During his summer tutorials in Italy and Germany, Great Grandmaster Leung Ting drew a picture of a wolf donning "sheep's clothing" on the blackboard for the participants. "That is WT", he said by way of explaining what is probably the most fascinating secret of our system. "We only have one concept and a set of principles and maxims to which we adhere. That is the wolf. We are able to pull the skin of any other animal over this." Then he asked a Technician to attack him with WT techniques, defended himself using Shaolin,Tai-Chi, Praying Mantis or Thai Boxing techniques and defeated the WingTsun Technician. Although the techniques he used were the typical techniques of these other styles he defeated his WT attacker with WT, for the wolf he had covered with the skin of another animal (Shaolin. Tai-Chi etc.) was the WT concept. It was the concept that enabled him to win, while the external appearance was scarcely important.
"Don't attach such importance to details and superficialities, don’t pay attention to the cup from which I drink, but rather to whether I enjoy the drink itself. Don't lose sight of the goal. Some people cannot see the wood for the trees, they ascribe so many secrets to WT. In fact WT is so simple, but they complicate it unnecessarily."

That is precisely the problem. During seminars GGM Leung Ting is repeatedly asked about details, e.g. whether he first turns his foot inwards when advancing from the IRAS and whether the inside of his bent elbow points upwards or sideways during a punch. And the more questions of this superficial nature the students ask, the more they receive seemingly contradictory answers.
GGM Leung Ting has probably never given any previous thought to many of these unnecessary questions, but now he has to give the questioner an answer and does so. However there is no such thing as a generally valid, standard answer, but only an educational, psychological or even philosophical answer which often applies only to this questioner and only to his specific situation. If somebody else were to ask what appears to be the same question under slightly different conditions on the next day, he might well receive a contradictory answer. There is no real contradiction, however, as the master's answer is only to help the questioner solve his own problem. Perhaps the questioner needs encouragement rather than technical advice, and will therefore receive a completely non-technical answer.

It is not really the movements that make it WT, as the parable of the sheep's clothing shows. In fact the techniques could well come from Karate or Ju-Jitsu (if they were economical enough). WT is the operating system, our body is the hardware and the movements are the software.

GM Leung Ting has a favourite saying: "The only secret technique in WT is the one you do not practice, as it will always remain a secret to you."

If you practice diligently and work to improve you will understand more and more. What you do not understand today, and may not even recognise as a problem, you may vaguely perceive next year and even be able to formulate into a question soon afterwards – but only if you have trained conscientiously in the meantime. In that case you have created the conditions for being receptive to new influences yourself, rather than waiting to receive ready-made answers. Now you are ready to be "enlightened" further.

You may think that knowledge is being "kept secret", but in fact those who are not ready cannot understand it, as they have not put in the work to prepare their ground for the seed.

What many see as "keeping secrets" is actually the impossibility of giving something if the recipient has not yet developed a receptacle for it.
Perhaps this is what GM Leung Ting means when he refers to "containable" in not only the physical but also the philosophical sense in his new Siu-Nim-Tao book.

When I began to learn from GM Leung Ting 28 years ago he did not make it as easy for me as it is for students in these fast-moving days of instant-this and instant-that. He explained nothing to me, and I had to make sense of everything myself, observe him or steal techniques from him or his assistants with my eyes. There were no books or posters showing the forms and not all the sections had been developed. I did not know where the journey was going, as the great roadmap was not explained at the time. As soon as I had understood something at great effort, and as soon as I was able to parry something with some difficulty, that particular exercise was stopped and replaced with something quite different that gave me a whole new mountain to climb. Often we would only return to the old subject several months later.
All this obliged me to think about things myself, to think further on the basis of what he had taught me. He had created an impulse and off I went.

I often lost my way, only noticing it when he corrected my students for making my mistakes. This made me alter course quickly, for rapid adaptability to new situations is the most important and necessary capability in WingTsun ...

