Representing the W-C-K!
Rene Ritchie, January 27th, 2008
I don’t know anything about the specific situation in this thread over on KFO, nor do I have interest in the specifics, but there’s a great old Kung Fu parable that applies to all these situations:
“Master, I wish to open a school, may I use your name?”
“Disciple, why not use your own name?”
“Master, your name would attract more students, and intimidate those who would challenge me.”
“Disciple, if your own name doesn’t attract sufficient students, and your own skill doesn’t intimidate would-be challenges, perhaps you are not yet ready to open your own school.”
Bottom line, everyone teaches and applies everything differently. We aren’t Agent Smith Matrix clones. Trying to preserve WCK is like trying to take a slice out of a river: A waste of time and a missing of point.
All great masters of the past evolved their art naturally over time. The obsession to preserve one slender moment of that evolution is a type of procrastination, of avoidance of the responsibility to give back as much as you received. To return to the art.
It’s like a 2d photograph, a single still frame when the whole video, the whole 3d world, is just one step back and one shift of perception over.
The rest is just BS politics.
If you stick around long enough, the same people have the same problems (one student represents them… no, no.. another one… no, not them either… and the previous one was bad… not as bad as the previous one to them, or the next one when they become the previous one). Past behavior is the best indicator of future behavior. What happens to previous person before will happen to the next person soon. But that’s the parable about the monk giving the scorpion a ride across the river, and a parable for another thread…
“Master, I wish to open a school, may I use your name?”
This I’m afraid, Rene, is possibly one of the main reasons that we have what we have today in the World of Wing Chun.
Many good practitioners became Sifu by their own request, forcing the Masters hand and responding to massive demands from the public. We need to let the masters decide for themselves who is ready to teach and if things are done properly they would also have a say in the brand ‘name’ for your school imo…
Excellent post, Rene. You nailed it.
And, not surprisingly, TiFei missed the whole point of it. The “Master” doesn’t decide who is ready to teach — the skill, the individual’s own skill, determines that. There is no such thing as “a brand name.” There can’t be in a functional martial art. What is the “brand name” in boxing or wrestling or muay thai?
Did I miss the point T? Lol! Looks like you’re saying the same as me in a way. Our ‘brand name’ is Wing Chun no? I’m saying that a Sifu would assist in the naming of your school, rather than you use your actual family name. That is if the relationship between student and teacher still exists.
This, I feel, is balanced. You don’t use the teachers name nor your own. You agree what name reflects your personality maybe, like a nickname. As always, I can only talk from experience here. I saw students who were eager to teach on their own and some that refused to teach without support.
The main reason for this was because, although we all had access to the same teacher, we received individual tuition. Tuition that in itself was individualised. Yes, there were images of form etc but we were all grown to be individuals. Preserving the same foundation, but ultimately becoming a distinct image ourselves.
What I’m saying is that I never felt that I had my own Spencer D Wing Chun, I carry my Sifus teaching in the form of The Yum Yeurng Academy. A Name agreed by three. My Sihing teaches with me, as a pair, but I’ve recently taught on my own for the first time.
It’s only now, after longer separation that I feel my own personality seeping into my way of teaching. If I could even call it that?!
Dude, you still don’t get it.
Go back and read what Rene wrote (and not what you read into it):
“Bottom line, everyone teaches and applies everything differently. We aren’t Agent Smith Matrix clones. Trying to preserve WCK is like trying to take a slice out of a river: A waste of time and a missing of point.”
As WCK is individual, dynamic, and adaptive, like boxing, no one can preserve that. You can’t learn Muhammed Ali boxing. The attachment of his name to is meaningless beyond superficial marketing. You can’t preserve your sifu’s teachings, you can’t teach like him, you can’t apply WCK as he did, etc. Just like as in boxing, all you can teach — presuming that you have the fundamental skills — are the fundamentals. Then you get out of the way. The fundamentals of any functional art, boxing, wrestling, or WCK (if it is functional) transcends any individual, style, etc. They are fundamental because you need them, you can’t do boxing, wrestling, or WCK (fight with the martial art) without the fundamental (why it is called fundamental).
Who you learned from doesn’t matter. Learning to box from Mohammed Ali doesn’t make you a good boxer or a good boxing coach. Your personal development is all that matters. Look at all the great musicians in the world — who taught them? It doesn’t matter. Who taught all the great athletes? It doesn’t matter. It’s not the teacher or even the teachings, it is a matter of getting the fundamentals and practicing using them — in WCK that means fighting — that brings about that development. Musicians, athletes, etc, don’t go around talking about lineage. Only silly-assed TCMAists do that. And take it seriously. They do that because they have no personal accomplishments (they couldn’t beat low level fighters); all they have is an attachment to some “name” — and that “name” is just some plonker who knew a superficial bit of WCK.
