WING CHUN BOOKS ?
by "Jo Gau" Eric Myers
Want to read some deep Wing Chun books, turn
to the Classics.
Leung Jan (Ip Man’s Si-Gung) was a warrior and a sage. It is the folley of some, often students just want to learn how to fight" to think that the mind and the heart can be ignored. These students or practitioners tend to act as if all that mattered was the training of the body. I suppose this has to do with the commercialization of martial arts. When money is the name of the game, difficult paths tend to get replaced by superhighways. If your ultimate goal in entering martial arts is to become a dangerous thug, then the mind and heart can be ignored.
But, there is higher purpose to martial arts even than the ability to fight and fight
well. A true martial art, has a transcendent worth. Suppose that you were paralyzed in an
automobile accident tomorrow. Would all the hours of training in Wing Chun have been for
nothing? Will they simply have been lost hours? Some of you might not hesitate to say yes.
But others of you, those who are a little more perceptive might hestitate for a moment.
Something in us wants to believe that the practice of Wing Chun, the title of martial
artist, is bigger than just the ability to fight.
That something bigger is the heart and mind of a Wing Chun warrior. The heart and mind of
the Wing Chun warrior grasps the principles within Wing Chun and sees not only the ability
to conquer and destroy but also the ability to create. It is this ability to create that
brings the moral depth to Wing Chun. It is the ability to create that takes Wing Chun from
being a deadly weapon to a martial art. To handle the power to kill and still function in
society requires the creation of a more moral, more principled soul. As an increase in the
ability to destroy is fostered the ability to create must be fostered or the person will
lose his or her soul.
The Chinese Classics help the Wing Chun warrior to see how the principles of Wing Chun can
be used to create. They stem the tide of destruction. They turn Wing Chun from an arid,
hostile plain capable only of destruction into a thriving roiling sea, capable of great
power and yet sustaining even greater life. Without the Classics and the ability to create
with Wing Chun principles, the power of Wing Chun can only consume. But, coupled with the
Classics the principles learned in combat can turn a fighter into a warrior and lead the
warrior to become a sage.
In the Classics are the principles of creation that will lead a student to be a sage. The
student begins with the great learning and thus learns how to learn. Next he studies the
Analects, The Book of Mencius, the Book of Poetry and the Book of History. From these the
warrior learns the principles of morals. The greater the warrior's power to destroy, the
greater must be his moral power. Power has a tendency to corrupt and without the constant
journey for moral principle the warrior, being corrupted, becomes only a thug.
Having learned how to learn and then having applied those principles to the investigation
of the moral principles, the Warrior begins to pierce through to the simplicity on the far
side of complexity. While reading the Doctrine of the Mean the Warrior learns of the
foundation of the principles. Then, investigating the Book of Changes, he learns to see
how all things are the manifestation of the principles he has come to understand. Finally,
having learned of himself, then having learned what the principles are and how they
function, the Warrior moves closer to becoming the Sage. The Warrior can apply the
understanding of the principles to history as he reads the Spring and Autumn Annals and he
can learn from the experience of others. Knowing the principles, seeing how they apply,
the Warrior become Sage can teach another and can continue, himself, to learn how to guide
his own life by the application of principles.
That is why we read the Classics. Through the classics the warrior sees the roadmap for
learning how to govern the power of destruction by containing it through morality. Through
the Classics the warrior learns how and when and why to use the power he has worked very
hard to achieve. Leung Jan was a warrior and a sage or maybe there is no warrior without
the sage.
For an electronic copy of the Great Learning, the
Analects, and the Doctrine of the Mean
CLICK HERE.