Customer Reviews

Wing Chun Kung Fu Vol. 1 with William M. Cheung

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Wing Chun Kung Fu Volume 1 by William M. Cheung

Wing Chun Kung Fu Volume 1 is part of a 5 volume series by William Cheung. The series is available on VHS or DVD. I strongly recommend that you buy the DVD version. DVD's can be played on a home DVD player attached to the TV, a small, portable DVD player which can almost fit in your pocket, if you wear pants with large pockets like those military style dungaree pants some police and paramedics are wearing now days, or you can play DVD's on a laptop or note book computer that has an installed DVD/cd player. This would enable you to take your DVD lessons with you where ever you go and to view them whenever you have time. You can watch DVD's in Slow Motion or speeded up. You can freeze a scene to examine it as a still picture. You can capture images. DVD's have an interactive potential for the viewer which the VHS machines lack. This characteristic supports the viewers learning requirements for understanding a subtle or difficult move or concept being studied.

Wing Chun is the style of Kung Fu Bruce Lee learned before he developed his own style of Jeet Kune Do. Although, Bruce Lee created Jeet Kune Do in an attempt to develop a simpler yet superior means of fighting, he remained influenced by Wing Chun and incorporated some of its concepts into Jeet Kune Do. You will see it for yourself If you watch this video series by William Cheung and compare it with Jeet Kune Do by reading his books and maybe watching some videos of Jeet Kune Do such as the video adaptation of Bruce Lee's Fighting Method by Ted
Wong and Richard Bustillo.

Wing Chun is very unique from most traditional styles of Kung Fu or Karate. Simplicity is its main characteristic. There are only 3 stances which feel some what more natural than the many classical Kung Fu or Karate stances. Strikes and punches are thrown from the middle of the chest. The fist is given a flick of the wrist at the last instant upon contact with its target. I compare this to the flick of the wrist at the last instant as a base ball is pitched to add a little extra velocity to it. This manner of punching is very different from the traditional hand on hip and twist of the fist at the moment of contact found in classical Kung Fu and Karate.
Kicks are kept low, usually not higher than the opponent's waist. There is no exageration of the move's execution, such as the wide sweeps, large circles, and exagerated force used in classical blocks and strikes.

The strategy and attitude of a Wing Chun practitioner seems more similar to that of aikido and jujitsu practioners in that the practitioner of wing chun seeks to harmonize with his opponents force rather than to oppose it.

Volume 1 of Wing Chun begins a demonstration of the Sil Lim Tao form three times. Karate practitioners would think of it as a simple kata using only hand techniques.

Next, exercise drills of basic blocks are demonstrated. In contrast to classical Kung Fu and Karate where students are taught to block first, then counter with a strike or kick. Wing Chun practioners use both of their hands to block and strike or kick at the same time.

Demonstrations of Wing Chun basics are shown more than once from different angles.

William Cheung describes Wing Chun's strategy as being four steps or phases of attacking an opponent's balance, creating an opening in the opponent's defense, controlling the opponent's elbow and maneuvering the opponent into a position in which his arms become crossed and therefore unable to fight back when trapped in that position.

William Cheung demonstrates defenses against various punches, strikes and kicks. He and his assistant demonstrate combinations and the rolling punch technique.

Foot work is demonstrated by his assistant. This leads to demonstration of the Chum Kil form and its applications because Chum Kil incorporates foot work and kicks into the form.

William Cheung and his assistant end volume 1 of Wing Chun by demonstrating a means of Chi meditation.

I think this video series offers useful information and techniques to consider for every martial artist. If you appreciate intelligent systems of fighting, you will not be disappointed with this series. However, some people might have not much use for volume 4 which is about fighting with chinese butterfly knives and a long staff called a dragon pole.

I took Wing Jitsu for a year (This art was invented by my instructor) and always liked the wing chun side of it the best. I work late hours so I can not take a class so I have decided to get videos and work out with my fiends.

