Weng Chun
The Weng Chun Kung Fu ( Cantonese永Weng or Mandarin yǒng "forever",春cheun "Spring",功夫gōngfu "ability") is a martial art from Southern China, especially Hong Kong . It is officially part of Hong Kong's cultural heritage alongside other martial arts such as Hung Kuen , Tang Lang Quan, and Wing Chun . The Weng Chun Kung Fu belongs to the Nanquan ( Chinese 南拳 , Pinyin Nánquán - "southern fist") due to its origin in southern China , which is a collective term for the Chinese martial arts styles south of the Yangtze River . According to its own oral tradition, the origins of Weng Chun Kung Fu lie in the Shaolin temples in southern China.
Transfer of the characters 永春 into the Latin script,
demarcation from 咏 春 ( Wing Chun Kung Fu)
In Cantonese, the characters 永 (wing5 in the Jyutping system) and 咏 (wing6 in the Jyutping system) are pronounced very similarly. For people who do not speak Cantonese, the slight difference in pronunciation is barely noticeable. The character 咏 is assigned to the Kung Fu style Wing Chun (咏 春), which roughly means "song to spring". In standard Chinese, the identical pronunciation Yǒng (yong3 in the Pinyin system) is used for the characters 永 and 咏; from a linguistic point of view, it is apparently a homophone .
However, Weng Chun and Wing Chun are listed as two different styles of Kung Fu in the English version of the Hong Kong Official Heritage List. The transmission "Weng Chun" is also widespread in Hong Kong, as it makes it easier to distinguish it from Wing Chun according to the different characters. The martial arts literature also assumes that Weng Chun and Wing Chun are different styles.
In an interview from 1972 with the "New Martial Hero", a Chinese martial arts journal, the well-known Grand Master of Wing Chun, Yip Man , confirmed that Weng Chun and Wing Chun must be understood as different styles due to the different characters despite their similar pronunciation.
Weng Chun is not so similar to Wing Chun as it is to Hung Kuen , which is also known as Hung Gar Kung Fu. Sometimes the Weng Chun is also referred to in the specialist literature as Chi Sim Wing Chun or Siu Lam Wing Chun . Here one refers to the legend of the Buddhist monk Chi Sim from the Siu Lam temple (different transfer of the characters 少林, otherwise more like " Shaolin "), who is considered to be an important forefather of several Kung Fu styles. These include Weng Chun ( Jee Shim Wing Chun in), Hung Kuen and Wing Chun.
History of Weng Chun
An important and historically relatively well documented Weng Chun grandmaster of the modern age is Chu Chung Man . He was born in Foshan at the beginning of the 20th century and studied with teachers of various Kung Fu styles for many years, including Weng Chun Kung Fu. Chu Chung Man was also a good friend of Yip Man . Chu Chung Man worked as a practicing doctor in Macau during the Second World War , and from 1953 as a doctor in a hospital in Hong Kong. He is considered a fifth generation student of Weng Chun Kung Fu after the above-mentioned monk Chi Sim .
When Chu Chung Man moved to Hong Kong in 1953, he met other grand masters of Weng Chun Kung Fu who taught a comparatively large number of students, including Grand Masters Tang Yik and Wai Yan. Wai Yan was the managing director of a poultry wholesaler in Kowloon and temporarily converted the department store into a training hall in which the Weng Chun grandmasters met for a long time to exchange ideas. The name of the wholesaler Dai Tak Lan was also the name for the training hall, which was to acquire a certain significance for Weng Chun Kung Fu in the post-war period.
The grandmasters themselves and their descendants had and still have various students who did not come from China. They made Weng Chun Kung Fu known outside of China and founded various martial arts schools and associations. As with Wing Chun Kung Fu, aspects of trademark law led to different names for the schools. In addition, the grand masters of the Dai Tak Lan Center always taught slightly different variants of Weng Chun Kung Fu as part of their family tradition.
Nevertheless, all of the schools mentioned refer to the Dai Tak Lan Center and the families of the grandmasters, especially Wai Yan, Tang Yik and Chu Chung Man.
Principles of Weng Chun
An essential concept of Weng Chun Kung Fu is the lack of any preference for fighting distances. Strikes and kicks with hands, feet, elbows, knees and shoulders go seamlessly into throws , levers and strangleholdings , which in some schools are also continued in ground combat. In addition, in Weng Chun there are certain principles for combat that serve to be able to react quickly and tactically. Here are the seven most important principles of Weng Chun Kung Fu:
1. Principle Tai (lift upwards):
Break the opponent's balance by lifting upwards.
2. Got principle (cut down): Cut down
the opponent's power during an attack.
