Showing posts with label Jesse Glover. Show all posts

Thursday, June 21, 2018

Some of the Major Misconceptions or Fallacies of JKD by Badger Johnson

6/21/2018 11:00:00 AM Animated GIF, Badger Johnson, Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris, Dan Inosanto, Essay, Hawkins Cheung, James W. DeMile, Jeet Kune Do, Jesse Glover, Jiddu Krishnamurti, Joe Lewis, Mike Stone, Yuen Wah No comments

This essay is not designed to denigrate Jeet Kune Do (JKD), its standup skills, or various aspects which are quite valuable to learn, including short power, fast close footwork, trapping skills, and over-development of various muscle and core systems. It is an outline to provide practitioners a set of guidelines to help individuals to understand the system and even work on methods to deal with holes in the pure standup game.

A layered skill set involving good standing grappling, ground grappling, wrestling as base arts can definitely use JKD type principles added in support of those abilities. In addition to the normal methods, knowing various tie-ups, traps, wrist locks and short power moves are good ways to get from top control into a submission.

1. Almost all of the moves we have seen (movies, instructional) are stage fighting. Examples of this in the movie Enter the Dragon:

The fight with O’Hara, which is staged with both fighters starting hands back to back. Even though O’Hara knows he is outclassed he still goes back and puts his hand back against Lee’s.
The fight with multiple opponents who come one after another, very similar to the classic sword-fighter movies.
Bruce Lee has said to his students that he would not fight in a real combat situation as you see in the movies.
Many of the fights rely on camera angles and in truth Bruce Lee is not in position to hit multiple times with his triple kicks.
All of the other fights are done in an exciting style, not long and drawn out, but they are still cinematic in nature.

2. You can’t do JKD without Bruce Lee level attributes. In order to do interception you have to have high skill in non-intention attacks, and non-telegraphic movements. You must have an unbendable arm to do trapping and keep the opponent at that range. People who try to do JKD invariably set up in demo-mode, and are having the “attacker” feed them movements which allow trap-hits and pak-sao energy. In similarly skilled matches you will not see any JKD/Wing Chun (WC) type movements.

3. Trapping distance is an artificial construct. The actual techniques which are employed at this artificial range are moves such as wrestling single-collar tie-ups, boxing hooks to the head and body, or standing grappling rapidly occurs. It may be compelling to think simultaneous block-and-strike and trapping methods would work the distance quickly collapses or is subsumed by wrestling or throwing moves. Can a trap of a more general nature work, such as a grab and strike? Yes, but the notion of a flurry of WC trapping and tie-up is rare and trying to pick strikes out of the air (guarding gates) usually ends up with the attacker/defender reaching for a parry and they get hit with a flurry of hooks or uppercuts.

4. On the ground (ground fighting) striking is almost nullified. The typical kind of strikes you rely on in WC or JKD, straight punches, even short power, rely on a power chain that comes from ground path or the drop step or other type of power chain. Typically, if you can fight back, you are limited, sometimes to frantic elbow strikes from the bottom. From top control it’s still not simple to hit if the opponent can deflect or cover. Anyone who only has standup skill will find it greatly reduced in ground fighting. What you see in current UFC fighting in ground and pound is employed by people with wrestling skill backing that up allowing them to maintain top control.

You are not going to get anyone to start a fight as you see Lee and O’Hara use with hands touching.

5. Interception works primarily in one venue, the standing start confrontation. Someone with special skills in close combat, i.e. contact reflexes and short power, can do a lot of damage in a very short time frame in a special venue, that of standing start sudden confrontation. This is what Bruce Lee would have excelled at, since he could sense the opponent’s line of attack and use interception and short power and eye jabs and eye attack feints to quickly end the fight. You are not going to get anyone to start a fight as you see Lee and O’Hara use with hands touching. While it’s true Bruce Lee would often get the upper hand in demonstrations by rushing forward so he could get some contact and empty contact reflexes, this is hard to acquire in a real, unstructured fight.

6. Nobody has shown JKD in a dynamic match neither sparring fighting, nor demonstration. Without compliant stuntmen it can’t be sustained.