This video has some really good stuff. The only reason I gave it 4 stars and not 5 is cause they don't do a good job of covering the very basic concepts. That worked out for me cause I already knew them pretty much but if you have never take wing chun you may want to start with Wing Chun: The Science of In-Fighting. I know a lot of people say that you can not learn kung fu from a book or DVD but in the old days in China a lot of people learned from book as long as you have some one to practice with you should be able to learn from this DVD. I have already learned most of this DVD and can not wait to get the next one.

I was more than surprised to see the poor quality of this DVD, especially after reading the positive reviews.
Very very superficial DVD, which seems more an exhibition than a didactical tape.
No explanation of the moves, just the two persons "dancing" around, performing moves at very high speed.
This is clearly not an "instruction" video, since the techniques are not explained, just performed.
I normally prefer books as a way to learn something, but I have found some very serious and valuable DVD as well. Not this one.
Maybe if you are an advanced Winch Chung practitioner, with years of practice with a real Sifu, this can be for you. Otherwise, you will not catch much from these video.

The guy in this video is a fraud. He's like Ashida Kim or Frank Dux - he's one of those guys that had a little bit of training, but wanted people to think he was some kind of awesome master, and was privy to "special", "secret" teachings.

This stuff is NOT Wing Chun, anymore than Tae Kwon Do is Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

Here's the deal:

WC (Wing Chun) was popularized when a guy named Ip Man started teaching publicly in the early 1950's. Most WC practitioners trace their lineage back to Ip Man's school. Some of his more noteworthy students include Wong Shun Leung, Leung Sheung, Chu Shong Tin, Ip Ching & Ip Chun (Ip Man's sons), and Bruce Lee.

Ip Man taught in Hong Kong for almost 20 years, up until he died around '72 or '73. He had a lot of students over the years, and a few of them reached a very high level of proficiency and became very well known in their own right.

Which brings us to the guy in this video: William Cheung. Cheung was actually a student of Ip Man in the '50s & he's the guy responsible for the "Wing Chun" that Robert Downey Jr. studies. (Cheung doesn't teach RDJ directly...RDJ learns from Eric Oram, who is a student of Cheung.)

Cheung's forms are totally different than all of Ip Man's other students, and his "Wing Chun" in practice is very, very different in application. His Siu Lim Tao looks somewhat similar, but the resemblance stops there. What he calls "Chum Kiu", "Biu Jee" & his dummy form are nothing like any of Ip Man's other students. Why is that? Here's where things start to get fishy....

Cheung says his WC is so very different because he, and he alone, was taught a secret version of the system by Ip Man.

According to Cheung, at some point the real, traditional system of Wing Chun was modified into a into a watered-down, deliberately less effective, simpler, weakened version of the system, and it is this "Modified" system that Ip Man taught to EVERYONE.

The "real", "traditional" Wing Chun was just too precious, and too deadly to teach publicly, so Ip Man taught a fake version to his commerical students.

Eventually though, Ip Man met a young, 10-year old William Cheung, and at long last found someone Truly Worthy to whom he could pass down the Traditional Wing Chun. Cheung says Ip Man invited young William to live with him, and it is there that the young Chosen One was SECRETLY trained by Ip Man in the One True Traditional Wing Chun Kung Fu. Young William lived under Ip Man's roof training in secret for several years. Eventually, after the young man had mastered Traditional Wing Chun, Ip Man told him that now HE was the Sole Inheritor and Grand-Master of Traditional Wing Chun. Ip Man made young Master Cheung take a Secret Vow to not speak of his secret training, nor to teach anyone the Traditional Wing Chun until after he (Ip Man) died. When Ip Man had died though, William was free to speak of his training, and teach whoever he wanted. Then, at about the age of 18, the new Grand Master of Traditional Wing Chun left Hong Kong for Austrailia.

