Yongchun White Crane

Discussion in 'Kung Fu' started by Anthony85, Aug 26, 2016.

  1. Anthony85

    Anthony85 New Member

    Hello,

    I just wanted to ask if anyone knew the Yongchun White Crane style of kungfu, the one taught for instance by Masters Su Yinghan and Pan Chengmiao - except Martin :) ? I recently discovered that style and fell in love with it. I am considering travelling to Yongchun for a month to Master Pan's school and was also wondering if anyone had been there or would be interested to go.

    Here is a link to their website: http://www.cnbhq.com/

    It would be great to get some feedback if you did travel there or be in touch if willing to go :)

    Thanks!

    Anthony
     
    Last edited: Aug 26, 2016
  2. Xue Sheng

    Xue Sheng All weight is underside

    Wing Chun White Crane, intersting
     
  3. Anthony85

    Anthony85 New Member

    Not Wingchun (咏春拳) but Yongchun Baihequan (永春白鹤拳) - Yongchun is the name of the town in Fujian province...
     
  4. The Iron Fist

    The Iron Fist Banned Banned

    Yongchun = Wingchun (they mean the same exact thing in different dialects). Look closely, the hanzi is only slightly different but "eternal spring" is right there in the name Yong Chun. Yongchun County = Wing Chun County. That's how the county got its name, it's beautiful there.

    The Yongchun county kung fu styles, including White Crane and Wing Chun, share common ancestry, legendary figures, and various techniques.

    Whereas Wing Chun proper is associated with Shaolin Snake and Crane boxing, Baihequan is obviously more associated with just Shaolin Crane boxing (but when you start going into the names of techniques, there are some Snake references, but not the same kind of Snake fist patterns in Wing Chun, unless someone can correct me and showcase Snake-style striking and hand positions in Baihequan).
     
    Last edited: Aug 26, 2016
  5. EmptyHandGuy

    EmptyHandGuy Valued Member

    Is this the style you mean?

    [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gsRKoRXmL4"]Yong Chun White Crane Kata - YouTube[/ame]
     
  6. Anthony85

    Anthony85 New Member

    It is well know that Yip Man totally disagreed with that. See Leung Ting's books...

    Wingchun/Yongchun 咏春 with the "mouth" (on the left hand side) in the Chinese character is meant to refer to the legendary woman who founded the style, whereas Wingchun/Yongchun without the "mouth" 永春 refers to the town. But I agree with you that beyond the legends surrounding Wingchun, the word probably comes from the town Yongchun, as it is obvious that Wingchun comes from the crane.

    Actually all this is very interesting, 包括语言的问题, but my former question was not about wording and the history of those styles :(
     
  7. Anthony85

    Anthony85 New Member

    Hi EmptyHand,

    Yes this is it! This was filmed in their school in Yongchun :)
     
  8. The Iron Fist

    The Iron Fist Banned Banned

    咏 is simplified from the classic 詠, and the 'mouth' radical used on the left side means song or legend (yan/yeong; or jin in Cantonese).

    If you think about it there's a spectrum of interrelated arts that grew up in Yongchun county, and some of those are attributed to or involved women, so those women came to bear the honorific "Wing Chun", ie "Martial lady of Yong Chun County". If they were handing out awards, the creators of both Wing Chun and Fujian Crane would get each get one :D It's also possible some of these "women" were actually men hiding behind pseudonyms.
     
    Last edited: Aug 27, 2016
  9. Mushroom

    Mushroom De-powered to come back better than before.

    Wing Chun = Cantonese
    Yong Chun/Chen = Mandarin.

    Might as well say Pak Mei and Bai Mei are 2 different styles....
     
  10. SWC Sifu Ben

    SWC Sifu Ben I am the law

    It is odd to me though how some of them are clearly related and yet I often see more similarity between Ip Man's Wing Chun and many of the Okinawan karate styles.
     