7. JKD ground work or throwing range was still in the ‘collection of tricks’ stage. Even years later when you see various of Bruce Lee’s students doing ground fighting it was a quick set of moves with a cooperating opponent, starting with an agreed upon start point such as a wrist grab or bear hug. They did not even show rolling or flowing using guard and mount in some of Dan Inosanto’s JKD grappling DVD instructional, even though by that time rolling was a known methodology. It was because he had not yet developed grappling flow, nor did he understand how to do BJJ or JKD with a BJJ flavor.

8. Bruce Lee did not have mobile kicking. Mobile kicking incorporates bridging the gap in one move. Mobile kicking invokes a sequence in which, from a fighting stance, the body is unweighted and the energy of chambering the lead leg pulls the body forward and the rear leg slides forward along the gap to be bridged and the kick is thrown with a high chamber immediately. It is not a 1-2-3 movement you see in step kicks. It’s sometimes seen with a hop but the back leg does not move first. This is seen primarily in early TKD kicking even as far back as the late 70s and early 80s. Against a mobile kicker, a static or step kicker has almost no chance of getting in a kick. You can see this in some of the backyard videos that Bruce Lee did with James Coburn.

9. Bruce Lee did not have any takedown skills, such as a penetration step, lowering the level and shooting, neither did he have a takedown defense. Though some people can use a knee or elbow or side-step against a takedown it is non-standard, requires takedown training to perfect, and thus without actual skill in wrestling it is usually very easy for grapplers and wrestlers to get a takedown against pure strikers. Since Bruce Lee did not have to regularly contend with wrestlers or grapplers, he realized he had to be very careful to stay out of range. However, wrestlers are very adept at getting under a jab or getting the opponent to step into their penetration step. It’s a definite weakness and a hole its the typical game of someone who trains in standup only.

10. None of Bruce Lee’s students have solved these problems, including Dan Inosanto, of the lack of aliveness, removing the scripted nature of ‘demo sparring’, nor did they seem to realize the need for hyper-development of attributes and strengths. Among the few in JKD who did strive to solve these problems were most notably, Matt Thornton/SBG and Erik Paulson and their students.

11. Though people have extracted some of the principles of JKD they are stuck in the ‘what’ and don’t have a conception about the ‘how’ to enable developing them.

12. In the late stage of JKD Bruce Lee was actively hiding his methods even from the inner circle. (See below the list of 25 most common things that Bruce Lee was hiding to prevent another from following in his path, since he was reluctant to give those who were bigger and stronger abilities similar to his.) He was OK with giving some of the surface moves or some of the derivational moves he uncovered, but he would be very careful about showing how he did various moves and the build up needed to do some of his stunts. If you don’t know how some of the stunt are developed over a long time with lots of methods of training and conditioning seeing the final stunt does not give you the means to duplicate it.

13. They did not routinely practice leg kicks at or near the level of MMA and MT. JKD kicks are done at the level of stop kicks and are at a good skill level but without consistent practice against a variety of strong opponents they will not be developed beyond a certain level. Certainly stop kicks and simultaneous block and kick methods are good against rudimentary kicking certain aspects found in MT and MMA do not get trained.

The ability to handle multiple opponents is actually just stage fighting.

14. The ability to handle multiple opponents is actually just stage fighting; it’s not reality based. Against even three people who work in concert and who have some experience it is very unlikely that any fighting method can work. It makes for exciting movie-making but is not realistic.

15. Bruce Lee had good infighting abilities but he had not developed certain aspects seen in modern boxing, such as side-stepping, staying in the pocket, the bob and weave, and the modern MMA peek-a-boo blocking cover reflexes. He was still espousing a distance parry and interception method which doesn’t work against capable opponents, even though he recognized that these Western boxing skill did exist. Being able to demonstrate them is not the same as using them against a skilled boxer.

16. His ground fighting skill methods were still in the mode of JJJ (Classical Japanese Jiu-Jitsu) or a collection of tricks. Though he may have been close to uncovering the idea of ‘aliveness’ many of his proponents didn’t figure it out for many, many years. Subsequent JKD students did realize that grappling was important, but they had not realized the method to do so, which is using BJJ, guard and mount and rolling as a delivery system to ‘aliveness’ which is movement, timing, resistance, lack of scripting,

17. Bruce Lee did not yet understand ‘aliveness’ or timing, movement, resisting opponent and he had not understood the delivery system needed to develop skills through rolling.

