[Wayne]

Is it worth purchasing Mike?

[Mike]

Only if you are interested in studying Ip Chun, Ip Man’s son.

[Deb McCaffery]

Hi Mike. I have several Wing Chun books (including the one you mentioned). Although they may contain some variations, especially when it comes to names of techniques, I do find useful things in each one like theory, principles, physics, etc. I do like Wayne Belonoha’s two-volume Compendium. He has a much smaller book titled “An Approach to Ip Man Style Wing Chun” which is good, but his Compendium contains much, much more so you may, or may not, want to skip the “approach” one depending on how extensive you would like your book collection to be!

[Mike]

Deb, Thanks for the info. I, too, own Vols 1-2 Wayne Belonoha Wing Chun Compendiums. They are great references. Do you have Ving TSun for the 21st

Century by Sifu Adie Gray? Good read.

Thanks

Mike

[Deb McCaffery]

Hi Mike! I do not have Sifu Gray’s book….but I will! Thank you! I will be adding it to my collection! 🙂

[Gary]

I found that book to be a great tease for Wing Chun without actually getting deeply into any details ☹️

I’ve just started reading the newly released book by a disciple of Ip Chun: Understanding Chi Sau by Sifu Colin Ward… it’s free to read of you’re in Kindle Unlimited, but the contents don’t seem to have much about Chi Sau until the very end, and (the Kindle version) is definitely in need of a good editor. I’ll give a more fully formed opinion in a few more days after I’ve finished it.

[Deb McCaffery]

Hi Gary,

I just added Sifu Ward’s book to my list. Thanks. Please share your opinion of the book when you finish reading it. I am a book-aholic so it took me all of about two seconds to add it to my shopping list. But I will do my best to wait for your review. 🙂 I just picked up “Wing Chun: the Works” by Alan Gibson. I have to admit, I bought it because he is holding a long pole on the cover and I am interested in learning the form. Other than that I know nothing about him since I just got the book, but I anxiously went to the section about the long pole and it looks like there is a whopping three pages about it. 🙁 Hopefully the book contains a lot of useful information, but I’m kind of getting the feeling I’ll be a bit underwhelmed with the long pole section. If you have done any long pole and have some reference materials, I’d appreciate if you would be willing to share the titles.

Thanks! Deb

[Gary]

Hi Deb,

I’m about 75% of the way into “Understanding Chi Sau” and I’ve really warmed to it! Despite a misleading table of contents, and terrible editing (way too many commas, in, places that make, no sense at, all! And many typos and smelling pistakes. I find his romanization of cantonese very surprising, and had to say a few out loud to realize what he is referring to…) it does an awesome job of threading little details to help your chi sao practice into a walk through basics drills and forms. Places I had not previously seen the connection. Well worth a read!

I have Alan Gibson’s (a fellow Brit!) original Why Wing Chun Works trilogy, which I think was compiled into a single book The Works, so I didn’t buy that one. I remember enjoying the trilogy at the time, even though I was doing JKD back then. I should read them again now I have been doing Wing Chun seriously for a while. I just checked and those 1998 editions have a half page on the long pole though, so he’s expanded it in the compendium. LOL

I have learned the Red Boat version of Luk Dim Boon Kwan, but looking at volume 2 of Sifu Wayne Belona’s Wing Chun Compendium, which has about 30 pages of photos showing the form, it is entirely different to the Yip Man version (which may be different again to the Leung Sheung version). Normally it is the last form learned because it’s the most difficult, but Sifu Jason Korol has been releasing his books for each form and Luk Dim Boon Kwan is due next I think… you can always check out his Baat Jam Do book which came out recently while you wait.

Let me know if you find any other good books on Wing Chun!