Whenever my Si-Fu answers students' questions with rambling, often rough and seemingly far-fetched examples or even smutty stories, he certainly does not do this to annoy or mislead them. His intention is rather to wake them up, like hitting them with a stick. The truth behind the highest WingTsun, especially on the 3rd layer which concerns self-knowledge, is not accessible by well-trodden paths, and only the use of symbolism and parables can lead to a change in thinking. In the New Testament it is not without reason that laymen are only addressed in parables, as only the initiated, esoteric community of the disciples is able to bear and understand the pure teaching – and in the end not even them.

Showing a student only one corner as in Confucianism, and teaching him no more if he fails to find the others, is the only genuine way to help, for clear explanation and pre-digestion only appears to be an advantage for the student, as it sends him to sleep.

"Making things easy" for a searcher and prematurely explaining something before he is ready for it tends to be counter-productive, at least in the long term.
The same applies to concepts. Placing in front of somebody a complete intellectual structure which his brain can immediately assimilate is to rob him. For his mind will now say "ok, understood" and lean back satisfied, without making him grow through his own efforts and gain real understanding.
In creating an inner conflict within the students by means of contradictory answers which fluctuate between affirmation and negation, the master stops "intellectual" thinking and involves feeling, which always comes before thinking.

The truth has only ever been revealed to man in "flashes", i.e. fleeting inspirations and impressions, as he would be unable to cope with it otherwise – the light would be too strong.
And even a brief flash of truth has a dynamic force which carries the seeds of confusion within it. All too often somebody glimpses a small aspect of the truth, and because even this tiny part is so wonderful he believes he has seen EVERYTHING. For even this tiny aspect often lends us so much power and superiority that we are seduced into believing that it is the whole truth.
And for all our human hubris we are not altogether wrong in this, for the whole must in some way be present in even the smallest part.
However with our human intelligence we cannot interpolate from a small part to recognise the whole, and I write this in the knowledge of all that still lies before you. A blind man feeling the leg of an elephant might come to the conclusion that this animal is shaped like a column, but another feeling its trunk could gain the impression that it is something like a snake.

If we know how one, two and three dimensions are constituted we might arrive at a conclusion concerning the characteristics of the 4th dimension, however it still remains a mystery and cannot even be imagined.
In the end you can only arrive at the whole by understanding the whole.

Somebody who is able to take a single deep but brief look at the system owing to fortunate circumstances, or because General Kwan wishes to spoil him, will be overcome by the ingeniousness revealed to him and believe that he has seen and understood the whole "truth". There cannot be more than this! In fact if he delves more deeply into the material he will discover contradictions that motivate him towards further study. Nor would he puff out his chest and claim with absolute conviction: "This is the only right way to do that!"
Strictly speaking there is no right or wrong, there are only better or worse interpretations of the WT concept. Even when GM Leung Ting calls out "wrong!" and everybody in the room flinches as if a mortal sin had been committed, he only means that the movement in question can be executed more economically, with less effort or less complication. Neither do the Chi-Sao sections lay down fixed instructions for all time and for all situations. Everything is interdependent. The sections merely give examples of how to act intelligently and save effort.
Many other interpretations are possible as well, and these are e.g. shown in GM Leung Ting's tutorials. "Can't one find these out for oneself?", I sometimes hear people ask. Maybe so, if you are a grandmaster and have given the matter as much intensive thought as my Si-Fu, but why reinvent the wheel? For my part I consider it more economical to think further from the basis of knowledge that has already been gained. To understand, to understand more and more, you must learn to apply what you have learned and then return to it again and again, looking more closely each time, and each time you will gain a deeper understanding.

Taking a single aspect, subordinating the (unknown) whole to it and demanding that the whole must act in accordance with the (apparent) guiding principle one believes one has discovered is to overestimate oneself, i.e. it is hubris and the road to confusion.

This summer I had a long conversation about precisely this subject with my Si-Fu in Berlin, and we both agreed with the view of a philosopher who once warned that every extraneous idea must lead to a loss of balance in the whole.

Keith R. Kernspecht