18. His biggest draw back was that he did not have a wide variety of opponents near his level to allow the best progression and almost all of his students and partners were well beneath his ability - no fault of his, to be sure.

19. One of his biggest problems, pointed out by Joe Lewis is his ‘untested chin’. Many gym fighters discover to their dismay when they actually fight that their abilities in the ring are not comparable, either due to lack of durability, glass jaw, or adrenaline dump or nerves.

20. Finally he had a very limited experience with actual sport-fighting, due, in part to a lack of venues for such things, so we don’t really have a good sense of his weaknesses and limitations. The key point is not these specifics but the great advances and methods he was using are still in use today.

Advanced methods of JKD still in use:

1. Bruce Lee had ‘next level’ capabilities in his lead hand finger jab, including shocking speed, penetration, timing and precision. In theory that weapon, coupled with 1” fa-jing like power, speed of initiation and ability to get in before being blocked it could handle any opponent regardless of size (but within reach) or weight. Could a boxer with lightweight speed and reflexes have blocked or evaded the eye jab? It’s unlikely.

2. Bruce Lee had next level ability to kick from a distance, using both sudden explosive ability and an ability to break free hanging boards. However, his kicking was not at the level of modern MT.

3. Few, if any successors really understand the non-intention (NI), non-telegraphic (NT) nature of Bruce Lee’s ability, excepting Pat Strong, and fewer still show comparable development.

4. Few, if any successors understand how Bruce Lee was able to intuit his opponent’s attack before it was begun. This is derived from his NI and NT ability, projected outward.

Bruce Lee’s ability to call up rage mode in a split second

5. Few, if any successors understand Bruce Lee’s ability to call up rage mode in a split second, how it was developed and implemented. A few people are aware of it (Bleecker, Lewis, DeMile).

6. Few, if any successors have understood nor developed his core, forearm, unbendable bridge arm, neck and back development. He was driven to make ‘weak aspects’ found in everyone over-developed, including the bridge arm, the finger jab, the fast close (which could have been improved).

7. There is generally an agreement from at least two sources, Jesse Glover and James DeMile primarily, that Bruce Lee was actively hiding his methods of development. We have some hints of ways he did things, and we know from some advanced students like Patrick Strong that there are some known developmental paths that he took. One of them was to break all techniques into three parts or phases. We also know he used isometrics and weight training, and he used various training devices that James Lee built, as well as traditional WC methods, like the Wooden Dummy. We know he emphasized training the waist, core, upper back, wrists and neck for specific reasons. He trained the waist and wrist to help him extend power away from the body, as he called it or short power. See below a partial list of some of the methods that Bruce Lee was actively hiding. These are ideas that I have put together over many years of studying writings, training, and trying to read between the lines and find various clues to flesh out these methods.

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Among the things that Bruce Lee was hiding, I share the following. I have no way to confirm these and I’d ask readers to evaluate my commentary and use these ideas to point the way to their own research.

Here is a list of many of the main things that I believe we have evidence that Bruce Lee was keeping more-or-less secret:

1) How he developed his 'non-intention' methods, both how he knew that non-intention was different from 'non-telegraphic’, and what was needed to exhibit non-intention based preparations.

2) The training methodology for doing the fast close from 3 and 5 feet has not been disclosed. Jesse Glover details how he talked to him about breaking any technique down into three parts. He also subdivided the types of speed into several categories. Initiation speed, mile per hour speed, timing speed and speed in combinations. Today we know there are methods to develop the ability a sprinter has for coming out of the blocks, for instantly reacting to a stimulus. These include certain types of over-speed training, being pulled forward with elastic bands and so forth.

Some people have mentioned that the source for JKD were 26 arts that Bruce Lee studied or favored.