Meanwhile, while William was being secretly trained by Ip Man, Ip was teaching EVERYONE else the less-effective "Modified" system, for NONE of them were worthy of learning the Traditional system - even guys who started before William. Even Wong Shun Leung, who started before William and added to Ip Man's school's reputation by competing in illegal bare-knuckle fights was unworthy. Even Ip Man's own sons were unworthy. No one was worthy except for William Cheung. ALL of Ip Man's other students were trained in the Modified system, and none of them even knew it. They all thought Ip Man was training them as best he could. He was not, for none of them (repeat: NONE of them) were good enough.

Absurd for a whole lot of different reasons, but don't take my word for it. Here's a public statement by a bunch of Ip Man's other students refuting Cheung:


"VING TSUN ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION LTD
3, Nullah Rd., 2C/fl., Kowloon,
Hong Kong Tel 3-816044

Dear Sir,

RE: Point Three of the minutes of the 11th General Meeting

Recently we have received many letters and complaints about a person
called William Cheung who has distorted many affairs with ulterior motive.
As the board of directors of the Ving Tsun Athletic Association -- the
general association of the WHOLE Ving Tsun (Wing Tsun / Wing Chun) system,
which was founded by the late Grandmaster Yip Man and most of his senior
students since 1976, we have the responsibility to clarify the following
points:

1/ William Cheung has NEVER been regarded by anyone of his fellow-students
as the grandmaster or the leader of the whole Wing Chun Clan.

2/ NOBODY is recognized as the so-called "No 1 student of Grandmaster
Yip Man" and we have NEVER heard of William Cheung as the "No. 1 Fighter
of the Wing Chun Style".

3/ "Footwork" in the Wing Chun System is regarded as a most advanced
technique. We do not deny that some of the students of Grandmaster
Yip Man did not learn the whole system, but it is NOT TRUE that
William Cheung is the ONLY person to have ever learnt the entire
Wing Chun System" as what he announced in his advertisement.

4/ There have NEVER been any techniques in our system called "DIM-MAK" or
"Disabling Pressure Points", NOR any so-called "Missing Techniques" since
the creation of the Wing Chun System by Ng Mui.

5/ When Grandmaster Yip Man taught the techniques to his students he asked
NO-ONE "to take an oath not to reveal the secret to anyone during his life
time." He taught according to the potential of his students, teaching
the most advanced techniques to the most talented ones.

In the mid of 50's there had been a kid called William Cheung who had studied
in Grandmaster Yip Man's school for a few years intermittently and left
Hong Kong when he was 18 years old, and since then had become isolated from
his instructor and all the other fellow-students. During his short training
he surely gained the wrong impression in thinking that Grandmaster Yip Man
never taught the advanced techniques to students other than himself. And yet
we do not know how much William Cheung really learned himself.

It is regrettable that his lies have gone so far (i.e he told the
reporters that Grandmaster Yip Man had taught only him the so-called
"traditional Wing Chun", but had taught all his other students the
"modified Wing Chun").

However, any average person could easily analyze his techniques and see
this statement must be a lie. It is unthinkable that Grandmaster Yip Man
would choose to cheat all the students except one impudent kid, who actually
had little respect for him!

We feel sorry to have such an ignorant person in out clan, We want
to establish our position: we have NEVER AGREED with his Crazy
self-promotion, though we do understand his motive in casting himself as the
"Superman" in the William Cheung's Wing Chun System.

Yours faithfully,

The Board Of Directors and Attendance in the meeting of clarification
the distored affairs.

