Customer Reviews

Wing Chun Kung Fu: Traditional Chinese King Fu for Self-Defense and Health

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

So much of martial arts is degraded in the Western approach-- it becomes all about physicality, muscle and machoness rather than being rooted in energy, personal improvement and spirituality/philosophy. Most martial arts books are titled "the deadly something or other". Maybe it is a marketing ploy to attract all these sweaty pubescent boys who like to pick fights (and those "adults" who still act like that), but they have missed the philosophical/spiritual roots of the martial arts. They have lost the tradition and the honor; so where then is their authenticity? I found this book to approach wing chun from a more traditional, balanced combination of philosophical/theoretical (energy work) and physical. Because wing chun is a combination of both internal and external styles it is essential to understand Qi if you want to improve. Ip Chun addresses that. His analogy as an eighty year grandmaster is that as a young person you can, if you like, focus on speed and brute strength, but where will you be when you are elderly? It is only energy work that will sustain your martial arts into your old age. The first one third of the book is history and background, the second third is sil lum tao with lots of photos, and the last third is one and two-handed chi sao (sticky hands techniques) and practical application of wing chun techniques in self-defense for men and women. And of course, if you want to talk about lineage, then you cannot go wrong with Ip Chun, son of Ip Man (Yip Man) himself. As a practioner of Wing Chun/JKD (taught by the late sifu Akko Nishimura trained by sigung Francis Fong [Yip Man school] and guru Dan Inosanto), I found this book to be invaluable. It is important to understand the traditional roots, even if your own practice is more synthetic. Of course, for all those philes who like their martial arts pre-packaged, glossy and aggressive, Ip Chun's approach will be too traditional for them to handle. They should go join the Billy Banks bootcamp for Tae Bo.

At first, I thought this book was kind of "basic". Having studied wing chun for a while under a competent sifu, I went back and the book has some really good stuff in it. First of all, it details the first form well. It also contains clear photos, and explanations from people who obviously have spent YEARS with this art (I can tell, because many of their insights can only be won after long study). I also liked the final section, which shows you the real "street fight" applications of the art, and of the techniques shown in the first form. I liked the discussion of Bruce Lee and his relationship with wing chun (to put it in a nutshell: Bruce never gave up on wing chun, and his Jeet Kune Do had wing chun as its core !). I liked the historical information on Yip Man in Hong Kong. This book really packs a lot into a short book. I really recommend it.

This isn't the book that will take you all the way to full understanding of siu lim tao (first form), but it will do better than any other single book. Combine this with the video "Wing Chun - Science of In-Fighting," and you will have a complete intructional guide to the first form of wing chun. I agree that some steps seem to be skipped in the form pictures, but this is more than compensated by the additional information about wing chun and how to apply it. Get the video by Wong Shun Leung too.

Wing Chun is not speed and punch. The secret is in energy and sensitivity, Yin and Yang (Alfa & Omega). I found this book to be really helpful and valuable. Of course you must have practiced the Siu Lim Tao before, in order to correct mistakes and reach higher levels. Wing Chun is not only movements, but a philosophy, if you don't have the basics you can not reach higher levels. Thanks a lot to Yip Chun and Michael Tse for this wonderful book.
Have a great day!.

form. This book shows pictures of forms going from point A to point C but misses point B. Without someone knowledgeable on siu lim tao, you will be wasting your time. Granted, this book helped me to cover the siu lim tao faster while at the dojo, but I would have preferred something other than this book. It wasn't all that great.

This was my Very First Kung Fu Book. It was what made me fall in love with Wing Chun. This is a great book for the beginner student. There are other books that go well beyond this one as it pertains to Wing Chun. But this book has a soft quality about it that gives the reader a pathway of Wing Chun that other books do not. If you are exploring Marital arts and want a "Taste" of Wing Chun, this is a very, very Good start.

Suggested Books to read after this are:
Mastering Kung Fu, by Garrett Gee and Benny Ming (DVD's of a MAJOR help also).

Wing Chun Compendium by Wayne B.

And any book on Wing Chun By Randy Williams.

This book covers the first form and some applications. Well, you can forget about the applications, they are few and very basic level. It is a nice reference to the form if you already know it or when you just learned it and try to work it out at home, but you cannot learn any of the moves from this book alone. There should be more description or some kind of arrows drawn on some photoes or just plain more "in-between" photoes. You see pic 1, then it says stuff like "curl your arm, rotate your palm upwards, extend the fingers, rotate it clockwise as far as it goes, make a fist, blah blah..." then you see end result pic 2 and wonder "how did that happen?".

The chi-sao and qi-qung sections are a joke.

The only fun part of the book is the history of Ip Man. It is worth reading if you don't have to pay the price of the book (see local library). The second star is for the history section only.

This is one of the most unique books on martial arts that I have ever seen, and the main "author" Ip Chun is an astonishing man to read, and to watch on video online. He teaches a method that anyone can learn, and that a small person can use to defend against a larger person. It is not an offensive tactic, only defensive, and the user becomes very difficult for an offender to strike, as they learn to become "soft" instead of a "hard target", and to block efficiently, and to use parts of the body differently that they haven't even thought about before. It is changing the way I thought about martial arts in general, though I will say I am not a full-time student of these things. I like the concept of becoming a soft target that "melts away" in front of an attacker, and that a person can use the attacker's own force against him. This is thinking in a new way.

This was the first of many Wing Chun books that I bought. I purchased this book my first week of classes. I was not disappointed. This book DOES NOT cover the entire Wing Chun system. So if you're looking for Chum Kiu, Biu Gee, Wooden Dummy, etc, keep looking. This book DOES serve as a wonderful intro to the Wing Chun system. It talks about the BASICS and FUNDAMENTALS of Wing Chun (think centerline, Sil Lim Tao, punching, etc). It also briefly covers Wing Chun's history and philosophy. For someone that is brand new to Wing Chun, and is just looking for some help getting started, this is PERFECT. Ip Chun goes over the first form of SLT in detailed pictures, with applications. If I were to recommend books to someone beginning WC, I would recommend buying this book, along with "Ip Man: Portrait of a Kung Fu Master".

I have read this book cover to cover. It has some good writing about Ip Man's life, and Wing Chun's principles, and the same story about the origin of Wing Chun that you can get from Wikipedia. Much of the book is a step-by-step description of Siu Lim Tao, the first form in Wing Chun. As a Wing Chun student I cannot imagine how someone could ever learn this form from a book alone. I find it interesting for the theory and history in the introductory chapters, and as a quick reference for the chinese terminology for each of the hand positions in the Siu Lim Tao form.