8 Wing Chun Predictions for 2008!
Rene Ritchie, December 31st, 2007
Trying to guess what will happen in the coming year is always equal parts fun and futility, but here’s a semi serious, semi farcical take on it.
- The unprecedented availability of different Wing Chun approaches via online video hosting services, allowing us to actually see each other over the span of continents and cultures will continue, and emerging “live” streaming video services will lead to broadcasts of actual Wing Chun Kuen classes over the ‘net. Follow along with a Pien San class from HK, a Wong Shun-Leung class from Australia, or an NHB training session from the UK right from your home computer. (We’ll wait on direct neural transfer emersion until 2009, k?)
- The one true authentic traditional system of Wing Chun direct from Ng Mui, Chi Sim, and Yat Chum will finally be released to the public through mass-market seminar, DVD, and special disciple program opps. This super secret system will look like the ugly step-child of Krav Maga, BJJ, and TKD, and will engulf the ‘netsphere in everyone’s favorite pass-time, flame wars 08!
- A shakeup of the social network space will result in most online Wing Chun people leaving the artificial confines of proprietary systems and connecting via open protocols in expansive systems tied into their existing email and profile accounts. The ‘net will become the network and discovery will no longer be a limit to discussion. We’ll each be able to specify our interests and find content specific to them, ready for everything from simple browsing, to commenting, to contributing.
- Friendship seminars, get-togethers, and gatherings will increase as “party-lines” fade in the face of knowledge and exchange. Less and less will students allow themselves to be segregated by politics and controlled by factions. The deluge of information; articles, videos, live streams, and newer technologies will raise questions that can’t be answered by cults or collectors, leading towards a renewed embrace in family and functionalism.
- Keeping with the concept of functionalism, those groups working on Wing Chun within the lab of no-holds-barred and mixed-martial-arts will grow in number. Like in the old days, when martial arts was not a matter of stylistic dogma but life-and-death survival, where new methodologies were forged from the training of multiple teachers and from multiple systems, being able to train against other skilled practitioners with progressive resistance will allow a re-discovery of lost application and the new discovery of modern insight.
- Someone will begin a debate about Chi/Qi power, death touch, the (lack of) importance of ground fighting, 50/50 vs. 100/0 weighting, heel vs. ball turning, and/or whether training the pole/knife matters in the gun/nuke world. Someone else might respond.
- A generation will come online who never heard about the politics of the 80s and, upon hearing about it, will think everyone involved was just a little too crazy intense due to overuse of hairspray.
- The one true Wing Chun Kuen made public earlier in the year will turn out to be the creation of a small splinter group of Choy Lai Fut people in Springfield, intent on causing yet more division in the Wing Chun world. This will be revealed by the even more really real, truly true, one and only-er inheritor of ultimate Wing Chun, direct from the Yellow Emperor and Monkey King, coming in 2009 via a direct neural implant near you…
Well, there they are! Sound exciting? Sound moronic? Can’t wait? Wish you could get the last 2 minutes of your life back? Hit the reply and let us know, and be sure to tell us what you think 2008 holds for Wing Chun!
The Wing Chun Scrolls will be found, indicating that Wing Chun Kuen is just an elaborate practical joke dreamed up by members of the Red Junk Opera (while in an opium-induced haze) to make themselves some money while taking advantage of the gentry class .
One passage will read:
Wong Wah Bo said, “Hey! I’ve got an idea, these dumb villagers are always looking for new, secret fighting arts, I’ll bet if we made one up we could make a lot of money.”
Whereupon Leung Yi Tei added, “What if we said that we learned it from one of the Five Elders of Shaolin — people love Shoalin stories — how about someone like Jee Shim?
Yik Kam, taking another hit of opium, laughed. “To make it even better, let’s have two of the Five Elders! How about Ng Mui?”
“Brilliant,” replied Wong, “and we can make up some lineage showing it coming straight from Shaolin to us.”
“How about claiming it was passed secretly down through some underground secret society — let’s sex this puppy up!” Offered Leung.
“Now let’s not get carried away,” Yik mocked seriously, then Laughed. “These people are only so stupid.”
My predictions for 2008 will be:
1) There will be further bickering on wing chun forums.
2) The wing chun community will discover Terence Niehoff & Knifefighter are one and the same (just joking, Terence)
3) A well ‘known’ wing chun sifu will start to train fighters to take on K1 & UFC champions to a fight to the death challenge. No rules, no limits — anything goes, to be held in China.
4) Andy will take up CSL wing chun.
My only prediction for 2008!
1. The Wushu Games, to be held in Beijing during the Olympics, will feature Wing Chun and other Southern forms by employing young actors instead of using anyone we have chatted about on any forum! Wing Chun will be highlighted using as few westerners as possible…
I think the last Olympics had bridge (the card game), so who knows what the Beijing games will hold? Nanquan could sneak in as part of the greater Wushu as a demo sport for sure. Trouble is, how many nations could field competitive teams?
Wing Chun may never get in because of the politics. However, if they make WCK politics an exhibition sport, we could have a hit reality show on our hands!
My prediction is someone will find out that Wu Mei and Ng Mui are actually the same person, that Qi and Hei are one and the same.
@Robert Chu - LOL! Remember back in the 90s when IKF has a multi-month letter-column feud between people arguing whether it was Ng Mui or Wumei who founded Wing Chun? Good times. Ig’nant but good…
RR - That’s what I was getting at! The more things seem to change, the more they are the same!
Watch for new lineage wars and trash talk from extremists and more made up stories! Then when cornered about the fictional stories, people will try to defend their story at all costs!
More of the same…
Hmmm. Not a great outlook there Robert! I only wish that we could all get on, stand on neutral ground and develop our family more than ever before. I mean, you guys here have assisted in a massive way by sharing your research in your books and online. But I do wonder if you’re actually up for taking some responsibility yourselves for the knowledge you have put out to the general public.
The only wars to be fought should be with our own self expressions of Wing Chun, as I feel that we may continually drift from our origins if we keep developing so rapidly.
Wing Chun schools across the globe should have more similarities than differences, and this is what needs to be concentrated on IMO. What we need is a trade union!! Directed by the eighteen most prominent figures in the Wing Chun community…
Well, we can all wish can’t we?
Ti Fei,
The longer you’re in it, the more you’ll see the same. I took a long hiatus from the various lists, boards, and blogs, and when I came back recently, people are still asking the same questions and things from the 1980’s still have not been resolved… LOL!
But I agree, the challenge of WCK is within oneself…can one do better? Can we practice more realistically, try to clearly understand what our ancestors meant, while adapting it to today’s environment, and keep in condition, and master all aspects of the system? Even testing it out - that’s all the struggle within oneself…