Lineage and Wing Chun.

A new student came for a lesson recently. He’d been training in a different lineage of Wing Chun for ten years.

The new student had an open mind and was curious about other “types” of Wing Chun. We started at the beginning - the fundamentals.

The student didn’t have even a nominal grasp of the basics. Although he could dutifully demonstrate the hand forms, the wooden dummy form and some of the partnered drills, his Wing Chun lacked power and substance. The very things that make Wing Chun what it is - directness, intelligent pressure, receiving, redirection, use of the centreline, borrowing force, optimised body structure etc were missing.

When I asked him why he did the things he showed me, he couldn’t explain what he was doing. He didn’t seem to know what he was doing or why. This student is not unique.

Although there are some good teachers and practitioners of Wing Chun out there, in my experience most of them are found in the Wong Shun Leung lineage. My understanding is that Wong Shun Leung made a real effort to systematise Wing Chun - he viewed the system as a combat science. The quality of Wong Shun Leung’s students, and grand students, is proof of this. So many of the other lineages of Wing Chun consist of little more than a ragtag bunch of poorly understood techniques that lack depth and substance.

It’s really important to find a good coach. Somebody who knows what they are doing can explain the system, talk you through it and walk you through it in a systematised and coherent way. Ask questions- if the answer is “we do it like this because our teachers say so,” it’s probably time to move on!