• Remain disciplined – Conduct yourself ethically as a martial artist.
• Practice courtesy and righteousness – Serve the society and respect your elders.  
• Love your fellow students – Be united and avoid conflicts.
• Limit your desires and pursuit of bodily pleasures – Preserve the proper spirit.
• Train diligently – Maintain your skills.
• Learn to develop spiritual tranquility - Abstain from arguments and fights.
• Participate in society – Be moderate and gentle in your manners.
• Help the weak and the very young – Use martial skills for the good of humanity.
• Pass on the tradition – Preserve this Chinese art and rules of conduct.

Source: www.wcarchive.com.

The ’history’ of Wing Chun Kuen has been the story line of several Hong Kong martial arts films, one classic was realeased in Britain as ‘The Prodigal Son‘.

It’s a film full of great ‘movie Wing Chun Kuen’, so if you ocassionally like putting up your tired feet after a training and watch a film this is a martial art film I would certainly recommend you buy.

This is the final fight between the Wing Chun Kuen hero Leung Jan and the fated Ngai Fai.

Wall Mounted Bag

As mentioned this type of bag is the Southern Kung fu classic. whether one, two, or three sectioned this is the most widely used bag in Wing Chun Kuen.  It is often filled with sand (rough or fine) although the filling does range from dried beans to iron pellets.

When buying a wall bag we want to ensure that the material is thick enough to take a vast number of sessions, it’s also a good idea to check the stitching to ensure that it is well made and won’t split open after only a short while.  The one I am we are using at the moment was ordered from Amazon! We have only been punching it for a couple of weeks, but so far, so good.

Heavy Bag

There is nothing quite like working out on a good sturdy heavy bag. Many practitioners talk badly of using swinging bags in Wing Chun, as they feel the energy developed is not ‘Wing Chun’. Personally, I don’t hold with that belief, I love working with it whenever I get the chance.

The movement of a heavy bag when we give it a worthy hit, and the ability it has to allow us to work our footwork really adds a dimension that the wall mounted bag simply doesn’t have. If an extra long heavy bag is bought yet another option is open to us; low-line kicking. Yes, if we have a three section wall bag we can kick it, if we have a dummy we can kick that too, but neither compare to kicking a heavy bag which is swinging towards us. Although the bag is obviously no substitute for a training partner it will willingly accept every striking tool we throw as hard as we can have and never complain about it!

Double Ended Bag

This is a great device for working with rhythms, punch directions and speeds. It is a little tricky to begin with, but the effort it takes to master it is worth it. Of course, like the heavy bag, it is also one of the prized bags of modern western boxing.

Hand Held Padded Shield

Now this is an incredible piece of versatile equipment.It is great for strikes of all types, we only need a padded shield and a good training partner to have an exciting and punishing workout. It can be used it to work up power in ‘one strike kills’, as well as working for increased endurance in continuous striking bouts.  Make sure you get a shield of good thickness and which isn’t too soft.

Focus Gloves

These have to be the most useful pads I have ever used. They are great endurance workers that really allow us to work on timing, accuracy and defensive skils. Our workouts with them are only limited by the imagination and skills of our training partner. They need to move, be agile and get us to work our footwork, punching angles and defences. They are great for hook kicks too, so let’s not forget to incorporate them into out focus glove sessions.

Thai Boxing Pads

I really see these as kicking pads, they are heavier than focus mitts and their shape allows for a much wider range of kicking techniques. They can be used in a similar way as focus gloves, but there size does limit the trainer’s ability to attack and ‘spar’ with his/her partner.

Other Bags, Pads and Mitts

Don’t limit yourself to the striking equipment mentioned above. There are numerous other pieces of striking equipment that I personally want to try, play and experiment with, I just need to find the money to buy them and the space to put them. I’ll keep you posted on any further developments.

Wong Wu Fong, later known for his fighting ability would be called “Mai Gei Wong” (“rice machine Wong”). He was intersted in martial arts, since his childhood, and was experienced in many differnat styles as well as physical strength and conditioning methods. He was known to have trained “Nothern Shaolin”, “Tai Chi Chuan”, “Bot Gwa”, “Xing Yi”, “Tai Hoi”, “Mok Ga”, western boxing, wrestling and weight-lifting.