3. Waan principle (sideways circling):
Use the strength of your opponent to throw him off balance. If the opponent applies pressure, the angle to the opponent is changed. Thus an attack goes nowhere, or the opponent runs into a counterattack.
4. Principle of the kit (occupying the opponent's space):
Defense against an attack, entry into cover for the opponent.
5. Principle of Lan (create your own space):
Lock your opponent in order to create or maintain your own space.
6. Principle Dim (for example “aiming”, “drawing attention”):
Shock and unsettle the opponent with a quick, concentrated attack.
7. Principle Lau (flow):
Also called the “half principle” in Weng Chun, it is half of Weng Chun Kung Fu: Maintaining the flow of one's own actions, destroying the flow of the opponent. The fighter flows like water continuously into the gaps in enemy cover.
The concept of Kiu Sao
In Weng Chun there is the concept of "bridges to the enemy", which is described as Kiu Sao (for example "bridge hands"). It has a certain similarity to the Chi Sao ("sticky hands") of Wing Chun, or to the Tuishou ("pushing hands") of Taijiquan (western Tai Chi) and to the Kakie (also "sticky hands") of Gōjū -Ryū karate. What all four of the above concepts have in common is the training of tactile skills that enable tactile and prediction of the opponent's actions through physical contact.
literature
- Leung Ting: Roots of Wing Tsun. Leung's Publications, Hong Kong 2000.
- Werner Lind: The dictionary of martial arts. Sportverlag, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-328-00898-5 .
- Robert Chu, Rene Ritchi, Y. Wu: Complete Wing Chun: The Definitive Guide to Wing Chun's History and Traditions. Tuttle Publishing, 1998.
- Benny Meng: The Treasures of Shaolin's six-and-one-half principles. In: Kung Fu and Tai Chi Magazine. February 2005, p. 92.
- Andreas Hoffmann, Nadine Poerschke: Weng Chun Kung Fu. Budo International Publ. Co., Madrid 2011, ISBN 978-3-86836-183-4 .
credentials
- ↑ South China Morning Post, June 17, 2014, On the list of 480 Hong Kong cultural assets at position 367, Wing Chun at position 380, [1]
- ↑ Werner Lind: The Lexicon of Martial Arts. Sportverlag Berlin, 2001, ISBN 3-328-00898-5 , p. 530
- ↑ a b c d e f g h Robert Chu, Rene Ritchi, Y. Wu: Complete Wing Chun: The Definitive Guide to Wing Chun's History and Traditions. Tuttle Publishing, 1998, from page 90 Archived copy ( memento of the original dated November 7, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Sound example for both characters [2]
- ↑ Dictionary entries for both characters in Cantonese and Standard Chinese, wing5: [3] wing6: [4]
- ↑ List of Hong Kong's cultural assets, compiled by the Hong Kong Museum of Culture, items 3.64 and 3.70 [5]
- ^ Frank Paetzold: "The Wing Tsun Book", p. 41, Books on Demand GmbH (2005) [6]
- ↑ Robert Hill: "World of Martial Arts", Chapter 5, first paragraph, lulu.com (2008) [7]
- ↑ Ben Judkins: "From the Archives: Global Capitalism, the Traditional Martial Arts and China's New Regionalism", Chinese Martial Studies, June 23, 2015 [8]
- ^ Benjamin N. Judkins, Jon Nielson: "The Creation of Wing Chun: A Social History of the Southern Chinese Martial Arts", State University of New York (2015) [9]
- ↑ Leung Ting: Roots of Wing Tsun. Leung's Publications, Hong Kong 2000, p. 48
- ↑ a b New Martial Hero, No. 56, from p. 30 (1972), translation from Chinese: Interview With Wing Chun Grandmaster Yip Man
- ↑ Official list of the cultural assets of Hong Kong, here Chu Chung Man is mentioned as the grand master of the modern era of Weng Chun, position 3.64.1 [10]
- ↑ a b Leung Ting: Roots of Wing Tsun. Leung's Publications, Hong Kong 2000, p. 371
- ↑ Leung Ting: Roots of Wing Tsun. Leung's Publications, Hong Kong 2000, pp. 47-48
- ↑ a b http://www.shaolin-wengchun.com/2008EN/history.html
- ↑ a b Andreas Hoffmann, Nadine Poerschke: Weng Chun Kung Fu. Budo International Publ. Co., Madrid 2011, ISBN 978-3-86836-183-4 .
- ^ Benny Meng: The Treasures of Shaolin's six-and-one-half principles. In: Kung Fu and Tai Chi Magazine. February 2005, page 92
