Talk:Wing Chun

Safety

Yiu Kai

The legend of Yiu Kai dates the creation of Wing Chun to the early 19th century and identifies Yim Wing-chun's father as Yim Sei (嚴四), a disciple at the Fujian Shaolin Temple who avoids persecution by fleeing with his daughter to Guangxi. Yim Wing-chun learned the Fujian Shaolin arts from her father and, from their raw material, created a new style after seeing a fight between a snake and a crane. She married Leung Bok-chao (梁博儔), a Shaolin disciple like Yim Wing-chun's father, and taught him her fighting style. The couple began teaching Wing Chun's fighting style to others after moving to Guangdong Province in 1815, settling in the city of Zhaoqing.

Redboat Opera Company

See also: Red Boat Opera Company

Another account is that Wing Chun was developed by people associated with the Red Boat Opera Company, a group of traveling Cantonese opera singers who toured China in the late 1800s and early 1900s who formed a popular uprising against the Qing Dynasty.

Red Boat troupes had been an important platform for Wing Chun to build on in Guangdong, and some of the most famous Red Boat Performers such as Leung Lan-kui, Leung Yee-tei, and Wong Wah-bo were all grand masters of Guangdong Wing Chun.

Nearly all extant lineages of Wing Chun, except the Pao Fa Lien and Hek Ki Boen branches, claim to descend from the members of the mid-19th-century Red Boat Opera Company. All Wing Chun descends from six Opera Boat members who were taught by Leung Bok-chao from 1845 to 1855: Yik Kam, Hung Gan-biu, Leung Yee-tai, Wong Wa-bo, Dai Fa Min Kam and Law Man-kung. Leung Yee-tai used a pole to steer the Red Opera Boat away from rocks and shoals, and was chosen by Shaolin master Jee Shim to learn the six-and-a-half point pole. Through Jee Shim, the six-and-a-half point pole was added to the Wing Chun system. Leung Yee-tai and Wong Wa-bo taught Leung Jan, whose students included his son, Leung Bik; "Wooden Man" Wah and Chan Wah-shun, from whom the Ip Man, Yiu Kai and Pan Nam lineages descend.

"Dai Fa Min" Kam, who played the role of the martial painted face, is the ancestor of the Way Yan lineage. The Yuen Kay Shan and Pan Nam branches descend from Wong Wah-bo and "Dai Fa Min" Kam. Hung Gun Biu passed the art to his son-in-law, Yin Lee-chung, and the Wang family.

In the Red Boat Opera Company the virtuous female was played by Yik Kam, better known as Ching-Deng Kam because of the role he played. Cho Shun, who played the Little Martial role, was a student of Yik Kam. By passing the art on to his son, Cho Dak-sang, Cho Shun established the Wing Chun lineage of the Cho family from the village of Panyu.

Tiandihui connection

Leung Jan was associated with Tiandihui via one of his teachers, Leung Yee-tai. Leung Jan had re-arranged the routine of Wing Chun based on the concept of harmony between heaven and earth - which the Tiandhui society was named after. There are only three basic routines in Wing Chun - "Shen Qiao", "Biao Zhi" and "Small Thoughts"; their respective action features correspond to heaven, earth and people. The mastery of the three basic routines becomes Tiandiren and the "Wooden Stake Method"; also known as the "108-style Wooden Stake Method".

Merger proposal 2

I propose merging Branches of Wing Chun into Wing Chun. I think the content in Branches of Wing Chun can easily be explained in the context of Wing Chun, and a merger would not cause any article-size or weighting problems in Wing Chun because it does not have a branches section.

1. Branches of Wing Chun was created in 2005 without any reference to the Wing Chun article, it is 14kb in size, classed at quality = Start, and received an average of 74 visitors per day over the past month
2. Wing Chun was created in 2001 and there was no discussion about creating a WP:SPINOFF article titled Branches of Wing Chun in 2005, it is 36kb in size, classed at quality = C, and received an average of 1,162 visitors per day over the past month

I cannot see a reason why Wing Chun should be separated from its branches. There are benefits in bringing these two together. I shall wait one week for receiving other editor's views. William Harris (talk) 08:35, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

Agree - I can see that they could be fit in a wikitable in a one section. Also the language in "Branches of Wing Chun" is quite messy (i.e doesn't fit the wikipedia model) and can be streamlined for more coherent reading. TrickShotFinn (talk) 08:00, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

I'm thinking something like this. Thoughts? It could prob be collapsible if it starts to take too much space and make the entry hard to read. TrickShotFinn (talk) 08:15, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

Hello TrickShotFinn, thanks for your support. At this stage, my focus is on bringing together those parts of the article which should never have been created separately in the first place. Your idea has merit, and we certainly don't want the writing to be hard to read. Regarding the table you have moved to the Safety section above, it is unclear to me what it is trying to do - I thought that someone would either remove it or explain its significance. Any improvements to the article which cite WP:RELIABLE sources will be most welcome. Regards, William Harris (talk) 09:34, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

About that table at safety? Yeah, I have no clue either. I don't know who made it, but I don't think there's that much harm deleting it. TrickShotFinn (talk) 09:51, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

All of the people in the "Safety table" that have links are now linked in the Wing Chun article. The others are of no concern. William Harris (talk) 11:09, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

The merge is now completed. Interested editors are invited to apply WP:MOS to the new section called "Branches". William Harris (talk) 07:39, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

I'm starting to think this was a bad idea. The History/Branches section is starting to get pretty large, even if you trim unnessecary details out. I made the original assumption based on the sparse text that the original branches had, but now that specifications and citations are starting to come in, I'm no longer confident in my original view. If this section gets massively huge, I think the "Branches of Wing Chun" entry needs to be restored, albeit in more refined form. TrickShotFinn (talk) 10:39, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

