There has been a recent spate of movies about the life of Wing Chun Grandmaster Ip Man. The most recent one to be released on DVD is "The Legend Is Born ... Ip Man." One of my favorite scenes in the movie has the young Ip Man in a medicine shop and he meets the shop manager. The manager is Leung Bik, a Wing Chun grandmaster from Foshan and from another line of Grandmasters than the one Ip Man is training under. Master Bik spars with the young Ip Man and asks at the end if his Wing Chun is authentic. They spar and Master Bik uses several techniques not normally used in Wing Chun. Ip Man tells his that his (Bik's) Wing Chun is NOT authentic. Master Bik responds by saying "Whatever comes from my hands is Wing Chun."
Master Bik (played by Ip Man's real life son Ip Chun) has incorporated techniques from other martial arts into his Wing Chun. When he learns them they are no longer techniques from other martial arts, they are part of his Wing Chun.
I get it now. I trained in the military. I studied Judo on Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan. In Utah and in Germany, while I was a colored belt, I get to train with Shotokan and kung fu stylists. Over the course of time, I got my black belt and other instructors would invite me to spar and work out together. I would show them things I knew and they showed me many things I had never seen before. I learned and added those things to my taekwondo.
I believe there is no one martial art that is superior to any other martial art. All the arts are interconnected in some way. If I learn an aikido throw it is no longer only an aikido throw, I have made it a taekwondo throw. Taekwondo is my base art. Whatever I learn, from wherever I learn it, becomes part of my taekwondo. Therefore, "Whatever comes from my hands (and feet) is taekwondo."
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