3) Some people have mentioned that the source for JKD were 26 arts that Bruce Lee studied or favored. This is somewhat speculative since Bruce Lee did not create this list but some students have claimed he told them. In other words the reason he chose to detail these 26 arts has been explained in a way that is really incomplete. There was a specific reason, but he didn't articulate it. I think it’s safe to say, that in addition to having some familiarity with these known styles, he wanted an art to represent each of the ranges of combat. Close fighting, medium range, kicking range, fencing range, ground-fighting range and so on.

4) Some things were hidden in plain sight. They were hidden behind aphorisms. It takes some deep thought and digging around to really understand what they actually meant. He talked about the cutting away non-essential things (like a sculptor removing clay), however, if you didn’t have deep understanding of things there was nothing left to be removed. We know Guro Dan has talked about various phrases, such as ‘Absorb What is Useful’, but we don’t actually know the origin of these phrases. They key is to examine these commonly repeated concepts and be sure to know the why of them, and the how of them. How is something accomplished is more important in deep understanding than knowing what the phrase or proverb was.

5) The method of development and the reason for developing his bridge arm is not widely discussed. We now know he relied heavily on isometrics, and Jesse Glover related that Bruce Lee talked about how he used to press his arm against the underside of his desk in school because he was bored. One day his hand slipped off of the desk and he was surprised at the way energy was suddenly released. This concept formed the basis for some of his fast attack movements.

6) The methodology behind being able to 'read' an opponent's intention is not well explained. At this point only one of his students talks about it (Pat Strong). Part of this was being able to go into a mode similar to that kind of perception where things seem to slow down. Various sports experts talk about how they perceive the game ball to move slowly, to be much larger than normal and to feel they had a lot of time to react, far beyond the mere micro-seconds that went by in real time. Ted Williams talked about being able to see the seams in a fast ball. Jimmy Connors said that he perceived the tennis ball in a fast serve to actually be larger than reality. It’s not quite clear what the brain mechanism is that accounts for this. Some people seem to have a knack for calling it up spontaneously. There may have been a procedure that Bruce Lee used to develop ‘fast perception’ and perhaps how to get into the state where time seemed to expand. Since it’s not an uncommon phenomenon, it is worth exploring.

Bruce Lee's highly developed forearms

7) We know Bruce Lee had a reason for his developing his forearms to such a high degree, but there are few discussions on why. Though people might quibble with this, bear in mind only one or two JKD practitioners worked on things like this. If people wanted to do JKD and omit this that shows they don't understand what the importance was. Obviously, it takes genetics, and a lot of time and energy to develop these kinds of attributes, many of which are beyond those of the normal trainer. Part of the ability of hitting hard is having a very tight fist - there is no give in the hand. In addition the closing of the hand and the classic ‘wrist tilt’ which occurs in a vertical punch is magnified if there is hyper-development of those muscles.

Bruce Lee developing core and abdominals

8) We know there are obvious reason why someone wants to develop their core and abdominals. It’s fairly obvious that if the opponent does not have this kind of development then they may be unable to use some of the methods of accumulating power and issuing energy. He went to such extremes because of his idea of making weak things strong, things that were weak even in strong individuals. Only a few people who claim to be JKD or JDK concepts students or instructors did that, and almost none of this other inner circle did. Without an ability to tie the upper and lower parts of the body together you can’t stabilize various high speed movements and you can’t transmit power from the ground and the legs to the arms and hands. We know that types of fa-jing (Chinese internal power) require a type of store and release involving the pelvic floor muscles and the internal core muscles.

9) Though we now know about the existence of various training tools and equipment, there’s some doubt that his second and third group of students were not exposed to the use of training equipment, particularly some of the things that James Lee build for him. I wonder if his students even knew he was using that equipment. Yes, there are pictures of him using various things but he did not, to my knowledge, go over those in depth when he was teaching in the early 70s.

10) He hid his 'x-rated' moves. He discussed those with Dan and Jesse and we have some inkling that he would not fight in a real life-or-death situation like we see in the movies or any of his media or comments. By ‘X-rated’ a term he shared with Jesse Glover, he meant deadly force, not just hitting but one-strike kills or one movement kills such as neck wrenches hitting the area near the heart, or using eye attacks. An equivalent method would be a single-strike incapacitating move.

