Touching… compelling.
Story of the Greatest. Facing Ali;
(The entire movie has been posted on youtube)
Old China was very much underdeveloped. Roads in many places consisted of paths that had been cut away in forests in order to provide access routes. Because of the many riverways, tributaries and canals, water tended to be the most prevalent means of travel throughout china. The Chinese had developed boat building techniques. Such techniques were refined and led to the creation of the ‘Junk’ types boats, with their great masts. These boats were capable of carrying heavy cargoes and hundreds of travelers and were the types of boats used to transport opera performers from village to village.
During long and boring journeys among cities or villages the daily routine of the acrobatic opera performers were virtually impossible on board the boats. As a result the shorter range required in Wiung Chun (Yong Chun) made it a popular system amongst them. The system of Wing Chun that Leung, Kwok-Keung referred to was Hei Ban Wing Chun (Opera House Wing Chun).
The practitioners of Hei Ban Wing Chu do not consider themselves to be a separate system at all. They too acknowledge the founder as the nun Ng Mui. Leung confirmed that there are different versions of the Wing Chun system which prevail around the various provinces and areas of china. Hei Ban Wing Chu was a splinter system, mostly practiced by people within the travelling opera houses.
It has to be recognized that the Wing Chun on the Red Junks was exposed to various other Gung Fu styles. This could be one of the reasons why the Hei Ban system has a wider and more general perspective that more readily available versions of Wing Chun.
The biggest sin is sitting on your ass.
At the beginning of 2009, I made a conscious choice: 2009 would be the year of Wing Chun. Specifically, it would be dedicated to making connections across the world and researching as much as possible with my limited resources and money.
As any perfectionist would, I do feel like there is a long way to go in my development. However, I feel that 2009 was a success.
This success would NOT have been possible without the help of a group of people. Looking back on 2009 I am grateful for the help and connections I have made. I would like to thank the following:
Wing Chun should be about fighting.
Discussions about Wing Chun should be about fighting.
The practise of Wing Chun should involve an almost exclusive emphasis on fighting (forms and chi sao should be used as points of reference only).
The Wing Chun fighter should be encouraged to cross-train for the sake of being a complete fighter.
Anything even vaguely resembling esoterica should be discouraged.
All Wing Chun men should be forced to watch Mighty Boosh and listen to Dubstep.
It’s lack of faith that makes people afraid of meeting challenges
and I believe in myself.
-Muhammad Ali
Steve Smith is the inheritor of the system taught by Fook Yueng, a relatively unknown Gung Fu master who taught Bruce Lee from 1959 to 1966. Steve was kind enough to share some of his Gung Fu ideas with me and some of my friends. The group were made up of very capable martial artists, including Sean O’ Halloran a devastatingly good submission fighter and coach who runs his own fight academy, Manj; current Canadian Karate champion, Adam Chan of Pragmatic Martial Arts and others representing everything from MMA to Gung Fu.
Clearly Steve is a very talented martial artist and I can appreciate why people like Jesse Glover speak so highly of him. Thank you Steve and I look forward to our continued discussions and visits.
You can visit Steve at his website;
Wing Chun is a superior martial art. It is based, in theory, on scientific principles, mathematics and the space-time continuum.
Because of these principles it enables the practitioner, no matter their conditioning or skill level, to become a fighting machine.
The only thing I can see that would trump Wing Chun would have to be something of more superior skill such as Chi Blasting or Dim Mak.
If two Wing Chun practitioners clashed, it would be akin to a mushroom cloud(1).
HIS DARK SIDE 