Wing Chun - A Gospel Analogy

Ever since I watched Ip Man, I’ve always had a desire to learn Wing Chun. And now at university, I have a chance to pick it up. The experience thus far has been excellent. There is a nice small community and we have a coach who believes in serious fun. I enjoy the fact that our coach is very concerned with applicability, and he’s realistic in saying that if someone threatens us on the street, running should be our first instinct.

Anyway, from my understanding, there are three basic (weaponless) forms in Wing Chun. So far every week, we start our training session with basic drills: opening stance, forward stance, basic punching, stepping, turning, etc. I’m fine with doing these drills because I’m a neophyte, but I wonder at how even experienced students go through these drills with us. I guess our coach explains why we do the same drills every time we go through the basics, but it’s only recently that I’ve begun to understand why.

He says that although some other martial arts teach different techniques – whereby you learn a particular technique, then move on to another, or something like that – in Wing Chun, everything starts from the basic movements, or forms, and everything else is merely extending, or applying those forms to different situations. That means, when engaging an opponent, a Wing Chun practitioner merely employs the basic forms he’s learnt in response to the situation, or attack.

This reminded me of the role of the gospel for the Christian. But first, a question: when challenging and encouraging Christians to grow in godliness and to fight sin, do we assume they know the gospel, and tell them the ‘top ten tips for battling lust’? I think we are tempted to immediately appeal to do’s and don’ts when it comes to Christian living, focusing on certain ‘techniques’ on battling sin. But what learning Wing Chun has taught me is that before I can fight sin and grow in godliness, I need to be so steeped in, so familiar with, and so disciplined by, the gospel. Why do we in Wing Chun go through the basics every time we train? Because it’s not natural, and we want to be so in tuned with the various moves that there is no easy way but hard work and constant practice. If this applies to something like Wing Chun, I think it should apply to the Christian life. Why do we assume that people ‘already know the gospel,’ or that ‘the gospel alone isn’t enough’? Certainly we are not saying that we just say the same things and people will ‘automatically’ know how to act. But the gospel has to be our starting point every time.

I think that Christian messages or talks that make moral injunctions without any reminder of the gospel is questionable - for how is that message different from moralism? And any message that talks about grace without a challenge to pursue holiness, I find suspicious – for how is that message different from antinomianism? Besides learning some bits of Wing Chun, from these training sessions I’ve observed a few things that might be helpful analogies when thinking about the Christian life.

Firstly, we need to constantly remind ourselves about the gospel, not in way that becomes mundane, but in a way that we are self-critical and self-evaluative. In Wing Chun, as we are doing our basic exercises, we are constantly checking to see if we are following the correct form. This is important because if we don’t lay a foundation, and don’t strengthen it, sooner or later, we’ll just be waving our hands in the air and look silly. If I don’t want to practice the basics, it’s as good as saying I don’t want to learn Wing Chun. Similarly, if we don’t constantly remember the gospel, there is the danger of losing the ultimate source of power for the Christian life.  

Secondly, we never mature from the gospel. I think there is a tendency to think that mature Christians understand grace and all that stuff, so we only tell non-Christians or new believers that; and once they’ve understood it, we move on to the more important stuff like dealing with sin, prayer, or finding God’s will. I think that that is a fallacy which has to be corrected. It is striking that in 1 Corinthians, a letter where Paul deals with lots of issues in the church, he says in the opening verses of chapter 15 “Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you” (v1); also “for I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins … was buried … was raised … in accordance with the Scriptures” (v3-4). Have we forgotten that the gospel is central to Christianity?

          In Wing Chun, we are reminded that the basic forms are absolutely crucial - if we want to be able to apply it to real life situations - by repeatedly practising it. I think in Christianity, we need to be reminded that the good news of Jesus’ death and resurrection is foundational - if we are to live as Christians in this world - by repeatedly reminding ourselves and others these truths.