But the IDEA remains the same, constant, fundamental.
We can only get so far by training in purely physical expressions of Wing Chun, no matter what those physical expressions are, techniques, Chi Sau, and even Forms.
Physical work will allow us to know how to make these movements, but only the thinking that created them can lead us to advanced understanding.
There is only one Wing Chun, one way of accessing the Wing Chun IDEA.
Furthermore, there really is no right way / wrong way to do things.
Let me clarify this a bit, when training if we are involved in a specific exercise, then yes, there is a right/wrong way for that specific training IDEA, but this is not, as may be thought, about correctness, it is about consistency.
If we are doing an exercise differently on each pass-through, even if it is only by the smallest amount, as far as our Brain is concerned we are doing different exercises, and this will have a negative flow-on to how we remember this IDEA, and to be expected a negative flow-on to how we retrieve that memory, in particular when we remember the IDEA intending to use the skill.
So it is only right/wrong in the context of that specific exercise, and at that particular time, and not in the wider IDEA of how we would use our skill set.
As I have mentioned many times, we will never use the things we do in training out in the wild, we will always need to refine/adjust/adapt them to the situation, so the important thing is to lay down a consistent ‘Default Base Idea’.
This ‘Default Base Idea’ is of course where the term ‘Basics” comes from.
Any physical exercise/action in Wing Chun is always just a way for us to explore the fundamental IDEA behind that action.
The chosen method of approaching and exploring the IDEA can vary in the extreme, with every Instructor and every School free to do this in any way that they feel comfortable with.
But the IDEA remains the same, constant, fundamental.
Once we understand this we can learn from any Instructor, even when their physical or external approach looks completely different to our own.
It allows us to participate in another school’s exercises and approaches without clashing with our own approach.
Which has the potential to end the constant bickering around the opinion that “My school or sifu is better than your school or sifu”
There is only one Wing Chun.
We are all individuals with different levels of understanding and different life experiences, and this difference is multiplied over generations, so some approaches will be easier to access for us than others, but the IDEA is the same.
What is even more remarkable is that not only can we train in different approaches to Wing Chun and still train the same fundamentals, but once our knowledge is deep enough we can train in a totally different martial art and still explore the fundamental aspects of Wing Chun.
This becomes abundantly clear once we focus on the similarities between various methods instead of the differences that they all most certainly have.
Many basic Western Boxing Footwork drills, if slowed down enough and looked at as a collection of single moves, as we do with our FORMS, are almost identical to how we play the Baat Cham Dao Form, and many Muay Thai techniques again slowed down, reflect Biu Gee to an uncanny extent.
There is, and always was, going all the way back to Dr Leung Jan, only one IDEA of Wing Chun.
And no matter how differently we all do it…
…we all do it.
THE “D” MAN.
Wing Chun Sydney, Australia 