"Just Weng Shun Kuen"

by Rien Bul

Weng Shun Kuen most likely descends from early Wudang Kuen. According to the legend, a Taoist monk founded the Wudang style after watching a fight between a snake and a crane. Does sound familiar, doesn’t it? It was the forefather of the so-called "internal" or "soft" styles like Ba Gua Kuen, Hsing I and Tai Gik Kuen (Tai Chi Chuan). It was probably brought aboard the red junks (Hung Suen) by a man called Cheung Ng, who was also known by the nickname Tan Sao Ng. The style blended with styles that were already present.

When asked which style of Weng Shun Kuen we were practicing, my sifu would just answer: "Just Weng Shun Kuen." In more talkative moods he’d explain: "Everybody has named his Weng Shun Kuen after himself nowadays, because they all possess no more then a part of the puzzle. No one of them has the whole picture. Weng Shun Kuen is a conceptual style. You’ve got to have the whole system." Sifu believed Weng Shun Kuen is a complete system that teaches the student the safest and most practical possible way to fight if one has complete knowledge of the system, no gaps! All the answers, I was told, are to be found in the forms. The three empty-handed forms together are the encyclopedia of the style. Your Weng Shun Kuen won’t get better by practicing the forms, but once you learned them, you can always look things up in them. Most sifu have just a part of this knowledge and if you study at their schools in "so and so Weng Shun Kuen", you’ll only get the part "so and so" knows.

So that is why sifu didn’t name his style after himself or even his sifu. If you want to do Weng Shun Kuen as close as possible to what the founders intended, check and re-check the principles. Do not invent your own solutions to problems. The Weng Shun Kuen System already has solutions to every one of them. By "cleverly" finding your own solutions you will just stray from the system.

But then, why the name "Wudang Weng Shun Kuen"? Well, according to sifu, who was from mainland China, "WEng SHun Kuen" is the original name of the system, and was probably the name that was used by the red junk opera people. He was also very adamant about the style sprouting from Wudang Kuen. As a fact, people who are already familiar with the way other Sifu teach Weng Shun Kuen, are often amazed by the way we practice the style. They often comment that it looks a lot like Tai Chi Chuan (or sometimes even Aikido!)

Sifu would say: "Just Weng Shun Kuen."

But people just don’t accept "Just Weng Shun Kuen". They want to know your lineage, "which system of Weng Shun Kuen" you’re teaching. So when I started teaching the complete system as taught by Sifu, I attached the word "Wudang" to our name to distinguish ourselves from what already has been taught.

But remember: it’s "Just Weng Shun Kuen".