who will become the holder of the Ip man WC lineage? who will become the 'grandmaster'? Im thinking Sam kwok.
Ip Chun is the older brother. There is no single Ip Man lineage holder anyway. Ip Chun and Ip Ching have their own associations. The VTAA is run by committee.
Does it really matter? I was thinking about this the other day. It really doesn't matter about lineage, Wing Chun has the be the most anal retentive folks in the world. There are so many schools of Wing Chun, and many that come from Ip Man. But in the end, it doesn't matter if you learn Ip Man Wing Chun or Wing Chun from another linage, if your instructor sucks at training, no amount of "linage" will matter.
Well, that's a universal truth. Now to the OP. No, Ip Ching will not be the "the dude". First off, skill in the MA isn't necessarily inherited. And WC in all its incarnations has become so diverse that there will never be another individual who will receive the kind of broad acclaim that the late Grandmaster Yip Man did. In fact, WC itself will never again get the kind of attention and respect it did in the 70's and 80's when it was a little understood, almost "mythical" system spoken of as Bruce Lee's "foundation". De mythologized, much of WC seems about as silly as that clip of "Rimmer's Salute" somebody posted. Man, that had me laughing so hard I almost blew my drink out through my nose, And I'm a WC practitioner. Imagine how that affected Yohan! But unlike the WC haters, I feel there's a lot in it that can be used to great effect. And, now that that stuff is out there, people will adapt it and use it. Maybe they won't even call it WC. Maybe some of it won't even look exactly like WC. But what works well will live on... long after the rest of us are useless, old or dead. And that's good, I guess. For example, I helped train a kid in WC back in the 80s. He didn't get very far into the traditional system. He was already a good boxer, judoka, and had some Kempo. And, he and could beat most of his WC seniors easily when we freed it up. He also trained FMA with us. He went on to become very good, and eventually started coaching MMA. He's in his late forties now and has produced some good local fighters. One day I looked him up, and noticed that in addition to MMA and FMA, he listed "extreme WC" as something he taught. I asked him what that was. He said, "No forms, no classical posturing, just the principles, where I can use them". And then he showed me what he meant. Well, I still train old-fashioned WC, but when I can, I visit him for some applied training. I think guys like this represent one direction the art will go in the future. I wish them great success.
I don't do wing chun but I think Samuel Kwok's Ip Chun official representative in the UK. I think someone here made a good point that Ip Chun is not the lineage holder for Ip Man, at least not officially. William Cheung, who heads his own association, also claims lineage from Ip Man, so does Leung Ting. Some controversy years ago when Cheung claims to be Ip Man's appointed successor as he's the only one who knows the real Wing Chun and others, including the Ip brothers only know the modified version. Anyway, its politics. Wing Chun has it, so does all the other martial arts.
Ip Chun has 3 representatives in the Uk and Sam Kwok isnt one of them. Shaun Rawcliffe, Colin Ward and Michael Tse are his guys in the Uk
