Biu Gee needs us to unhinge our thinking a little bit and allow what we see to come into being

 

If we look around the Wing Chun community at the way the Biu Gee is performed we soon realise that there is no apparent consensus on how to do it.

If we take our research a bit deeper we find that this has always been the way, Yip Man taught the Biu Gee to, amongst others, Chu Shong Tin and Wong Shun Leung, not only did they both do a slightly different   {which, in reality, equates to completely different, 99% right = 1% wrong =100% wrong}   Form than their teacher but they also did a different Form than each other.

The trend repeated with their transmission of the information to their students like Gary Lam {W.S.L.} and my teacher Jim Fung {C.S.T.}.

I know that my Sifu passed on information to my group of students that was different than the information he gave our senior group of students.

Even within one generation of students, there was a difference.

This is what happens when our ‘base data’ is a concept and not a concrete IDEA.

The question before us is “what thread do I follow”?

I have been working with Biu Gee since 2003, due to my videoing of a great deal of my progress through this period I have a relatively detailed record of my thinking and my approach.

Even in this BIU GEE microcosm there is ongoing change.

Growth.

In the earliest videos I was, to be expected, pretty much a clone of my Sifu, but even back then differences in our physicality {my Spine is quite literally “screwed together” making spinal manipulation a whole different ball game for me} meant that there were slight deviations.

We will all find that our body makes decisions we have no choice but to go with, this will affect what we believe we can realise with this IDEA, with this movement.

Through all of the changes during this time I have maintained the central IDEA that my Sifu passed on to me, which I expect would be the same for him and his Sifu C.S.T. and the same with C.S.T. and Yip Man.

The shape of any Form is just a dance to aid memory.

Learn it well, be accurate and perform it smoothly.

Do not worry if this goes here or if I am doing this correctly.

When the music changes so must the dance.

The difference between the steps we all make is only shading, nuance.

I will lay-out what I believe we should look for in the Biu Gee, what we should pay attention to, even point to IDEAS I think are wrong, but that does not in any way mean that I think I am right, look around, if someone else says something that makes sense to you adopt it.

Biu Gee needs us to unhinge our thinking a little bit and allow what we see to come into being, if we don’t, can’t or won’t do this it will never be our own and we will never trust it enough to use it when the chips are down.

 

 

At the still point in a moving world. Neither flesh nor fleshless; neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is ….. neither ascent or decline. Except for the point, the still point, there would be no dance, and there is only the dance”.      T.S. Elliot.

When the music changes so must the dance.

 

WORK ON YOUR WEAKNESS’.

PLAY TO YOUR STRENGTH.