.

Besides Taiping rebellion there were numerous tries to push styles history further back in the past and a search for verifiable historical characters who could even remotely have any connection to Wing Chun.

Everything is turning around Taiping rebellion, Red Boat opera troupe, secret societies and special purpose of the art. “Face” of the art must be saved by any means necessary! Instead to let evidence to trace the path of research, researchers already have the final answers and the whole process is about connecting these answers with available evidence one way or another.   

Without serious, independent history research conducted by professionals with enough founding and resources and peer review the results we will never know who actually created Wing Chun and we will never know exact time of the art’s creation. Even the full scale historical and archaeological research cannot guaranty any substantial results.  On the other hand we can be pretty sure how was the art created and why. On disappointment of majority of Wing Chun practitioners, the origin of the art is much more mundane than anyone wants to believe.

In absence of historical sources we have to turn to the art its self, to technical analysis and what may the purpose of creating the art with all the features that Wing Chun has.

Biomechanical efficiency, often referred as “Qi” or “Internal” power is not something characteristic only for Kung Fu. Actually, this kind of efficiency is used in Kung Fu only for the last 150 years. On the other hand, in all manual labor that require long hours of working, like different chores on the farm, working in fields, mining, boat riding ect , a kind of biomechanical efficiency was developed to maximize effect of the work with minimum of the strength used. People developed different kind of “internal” power for different kind of jobs out of the pure necessity. Working in the field all day require a lot of energy and power , if the worker relies only on raw  power of the local muscle group he would be exhausted after very short time. This kind of biomechanical efficiency eventually found its way into Kung Fu practice so we have a whole bunch of “internal” styles today.

Wing Chun stance with feet pointed inward, abducted knees, specific position of the spine and weight projected on the balls of the feet was probably invented by people who spent most of their time on the boats. This stance allows far superior balance on the unstable and constantly changing surface of the boat over any other stance. The main feature of this stance is that, being relaxed, enables constant fine repositioning of the center of the gravity and maintains balance. Whatever job a person has on the boat this stance is best solution for it. To navigate boats in a shallow waters of Pearl river delta, people used long poles. Using a long pole to push and navigate the boat is a whole day job which requires a great deal of strength, endurance and skill. To cope with a problem of long term physical engagement people again used Wing Chun stance and body structure to generate power and still keep their bodies relaxed and able to work long hours. Instead of quick exhaustion caused by using raw muscle power, boat riders came with a solution which allowed them to be active for a long period of time and conserve energy and protect the body from damage that comes from heavy physical engagement. The way they generated power to push the boats, same way they generated power to fight of river pirates and other intruders.

 Long pole is not only a tool for riding a boat but also a perfect weapon to keep intruders from coming even close to the boats. This is most probable scenario how Wing Chun stance, body structure and power generation came to existence.     

Red Boat Opera Trope spent most of their time (more than 95%) on the boats. It is only natural that all the crew adopted stance and body posture to make their life on the boat easy and to be able to finish daily chores. While most people do not have clear picture what Red Boat Opera trope looked like or have rather romantic view, in reality, the trope was made from very different kinds of people. Among opera staff, actors, musicians, prop master, lived cooks, prostitutes, professional gamblers, pickpockets, “snake oil” sellers, spies…it was a perfect place for their operations.

Model of the "red boat"

                                        

Being most of the time on the boats, the boats were the place where most of fights occurred. Unsatisfied customers, cheated and robbed people, law enforcement, gang members, bounty hunters and many others came to boats and fought with the crew members. Boats were always overcrowded and full of opera props, sailing equipment, food and other supplies and there was little free space on or below the deck. There was only so much space for narrow passages in order to enable most necessary traffic for maintain the boats and life of the crew. Naturally, people on the boats developed the system of fighting suited for the condition they lived in.  If Wing Chun is put in a condition of fighting in a small, limited narrow spaces and passages

than the style’s techniques and theories get perfect sense. Since possessing a weapon was forbidden yet necessar , having a hidden weapon was a solution to this problem. Two short wide blades were perfect for fighting on the boats. Wide blades were strong enough to withstand the blow of much stronger weapon but for perfect length to control the space on the boats. Twin knives could be used with a full range of techniques while usage of other, longer weapons , usual for that time like sabres, swords, spears and others were extremely limited. In this condition chi sao training get perfect sense, in a narrow space where it is impossible to move or movements were extremely limited , fighter trained to fight in a very short range and to control opponents movements who is unable to maneuver is in great advantage.

   

Actual boats from Guadong in 1880

It is commonly believed that Wing Chun empty hand techniques came from Fujian White Crane and unknown Snake style and weapons , long pole and twin knives were added later. In reality almost all modern Kung Fu styles were derivate from some older weapon fighting system and Wing Chun is not exception. No art was made in the vacuum and there was a lot of exchange between different fighting systems at time.

White Crane or predecessor of White Crane was the most influential art in 1800’s and it highly possible that there was some influence on Wing Chun. On the other hand, all southern Kung Fu styles share certain similarities and it is possible that Wing Chun was influenced from multiple sources. People on the Red Boats came from different places and had different martial experience and they all contributed in Wing Chun creation. On the other hand , Wing Chun is highly specialized art for fighting in certain conditions and most of Wing Chun hand techniques highly resembles, or to be accurate , are exact copies of  Twin Knives techniques. This is especially visible in Wooden Dummy form and Biu Jee form.

Wing Chun came to existence out of the necessity of the situation and was adapted to fit the requirements of that situation. It is a highly specialized art for fighting in closed quarter conditions on Red Boats. It is more probably invented by petty criminals , boat riders and additional opera stuff than some significant historical figure or opera actors who definitely didn’t have time to waste on inventing new martial style. Actors of course adopted the art for personal self defense and probably gave some contribution to its technical foundation but they were not main creators of the art. Wing Chun didn’t came to existence at some particular moment but was refining and growing for several generations until it got its shape recognizable today.