  11. The Iron Fist

    The Iron Fist Banned Banned

    Look at Okinawa as a focal point and under influence of both Chinese and Japanese military influence, a sort of petri dish. Fujianese martial arts influenced Guangdong, Okinawa, and ultimately Japan itself. But whereas Japan was steeped in military tradition and brutal war for a thousand years (and China even more so), Okinawa became a sort of civil lens on the brutality of Chinese and Japanese warfare and the various martial arts that they included. The lengthy, full body Wubei Zhi classic of Chinese warfare (which is e-normous), and the ever-diminishing Bubishi hand copies as they became known in Okinawa trace the history/sources (these copies of Bubishi are much smaller and deal primarily with just the empty handed combat bits of the Wubei Zhi).

    It was generally two main influences that came from China to Okinawa: Luohan boxing (which includes a lot of things) and Fujian White Crane (along with things like combat medicine and herbal remedies, jow formulae and so on). But certain elements common to some Chinese styles like sanchin, this is how they made their way into Karate kata. This is the empty handed material first known as "te" in Okinawa, then disseminated by various village families (Shuri, Tomari, Naha). This is similar in a way to how Hung Kuen and Tai Chi spread/evolved in village environs. Then when you come to specific personalities such as the Okinawan masters, these folks included searching for their roots (such as in Yongchun, Fujian province).

    This is like how some people pick up a book on kung fu, see something that sparks their mind, and then are inspired to find a master. Ip Man and the Okinawan masters had Chinese/Japanese martial writings, and access to the masters. Ip Man learned Wing Chun in Foshan, but his own grandmaster Leung Jan learned the Fujianese styles from Yongchun. His honorific was "Wing Chun Kuen Wong" (another way of saying King of Yong Chun Fist)

    Ip Man, living in the time he did and location, was not a warrior by any means, so he too, practiced martial arts in a similar way to the people of Okinawa (a civilian way, if you want to call it that). Gone were the countless weapons, strategies, tactics, lessons of numerous battles and their outcomes recorded in the Chinese classics on warfare. Fighting in Foshan or Hong Kong was a relatively limited affair by then, not some brutal battlefield or insurgency mess. So, I think Ip Man's Wing Chun being one of the 'modernized' styles of Wing Chun (as opposed to older styles with roots in Yongchun) is less like the Fujian Crane or Tiger Crane styles from south China, without a lot of low movement to and from the ground. The focus of Wing Chun is relatively limited, when you stand it next to massive things like broader Five Animal systems. Wing Chun today as taught in the Ip Man lineages seems to really focus on stand up boxing, some kicking, and some weapons. Absent are things like Tiger style striking, and grappling, that would have been more common in the Fujianese tiger and crane styles (or combinations thereof).

    Here's a great old video I found while questing for more southern Chinese "common" material. If you took away the captions/titles, it'd be hard to distinguish without experience, whether this was Okinawan, Yongchun Crane, or a Hung gar Iron Wire master. Specifically, this is 鳴鶴拳, the Crying Crane.

    [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLog9TMFfo8"]Whooping Crane "Tiger Crane" SanChin/Sanzhan. - YouTube[/ame]

    This is a really good general White Crane documentary.

    [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYMAniAhxlI"]White Crane Documentary with Captions - YouTube[/ame]
     
    Last edited: Aug 27, 2016
    Vince Millett likes this.
  12. martin watts

    martin watts Martin Watts

    I wrote a bunch of information in a book to give more of a overview / history of the style as trained in Yong Chun.

    Here is the full index for the book http://www.fujianbaihe.com/lang/yong_chun_white_crane_book.html

    I have published this through lulu - [link deleted by mods]
    hopefully that will answer some of your questions.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 25, 2017
    Monkey_Magic likes this.
  13. Mushroom

    Mushroom De-powered to come back better than before.

    Any chance of saving us the click and give an overview please? Just so we can carry on the conversation here.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 25, 2017
  14. Ben Gash CLF

    Ben Gash CLF Valued Member

    Except Fujianese Yongchun Baihe and Cantonese Wing Chun ARE different styles, they just have the same name
     

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