11) Bruce Lee had an extensive number of supplements and vitamins and other substances, including prescription items that he used. We do not really know completely what he used and what his dosage level was. Even if we largely discount much of what Tom Bleecker says in his book “Unsettled Matters”, nobody really knows what he was doing as far as diet and supplementation. In order to try and duplicate such things it would be helpful to know what Bruce Lee used to develop such a high degree of muscularity and low subcutaneous fat. There are regimes we know of now, but it’s possible that this was not natural. When one looks at photographs of Bruce Lee in his mid-twenties he had a normal athletic build, but it is not on par with the extreme muscularity and low subcutaneous fat.

We do know he had friends and associates who could acquire performance-enhancing substances, and there are stories of unusual dietary practices he engaged in. There are no clear diary records which have been released which describe his supplement and medication dosages. We do know he had prescriptions for cortico steroids.

12) He hid his true level of sparring ability. We hear he never sparred except for brief demonstrations when training Joe, Chuck or Mike Stone. Some have suggested it could be because he didn’t want anyone to know how good he was, or perhaps what weaknesses he had. If one examines the large number of sparring and fighting principles he left behind, including those specific ones that Joe Lewis details in his books, it’s clear that he was espousing methods that far advanced beyond what most people were using in those days. We have to remember the majority of karate instructors, when asked, would say things like ‘do more kata’ or work harder. He was one of the first people to systematize the use of weights and specific resistance machines.

13) He carefully shielded all of his pro-level students from sharing what he was telling them. Both Joe Lewis, Mike Stone and Chuck Norris and other pro-level students he worked with said that he always kept their training separate.

14) He hid the double pak-sao. He specifically told Dan never to disclose that. One has to realize that what he meant by this move is probably not the same as the typical WC version. Perhaps hit was an over-trained method.

It's said that Bruce Lee could penetrate an old style coke can holding the can in his hand with a finger stab.

15) The degree of his ability as to his finger jab was not often talked about except in years after he had passed away. There are 'stories' that he could penetrate an old style coke can holding the can in his hand with a finger stab.

16) He hid the nature of his EDC (everyday carry). Some stories are out there that he carried nunchaku and some that he was occasionally armed with a firearm.

Bruce Lee hid the power of his back fist.

17) He hid the power of his back fist. There are stories in the last year of his life he was able to dent the face mask of their sparring masks with a back fist and that this mask was of above average gauge steel mesh, almost a grid not a mesh.

18) He hid his ability to ‘take a punch’, and by that I mean a punch to the face/head. There’s some speculation that he may have had a good chin and some that he may have had a glass jaw and didn’t dare spar lest that be exposed. There are other indications in direct opposition to this, in that he trained his neck and jaw muscles which are known to help resist being knocked out.

19) He hid some of his conclusions about the efficacy of JKD and we see some of this in his letters to other Yip Man students particularly Hawkins Cheung (HC) which he discussed it privately which have now been published. He talked to HC about how he felt that JDK was ultimately a failure, though he didn’t explain what that meant except to say he could not make ‘interception’ work in all cases.

20) He hid some of his extensive training notes, though later some of that came out when Linda Lee and Gilbert L. Johnson compiled and published them in The Tao of JKD. It’s possible he didn’t share much of this with any of his students. We tend to think of these things as ‘not hidden’ because Linda and Gilbert published the notes, but the truth is, I don’t think Bruce Lee had any intention of letting much if not most of this out to his students, much less the public. Much of what was put together in The Tao of JKD were obvious cribs of various boxing manuals, fencing manuals and quotes taken from Jiddu Krishnamurti, a noted philosopher.

This acrobatic stunt was performed by Yuen Wah and not Bruce Lee.

21) The fact that the stunt men in his movies were the ones doing the more acrobatic things and not him was not forthcoming until much later. In fact, to this day it’s not common knowledge that all the aerial acrobatics in Enter the Dragon were performed by a stunt man (and he had his own team of stuntmen), and not him that stunt was actually done by Yuen Wah. Bruce Lee did not have any unusual tumbling or aerial aerobatic skills.

22) He hid his physical flaws, inducing his leg length discrepancy and his vision problems, though now we know about those.

