Читать книгу Complete Wing Chun. The Definitive Guide to Wing Chun's History and Traditions онлайн

5 страница из 43

Fifteen years later, I am still interested and intrigued by this compact martial art system. I never actually perfected or completed the system as a result of poor scheduling (spreading myself too thin among different arts), and moving from place to place. However, I was exposed to the Yip Man system as taught by William Cheung and Moy Yat, and the Jun Fan (Bruce Lee) Wing Chun system as taught by Dan Inosanto and his students.

Over the years I have read several articles about Wing Chun systems not associated with the art’s legendary master, Yip Man. To my surprise, I discovered that there are actually several lineages of this economical art form, with variations among the forms and in their respective training methods. After reading these articles my interest again peaked. Sadly, however, there was no substantial information on the topic available to the uninitiated.

While working as the martial arts editor for Tuttle Publishing in Tokyo in 1996, I received a package from their United States office in Boston. It was a manuscript on the art of Wing Chun by Robert Chu, Rene Ritchie, and Y. Wu, with a big rejection notice on it. Since Tuttle already had three books on the subject, and there are dozens of Wing Chun books on the market, the company didn’t think there was a need for the book. I, too, didn’t think this would be much different than a brief history of Yip Man and an overview of the three base forms. To my surprise after scanning the table of contents, however, I discovered that there was much more to this book—and art—than I had initially assumed or ever expected. I immediately contacted the authors and contracted their book.