r/WingChun

"Hi, I’m Mark. I’m 5ft 4, and Wing Chun has been a massive help to me since I started at 17 im now 45 . Because of my size, I used to face a lot of bullying, but this art gave me the skills to bring attackers down to my level and protect myself.I’m not trying to be a professional ring fighter. If a fight breaks out, my first choice is always to walk or run away. But sometimes you don't have a choice.Over the years, I’ve had some highly fun sparring matches with people from other martial arts. A common theme always happens where they say: 'You can't do that!' or 'That's not fair! But for real-world self-defence—where a smaller person faces a larger bully with no rules Wing Chun works incredibly well.If it serves its purpose perfectly, why does it get so much hate? I just don't understand why people judge a self-defence system when they fight in a ring and say it does not work. I really don't get it.

So I’m fairly new to wing chun and I’m learning Sui Nim Tao and I wanna make sure I’m saying the pronunciation of the moves correctly so I was wondering if anyone had them written down or something. I’ve tried to look online but found nothing. Thanks

A question, the answer to which has long eluded me:

Why do some branches of Wing Chun spell it Ving Chun?

- When neither Mandarin nor Cantonese have the voiced labiodental fricative /v/ sound?

They both have the approximant glide /w/, and the voiceless labiodental fricative /f/, but both languages notably lack the voiced /v/.

So where did the name "Ving Chun" come from?

I can understand the Chun-Tsun difference, because "ts" is how Cantonese regularly spells the sound /tsʰ/, which is very close to English "ch", /ʧ/

But I have no idea whence V...

All thoughts appreciated. Thanks.

^(Edit: I didn't notice until I posted that my phone had autocorrected "Question" to "Questing". And now I can't edit the post title. Sorry. Just imagine I'm a plucky young farmboy of mysterious parentage, on a noble and dangerous journey to find the answer. I have no doubt I'll need a sword, because all good quests need swords.)

I've had many shoes for martial arts... several pair of wing chun $9 shoes, some pretty decent tae kwon do shoes that weren't great for everyday and some barefoot shoes that worked out ok. I am currently on a pair of xero barefoot trainers but the problem is I can't do any decent pivoting in my hits and kicks (obviously a big issue), especially getting into some Muay Thai low kicks, due to the treads being too aggressive on the ball of my foot. Some of the TKD shoes I've had have had the special pivot "disk" area with the concentric rings in it that almost made it feel like I was a figure skater spinning on the ball of my foot but they weren't good for everyday because the rest of the shoe was as smooth as a bowling shoe. I train off and on throughout the day and need something I can wear all day when I don't have the time or opportunity to change. After reading a bit online, the only decent suggestion I've found is to go do some serious pivots on asphalt to wear down the tread where I need it; however, I know one of you out there knows a mix of a low-top shoe that's smooth on the pivot point(s) like wrestling or TKD shoes but also have some traction on the important parts of the shoe (like the heel). I've looked at "retro Kung fu" shoes, Feiyue, Xero, Unguis, various minimalist barefoot shoes, etc. but haven't seen a style that suits. If anyone knows or finds something that fits, maybe you can help me out. Thanks in advance!

I will come back to China (Guangdong) sometime in October to visit my Hakka relatives in Meizhou, and I also plan to return to Guangzhou to visit more relatives. I’m also planning to go to Foshan (where I have relatives living) to visit the memorials of Ip Man and Wong Fei-hung and hopefully learn Wing Chun. Does anyone have any recommended places?

I’ve wanted to learn martial arts ever since I was a kid, but my parents never allowed me to because they viewed it as dangerous. Honestly, I’ve always wanted to learn Wing Chun, but there aren’t really any schools in my country, Thailand, that specialize in it. Other than Muay Thai, the 2nd or 3rd most popular martial arts here are Taekwondo and Silat Melayu.

I chose Foshan for a reason, since it’s considered the home of Wing Chun, and I know martial arts culture is very strong there, unlike in Meizhou (martial arts honestly aren’t really a thing that Hakka people do from what I’ve seen — it’s mostly Cantonese people who practice them).

Also, do the schools there usually know English? My Mandarin and Cantonese are very bad, and I know 0% of my family’s Hakka dialect, so I think it would be better if I could find a place where people can speak English.