I’m sorry T, but all I see in your own writing is a complete disregard for anyone who has served an actual apprenticeship under a Sifu. Actually, you sound like any modern sports coach trying to make your ideals fit into your latest NVQ. What’s your next idea? ChunAerobics? Sports training and coaching isn’t Martial Art, it’s sport and it’s competitive. It may shock you to learn that there are people who train without competition even entering their minds.
It’s not hard to understand. You say ‘As WCK is individual, dynamic, and adaptive, like boxing, no one can preserve that.’ I say, what a load of crap! It’s only a fighter who would say that because, maybe you didn’t spend enough time with a teacher to actually ‘receive’ anything. Preservation is in the written word friend, not your actions! Did you get taught WC from the written word?
You mention ‘It’s not the teacher or even the teachings, it is a matter of getting the fundamentals and practicing using them’. So I ask you what are your fundamentals then? Do you teach them to new students? Do you have them written down, say in a curriculum? If the answer is yes, then you’re already preserving them.
Finally, if all you’re interested in is fighting, and feel that this is your true accomplishment of learning a Chinese Cultural Art, I commend you as it’s a hard life. I’ll end by repeating what Rene has written…
“All great masters of the past evolved their art naturally over time. The obsession to preserve one slender moment of that evolution is a type of procrastination, of avoidance of the responsibility to give back as much as you received. To return to the art.”
Return to the Art? I must add that all Great Teachers may have evolved themselves, and taught differently at different times in their lives. BUT what kept the knowledge pure and constant? Where did all the ‘lil ideas’ come from?
I must still have the wrong idea eh? Maybe Rene can help me understand exactly what he meant?
I’m not sure what defines, “purity”, and I don’t want to make this an existentialist discussion (if I am not training on the Jong, is the Jong still there, does it cease to be a Jong?)
For example, if people on the Red Junk had been overly concerned with preservation of doctrine and dogma, there likely wouldn’t exist the WCK we have today (Add a pole? We’re not adding a freakin’ pole! Get out of here with all your un-pure add-a-pole nonsense!)
In calligraphy, it was generally considered that you mastered two previous, established styles as your foundation, then you came up with your own, unique expression.
It’s also important to remember that people in China weren’t learning a cultural art, they were learning an art that was part of their culture. The master/disciple relationship, the cosmological worldview, etc. was the way everything was taught, from MA to chess to car mechanics. They brought in Western books and Western parts, but they taught and practiced in their own cultural way — they didn’t take the culture with the knowledge (were as most Westerners, perhaps because of Kung Fu TV, seem bound to take Chinese culture with Chinese knowledge).
I fall somewhere in the middle on this, as I enjoy Chinese culture in many ways. And I do think teachers matter, in that good teachers have generational experience, tactical knowledge, etc. to pass along.
For example, Cuz D’Amato taught Mike Tyson Peek’a'boo boxing. And when Tyson was with D’Amato, using Peek’a'boo, he arguably did better than later.
However, I also think there is a point where people use the word “preservation” or the name of their sifu, to give them an easy out from personal attainment.
The Chinese have a great saying for this: “Green comes from blue but is better than blue”.
It is the job of every good student to surpass their teacher.
That takes a lot of work, from both teacher and student, but if you don’t set the bar high, everyone loses (including the art).
Hey RR,
Nice topic.
The reason for giving credit to your teacher or teachers is simply out of respect for those who came before. Nothing more! What matters most is the technology of your platform and how you represent it. Wing Chun archeology is not about saying your form is the exact form as Yim Wing Chun or your application of Pak Da is direct from Miao Shun. Its the technology and what can it do for us today.
Dogma is about robotic mimic shape. Platform arguing is also the same. The end result of all the research is the beef can be found in the Dynamics, Conditioning and a few odd things. Other than that we are pretty much using the same external shape as they were which is not really important.
Even Leung Jan said:
The difference between the two family were very little.
The problem with the everything is everything application theory it has opened the door to call anything wing chun. The basic boxing tools must have some representation in a fight or its pointless to train the art the way we all do. This is why traditional martial arts get spanked regularly and this is also why we need to investigate as much as possible and how it can effect todays practitioner.
Just an opinion.