THE SEARCH FOR THE LITTLE IDEA.

This is a continuation of the last post, which itself was just the beginning to an approach to isolating the “Little Idea”, and glimpsing what makes Wing Chun “tic”.

Something that may only happen when Westerners get involved in Kung Fu is that the work quickly gets conflated with some level of spirituality.

I believe, as did my Cantonese/Chinese teacher, that this is more about the way our Chinese forebears used language.

A by-product of the way our Kung Fu predecessors approached “The Way” to live life in general.

Wing Chun was always populated by the “Middle Class’ of Chinese society, educated men who would have approached their daily life as a journey to becoming what the Yi Ching referred to as junzi 君子.

I have spoken before about the significance of Yip Man’s Peach Wood Knives.

And about how the monks of the Shaolin and Wudang Mountain Monasteries were spiritual men living in violent times, and not violent men on a spiritual journey.

Although it is not necessary to keep this in mind when actively training as it has no influence on the physical side of the work, it can act as a Rosetta Stone when thinking about the historical information that is passed down to us, as we approach the non-physical side, the conceptual side of the work.

The IDEA.

The little Idea is Simplicity, but what do we mean by this?

We are better served if we transpose the word to simplify or simplification.

To treat Wing Chun as a moving verb and not as a static adjective.

A description of ‘what it does‘ as opposed to ‘what it is‘ or what it looks like.

Simplify as in to make something less complicated, easier to understand, to remove unnecessary extensions, to reduce to basic elements.

Understanding of what?

Extensions of what?

Reduce what?

An absolute prerequisite here is to accept that Dr Leung Jan was simplifying an already well-established, well-trained, well-understood skill set.

His own fighting skill-set.

However, learning the actual skill set is not the goal of the training, it can be any skill-set.

Wing Chun is a departure point and not a destination.

To a certain extent, this whole line of thought depends on what version of Wing Chun Genesis we adhere to.

On what camp we are in.

Do we choose to align ourselves with the passed down tale, the IDEA that Wing Chun was created by Ng Mui and Yim Wing Chun or do we choose, as is accepted by so many researchers as a historical fact, that Wing Chun was a refinement begun by Dr Leung Jan?

If you are unaware of this research start HERE.

To prevent pointless partisan argument we can phrase this as ‘Do we think Wing Chun was a creation or a refinement’?

This brings us to the heart of the split among Wing Chun thinkers.

A crossroad that leads in very different directions.

Is it a religion or is it a science?

If it is a religion, what was done and what was said by the Elders is as good as law, and to attempt to change it is blasphemy.

It was perfect in the beginning, it is perfect now and it will always be perfect.

As disciples, our job is to accept the “Kernel of What Is” and build a fortress around it, never question it, never doubt it.

On the other hand, if it is a science, we are required to engage with it on a completely different level, an antagonistic level, we must always question, and we must always doubt.

Our job as students, using the scientific method, is to take this same “Kernel of What Is” and stretch it to the breaking point, to try to prove it wrong. 

And when we cannot prove it wrong, accept that it is only right for today, tomorrow we try to prove it wrong again.

Obviously, this is a binary choice.

While we can at any time retrace our path to the crossroads and follow the opposite direction, we must commit to our choice, whatever that may be, and not look back. 

We can of course choose to turn again at any time, many times even, but once on either chosen path, we must hold strong with our IDEA.

But whichever road we choose, we should keep in mind the opening passage of the Chinese Philosophical classic the Dao De Jing, which all of our Wing Chun predecessors would have been more than familiar with, even lived by.

The way that can be spoken of is not the constant way.

Laozi.