The Kung Fu Genius

We’re All Adults, Right?

- Alex Richter

I FINISHED MY LAST COLUMN with the line: “We honour our arts in so far as we treat them as adults.” This was meant as a call for those in the Wing Chun community to cease what I feel is a child/parent dynamic with our mother art..

Most children look up to and respect their parents as perfect monolithic entities. Parents can do no wrong, and they have all the answers. However, as we grow into adulthood, we can see the cracks in the walls. We see the mistakes our parents made and the times when they did not handle things correctly or make the right decisions. Despite this knowledge, it does not diminish our love or respect for them. The love of one’s parents is stronger as an adult, as we consider they are humans with faults. We love them despite their flaws or, perhaps, even because of them. Children, however, are incapable of seeing flaws and will often brag about how much better their parents are than anyone else’s. That is essentially the state-of-mind of most modern Wing Chun practitioners regarding their teacher or school.

My observations here are not to say one shouldn’t be proud to be learning from whatever teacher of whatever lineage they come from, quite the contrary. I believe any student serious about learning Wing Chun should embrace what their teacher teaches them and be focused on training and research. Only by seriously embracing the methods in training can one grasp the essence of a system. This can’t be done by only dipping one toe in the water.