Wong Wu Fong, had a chance encounter with the Wing Chun Kuen Master Wong Jing. Wong Wu Challenged Wong Jing to a friendly contest, and was soundly controled and knocked down several times by Wong Jing as well as left unharmed. Being impressed with Wong Jings skill, he becasme his student. After several years of hard practice old Wong Jing advised Wong Wu to train with another of Yuen Kay Shan´s pupils – Master Sum Num, to have develop a wider view on Wing Chun, from a differant direction. He also later spent some timewith senior student of Sum Num, named Pan Chao Sifu.

From his experiances with Sum Num and Pan Chao came some of his “San Sik” and other techniques, which Master Wong Wu Fong included to his own style and expresion of the Wing Chun Kuen system he called “Mai Gei Wong Wing Chun”.

WingChunPedia

They would be gentle to the weak, courageous to the strong, and terrible to the wicked. They swore to defend the helpless who called upon them for aid. They would hold all women sacred, and they would defend one another in any way they were asked. They were to be merciful to all men, gentle of deed, true in friendship, and faithful in love. Each Knight swore to the covenant and then kissed the hilt of his sword. All who heard their oaths shouted once more in acclaim.

The Oath of Chivalry  from King Arthur and the Knights of The Round Table by Howard Pyle

After escaping the destruction of the Fujian Shaolin Monastery by Qing forces, during the reign of the Emperor Kangxi, the Abbess Ng Mui fled to the distant Daliang mountains on the border between Yunnan and Sichuan. One day, she came upon a fight between a snake and a crane. She took the lessons she learned from observing the fight between the two animals and combined them with her own knowledge of Shaolin boxing to create a new system.

She taught this system to a young woman who was being harassed into a marriage with a local warlord, the young woman’s name was Yim Wing Chun. Yim Wing Chun used Ng Mui system to successfully defend herself from the warlord. Yim Wing Chun eventually married a man she loved, Leung Bok-Chao, to whom she taught the fighting techniques that Ng Mui had passed on to her. Husband and wife in turn passed the new system on to others.

Remember that this is only a Wing Chun Kuen story, it is a legend that was probably created by Ip Man, or his senior students, to help promote Wing Chun Kuen on his arrival to Hong Kong. For a study of the arts true origin please refer to Complete Wing Chun: The Definitive Guide to Wing Chun’s History and Traditions.

Chinese martial arts may use Kuen Kuit as mnemonic devices to teach their particular boxing method and philosophy. Although there are numerous Wing Chun Kuen boxing systems, many of the maxims are recognized by all.  The late Wing Chun Kuen master and scholar Moy Yat Sifu, at the request of his teacher, the late Wing Chun Kuen grandmaster Ip Man Sigung, collected an array of these once oral proverbs and committed them to stone chops. Others have been preserved thanks to the Wing Chun Kuen master Augustine Fong Sifu. For ease of understanding the sayings are often divided into subject headings:

• Traditional Wing Chun Kuen Rules of Conduct
• Maxims of Wing Chun Kuen
• Wing Chun Kuen Training Proverbs
• Seventeen Keys to Wing Chun Kuen
• Yee Jee Kim Yeung Ma
• Siu Nim Tao
• Chum Kiu
• Biu Jee
• The Wooden Man
• General Sayings

Over the coming months this blog will  mirror a number of them. But remember, just like all advice given by another, we must each consider their words and apply only what we deem as just and relevant. And although Sifu Moy Yat spent time and great effort in committing a number of them to stone we must be aware before we solidify them for ourselves.

Finishing with a quote from the Wing Chun Archive:

“While masters of self-defense declare that real experience is the best teacher, Wing Chun proverbs do excel as wonderful reminders and clues to the mastery of the martial art. These poetic stanzas preserve a secret Kung Fu tradition, a legacy which can be rendered in beautiful Chinese calligraphy. Wing Chun Kuen Kuit are treasures waiting to be discovered; they remain an outstanding contribution to the world of Chinese martial arts.”

Here is a video of Sifu Alan Orr’s Senior Instructor Student, and Pro Mixed Martial Arts fighter,  Sifu Neil Broadbent working out on ‘The Bob’. Enjoy!

It’s not a ‘How to’ book, but rather one that deals with the extremely enlightening ‘Where,What and Why.’

So if you read English, and have an interest a little deeper than how to knock someone’s teeth out, certainly consider putting this book on your shelves.

Complete Wing Chun: the definite guide to Wing Chun’s History and Traditions.