I think your idea is good for now, the article is not overly large at 53kb in size (and probably closer to 45kb excluding references, pix and headings that are not counted for article size). Other sections could do with some culling where there is no citation or reliable sourcing. I do not have access to Chu 2015 - which is basically the history of Wing Chun provided through a reliable publisher - apart from what is on Google Books, and I have almost exhausted that, so my additions are coming to a close. One would expect the Branches section to be one of the largest parts of the article. Based on Chu 2015, there are 8 most recognised lineages of Wing Chun, plus numerous other schools and branches. One approach might be to include the other 1 with the current 7, and de-table those listed as "Other notable". William Harris (talk) 08:24, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

Ok, I thought you had Chu 2015. I also got info on the Nanyang lineage from Google Books preview of the Chu 2015. My other source is the 2000 edition of Leung Ting's Roots and Branches of Wing Chun - which PDF copy I got by freak luck from Scribd (its a rare book) - but I contend that Chu 2015 is more realiable/professional. I'll mainly use Leung Ting as secondary confirmation if the facts presented in that book align with Chu 2015 first.TrickShotFinn (talk) 10:13, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

Well done TrickShotFinn, Leung was another text partially available in Google Books that I had in mind. Although his book might be be criticised by some editors on WP as being from a self-published source, he is regarded as an expert in the field and has published other books on the subject, and referenced by others so that argument can be rebutted based on WP:SELFPUB. William Harris (talk) 11:22, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, I had to undo your merge. There is simply too much stuff to fit in those boxes to sound reasonable. -- TrickShotFinn (talk) 18:02, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

@William Harris - However, I need to thank you from bringing the Chu 2015 to my attention. I was previously under impression that Yip Man and Yuen Kay-shan lineages were the central ones with these two having unclear roots mired in speculation. -- TrickShotFinn (talk) 12:36, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

Weng Chun

Should Weng Chun be merged with Wing Chun? Functionally, Weng Chun (atleast Chi Sim lineage) is some sort of intermediate form between Hung Ga and Wing Chun of Ng Mui/Leung Bok-Chau - it is kinda like Tang Soo Do to Wing Chun's Taekwondo if that makes sense. The Weng Chun system and name mainly perpetuate amongst Wing Chun lineages originating from Chi Sim, with also Pan Nam lineage using the name.. Also Chu 2015 ocassionally refers to "Always Spring" (translation of Weng Chun) variation when discussing these lineages + the Nanyang one, which claims to be fusion of Ng Mui's and Chi Sim's systems.

However, there are martial arts scholars - Ip Man included - who consider Weng Chun to be a seperate/sister style of Wing Chun. Thoughts? -- TrickShotFinn (talk) 12:17, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

Pop Culture Section Removal

This section is not relevant to understanding what Wing Chun is. It mostly is an arbitrary section specifically for advertising that has no functional limit to the number of references that could be added. These list type sections serve to do little other than junk up a page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bverji (talk • contribs) 02:53, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Oppose, I think cultural impact of martial art is relevant knowledge. Both pop culture and martial arts go hand-in-hand and is relevant in development of both. Also, I've noticed you've been going on a delete bonanza recently - did you acquire any concensus from the guys at Wikiproject before doing so? Or do you want to explain something to ANI? -- TrickShotFinn (talk) 10:24, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

I have already engaged on the martial art Wikipedia talk page, but wanted to address this in this section as well. My reverts are in response to a couple of editors (likely the same editor) that have "bonanza recently" and added unsourced references across many martial arts pages. In so doing I noticed a few pages that already had "popular cultural pages" but they contain no narrative of the cultural influence and often unsourced. They were just lists which are not encyclopedic without explanation.

That being said someone else removed the most recent edit, that brought me to the page, for being unsourced. I think at the very least the two other unsourced references should be removed, and that a reference to a wooden dummy is a very weak connection (as it isn't directly wing chun) and should also be removed. If the popular culture section in the article is to remain find a supporting article that talks about the cultural relevance of IP man and including it within the pop culture section would add relevance as well as additional information from the video on Tekken. Without narrative, however, these do nothing to explain what whig chung is and are predominantly using the wing chun martial art page to promote these brands rather than explain wing chun.

Simple lists though do not show relevance. "Articles are intended to consist primarily of prose, though they may contain some lists." "Embedded lists are lists used within articles that supplement the article's prose content (this list isn't supplementing any pros)...The potential for creating lists is infinite. The number of possible lists is limited only by our collective imagination. To keep the system of lists useful, we must limit the size and topic of lists." I support a section on popular culture but don't just throw some names into the section (2/3 of which are unsourced) and call claim it shows "cultural impact."

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Bverji (talk • contribs) 16:45, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

It should also be noted Wing Chun has had a resurge extacly because of popular culture, due to the Ip Man movie series starring Donnie Yen. I know wikipedia favors destruction before construction, but this should be much circulated information. TrickShotFinn (talk) 04:24, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Martial_arts#Pop_Culture_sections
  • I removed the popular culture section. Over 1/2 of the references are unsourced. Also, lists are suppose to have their own page and be linked to.

Please refer to instructions on lists. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Lists_within_articles This is how the list of practitioners is done currently as well so the format should be consistant within the article page. I agree with Trickshots conclusion on the information, but it needs to be sourced and it should have it's own page. Edit: I moved the pop culture to a link page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bverji (talk • contribs) 03:00, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

Siu Lim Tau

Hello,

I have found that the transliteration of WIng Chun's first form to generally be written as "siu lim tau". Would it not make more sense to use this version throughout the article?

Thanks, ~~~ NorthWu (talk) 19:44, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

References