Wong Shun Leung (Chairman)
Leung Ting (Vice Chairman)
Tong Chao Chi (Vice Chairman)
Lok Yiu (President)
Yip Ching (Vice President)
Ho Kam Ming (Vice President)
Siu Yuk Man (Secretary)
Chan Tak Chiu (Treasurer)
Tsui Sheung Tim (Membership Management)
Koo Sang (Membership Management)
Lee Wai Chi (Public Relation)
Victor Kan (attendance)
Yip Chun (attendance)"


The reality is more likely this: William Cheung took Wing Chun lesson for a few years in the '50's, starting around the age of 15-16. He definitely learned all of SLT, and maybe parts of Chum Kiu and the Wooden Dummy. He never lived with Ip Man, & only attended class sporadically. He moved to Austrailia around age 18. He wanted to set up shop as a kung fu teacher, and figured he could make more money if people thought he was a Great Master with some kind of Ancient Secret Deadly Kung Fu System. He made up "Traditional Wing Chun", and came up with a line of b.s. about "Secret Training" & a "Vow of Secrecy" in order to cover his @$$ in case a REAL Wing Chun master should ever happen to point out that William's system has nothing to do with anything Ip Man taught.

If you're intersted in Wing Chun, don't buy ANYTHING with William Cheung's name on it.

I received this disc a couple of days ago, and did not have a chance to look at it until this morning. This is basically a very good instructional video. The only real problem I had with it was that the Sifu was going WAY too fast for someone to learn the techniques... this could be frustrating to a beginning student. Once I figured out how to make my machine play the disc a little bit slower (pause and then the fast forward key on my remote... might be different for yours), it was MUCH easier to follow along. You might want to watch each section through at full speed at least once, so you can hear the narration (on my machine, you cannot hear it in slow mode) and learn the names of the techniques. Then go back in slow mode and follow along so you can learn the techniques. I will definitely be getting the next disc in the series, when I finish with this one.

I have been practiced Wing Chun for a long time with different masters in different countries, and with different Wing Chun families, such as Vietnamese Wing Chun (created by Yuen Chai Wan), Hongkong Wing Chun (created by Yip Man) and Gu Lao Wing Chun (created by Leung Jan).

I bought all 5 DVDs of this series out of curiousity, because I heard that the Wing Chun of sifu Cheung was very different with the current Hongkong Wing Chun system. The differences were the result of the constant changes that sifu Yip Man had created over decades of teaching Wing Chun in Hongkong.

The end result of the changes is a simplified, but very scientific system that is currently being taught in Hongkong and various Yip Man Wing Chun schools in the world, including many schools in the U.S.

The new system has a very good theory foundation, and is easy to learn and teach. However, without a good sifu who has deep and broad knowledge of Wing Chun, practitioners will end up learning only partial variations and applications of the theory and concepts. (still effective and deadly though)

On the other hand, sifu Cheung had studied with sifu Yip Man from the very early time of sifu Yip Man's teaching. The system that sifu Cheung studied and teaches still contains alot of movements, more difficult to learn, and less scientific. But it preserves the Wing Chun traditions very well, with a lots of techniques, tactics, strategies and applications. Many of them were grouped together and simplified later on in Hongkong system, so after a few generations, only very thorough and serious practitioners with very good teachers of the new system know about them and can apply them.

So this DVD serie is a very valuable resource for all experienced Wing Chun practitioners who have good understanding about Wing Chun concepts and theory and want to see them expressed from different facets and point-of-views. There are also many interesting drills and applications that illustrate the theory and concepts very well.

You will need a firm knowledge about Wing Chun theory and concepts to get maximum bennefit out of thisDVD serie.

The demontrationss of Sifu Cheung and his assistant in this serie are well organized, clearly performed and of the first rate Wing Chun.

They can be very different from the Wing Chun systems that other people (including myself) learn from other families.
But keep an openmind, with a good knowledge about Wing Chun theory, you will find that this DVD serie is truly a great resource.

I wanted to thank amazon for carrying this whole series. It is the most comprehensive collection of Wing Chun training DVDs on the market.

Gratitude and respect to sifu William Cheung and his students for making this wonderful art available to everyone without any distortions.

This guy is the real deal. He is the 'one, true master' of traditional Wing Chun. All those other guys suck.

I did buy the volume 1 of William cheung and I have to say I love it,and I will buy the next volume soon.

Robert