I initially wanted to do some research on the Wing Chun forums out there so that I could list what I considered to be the more useful ones. However, I'm a bit bemused at the moment. In the past, I haven't really been one to get involved in the martial arts online community, because to tell the truth, it just never occurred to me. The most important thing for me was to learn, and that was best accomplished simply by going to class and practising on my own. But then I got curious to see what was out there. Bewildered isn't the word! Some forums are dead. Others are active but provide nothing for someone studying Wing Chun. Some do have an active Wing Chun sub forum, but are spoilt by childish bickering and personal insults! Some of the participants in these puerile scuffles are grown men! I've listed the best one I've found (in my opinion) first.
Martial Talk
I discovered this Wing Chun forum recently and I really like it. There are some knowledgeable people here who explain things well and it feels friendly.
Kung Fu Magazine
Despite ranking first in Google for "Wing Chun Forum", this forum is pretty quiet. Having been created in 1999, it's certainly well established. Be warned: check this thread out for childishness. I really don't know why the moderators don't step in. I'm not sure how representative this thread is of the forum as a whole, so it may just be a one off.
International Wing Chun Academy
Focused on Wind Chun in Australia.
The Wing Chun Archive
This is a very useful resource, comprising lists of Wing Chun schools, movies and videos, places to get wooden dummies and articles. There's also a comprehensive list of Wing Chun forums.
Martial Arts Planet
It comes up first when I search for "martial arts forum" in Google, but sadly there is no Wing Chun forum. There is a one for Kung Fu in which the odd thread concerning Wing Chun is created and then trashed.
As I said above, it's only recently I started looking on the internet for Wing Chun forums, so maybe there's a good one hiding somewhere. The search continues.
February 10th, 2009 at 9:55 am
may i suggest facebooking pangea.com.hk or go to chisauclub.com.au and links there is a facebook site which has some very knowledgable ppl cool site by the way
February 10th, 2009 at 11:19 am
Thanks! I’ll check out those sites when I get a bit of time.
March 5th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
Hi have to say i had the same problem.
I attended my first Wing Chun class last night. Have been debateing and researching which style to study for several weeks now.
I thought that forums would be a usefull place to gain a little insight into the varying disciplines i was looking at. However in the end your site and obvious passion for Wing Chun was a serious decision maker for me.
I simply hadn’t seen to many personal sites in the same vain for you.
Thank you and i love the site
March 5th, 2009 at 6:36 pm
Hi Matt
Glad you like the site. You’re right, there don’t seem to be too many sites catering to Wing Chun practitioners, so I hope that some will find my experiences useful/interesting. I’m accumulating a list of little exercise routines, that train different aspects of WC, so stay tooned! Good luck with the classes
Cheers,
Paul
April 6th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
I do have a question. What resourse out side of you class and sifu do you use if any. I try to use the interent but as discussed above that can be hard.
April 6th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
Mostly it’s just class and home practise that I do, though I do spend a some time on MartialTalk. As far as reading goes I can recommend the Ip Chun/Michael Tse book on the first form. It’s very easy to read and goes into the historic background of Wing Chun (though I don’t know how much is just traditional myth!). There’s a book by Shaun Rawcliffe but I found it a bit difficult to get into. I’m going to have a crack at that again soon.
The Bruce Lee biography by Bruce Thomas is interesting, not really Wing Chun specific but interesting anyway. There’s also this site which has some useful stuff on it and I actually might add it to the main article above: http://www.tseqigongcentre.com/. It’s got some videos and even breaks down the names of the hand movements in the first form – very useful: http://www.tseqigongcentre.com/fileadmin/free_downloads/Exercise_Names/Wing_Chun_s_First_Form_-_Siu_Lim_Tao.pdf
April 6th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
I think i have the shawn rawcliffe book. “Simply Wing Chun”.
June 2nd, 2009 at 7:12 pm
My two cents:
Kung fu Mag forum: has the most experienced martial arts practitioners participating. Most of them are Sifu’s, some are Masters, some are even closer to their Grand Masters. However, this leads to a lot of squabling among themselves with regard to who’s right or wrong. You can get very valuable advise from there. The only thing you have to do initially is prove that you are not a troll, that you really want to learn and are not wasting anybodies time… They have their personal students for that. They will verbally roast you if you do that. I guess you could say they’ve also mastered the verbal roast. lol.
Martialtalk forum: My favorite. There is more of a camaradarie here. Everyone is there to learn. Ideas are shared openly. I haven’t really witnessed or experienced flaming here (at least flaming on the level of kung fu mag.)
MAP: There is a lot of attack on wing chun guys there. I started posting there but I’m online to learn and not just to be bashed. I didn’t learn anything there so I’ve stopped checking that out.
The others are kinda dead.
June 3rd, 2009 at 7:20 am
There does seem to be a lot of squabbling in MA forums, I’ve noticed that too. Martialtalk seems to be the most mature (that I’ve found anyway).
August 29th, 2009 at 7:04 am
Hi, I have been really into Bruce Lee and what he did while he lived his life. Like study Wing Chun with GrandMaster Yip Man, created Jeet Kune Do, and broke off of the closed mindedness of most arts out there. I have about 14 books on Jeet Kune Do, and have been training my self for about 6 years now. And about 4 months ago I thought Wing Chun would be a great art to learn, a great defense based art. So I bought a book “The Wing Chun Compendium” by Sifu Wayne Belonoha, It’s a big book and shows step by step on Siu-Nim-Tau, Chum-Kiu and Biu-Ji. But when i started learning the Siu-Nim-Tau form, i thought about if this Sifu was teaching the art correctly through his book. So i got online and found the GrandMaster Yip Man training videos and started to wright each move down on paper. Meaning watch GrandMaster Yip Man’s every move and look in my book to see what the move was called and write it down, the move name and the translation. This took some time, and some moves and translations i had to find online. In the end, Sifu Wayne Belonoha was not too far off of GrangMaster Yip Man, on the first two forms that is, the third “empty-hand” form i can not find GrandMaster Yip Man’s video online. I’m getting good at Siu-Nim-Tau now, and was looking around the internet one day and found this “Putting The Chi Back Into Chi-Sau” by Sifu Scott Baker. He explains the true meaning and definition of Chi-Sau, and also tells how GrandMaster Yip Man would gain Chi and energy with training in the Siu-Nim-Tau form. Please check it out, and thank you for your site, there are not too many of us Wing Chun students who really want to learn and prosper the art Jesse M. Blankenship
September 11th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
Hi Jesse. I admire your enthusiasm, it sounds like you’re very keen. If I were you, I’d really try and find a wing chun club to go to. Reading books is good, but to develop your sensitivity (a big part of WC) you really need to touch lots of different hands.
Keep practising!