23) He hid how he developed his ‘kill word’ or his ‘instant ramp up to killing intent’ (James DeMile explains it involves self-hypnosis and using a ‘pre-programmed kill word’ that you say silently).

The Chinese audience called Bruce Lee ‘the man with three legs’.

24) He showed the public a side which was a bit different than his real abilities. We all thought he was a super kicker, and the Chinese audience called him a name something like ‘the man with three legs’ for his triple turning kick. But we all found out later his real power was in his hands.

25) He presented a stage image of a ‘fighter’ using essentially sparring techniques which were really equivalent to ‘stage fighting’ like you see in the old Douglas Fairbanks sword and swashbuckling movies. The reality is that he told Dan ‘a real fight now will be over in about 3 seconds, I don’t play around’.

© Badger Johnson 2018

Please check out Badger Johnson's other essays:

Today would've been Jesse Glover sifu's 79th birthday!!

10/15/2014 09:54:00 PM Birthday, Bruce Lee, Jeet Kune Do, Jesse Glover, Non-Classical Gung Fu, Youtube No comments

Photo credit: Jesse Glover Non Classical Gung Fu Facebook page

Today would've been Jesse Glover sifu's 79th birthday. Just in case you do not know him, which is hard to believe, he was Bruce Lee's first American student and assistant instructor. He passed away 2 yrs ago at the age of 77 on June 27, 2012 :(

Posting some videos in his honor. Enjoy!

Eye Attack & The Touch Attack - the power of the eye attack, reaction speed and the secret of the Touch attack

Strikes, sticking hands and correct foot placing

How to open an opponent up, hiding the telegraph and continuous movement

The art of sticking hands and continuous movement

How to refine Wing Chun and be more direct

For further info:

Taky Kimura Interviewed by Paul Bax

3/12/2014 11:56:00 PM Brandon Lee, Bruce Lee, Dan Inosanto, Interview, Jeet Kune Do, Jesse Glover, Taky Kimura No comments

The Taky Kimura Interview
Interview Conducted By Paul Bax

When I first started investigating Bruce Lee and his art of Jeet Kune Do, I remembered an old Lee saying, "If you understand the root, you understand all of its blossoming." With this in mind I decided to dig up some roots that have never been exposed before. Those roots, or more properly, that person is Taky Kimura. Mr. Kimura was Lee's first instructor when Bruce opened his first official school. Obviously Bruce saw the same qualities in Taky that he did in his other instructors James Lee and Dan Inosanto. Those qualities were extreme humility, respect for their sifu and the fact that none of them would ever commercialize his art of Gung Fu. Taky has been happy to go about his business in Seattle and leave the limelight to others. In his first interview ever, Mr. Kimura sheds some much needed light on the Seattle years, talks about the woman behind the superstar - Linda Lee, and expresses his sorrow over the death of Brandon Lee.

HOW DID YOU FIRST MEET BRUCE LEE?
TK: I met him in 1 959 when he first came to Seattle. He first landed in San Francisco, but Ping Chow had been in Bruce's fatherï¿½s theater presentation and I think they owed the Lee family some favors so they said they would take care of Bruce. Thatï¿½s probably why he came here.

WERE YOU IMMEDIATE FRIENDS OR DID YOUR RELATIONSHIP SLOWLY GROW?
TK: No, actually Bruce was working in Chow's restaurant and every morning he would go down a street called Broadway which took him down to the Edison Vocational School. He bumped into his first student Jesse Glover and I met Bruce through the group of guys Jesse Hung out with.

AT THE SEATTLE SCHOOL. DID BRUCE INTEGRATE OTHER ARTS AT THAT TIME OR WAS IT STRICTLY WING CHUN?
TK: Well, Bruce was well endowed in a number of styles such as Hung Gar, Choy Le Fut, Preying Mantis, all these different arts. He was very knowledgeable with all these different arts, but I think that he probably found that he identified most with Wing Chun as being more realistic in his eyes prior to leaving Hong Kong, so he did concentrate on more of a modified Wing Chun version to my knowledge. At that time I really wasn't knowledgeable with tall the different aspects of styles. Looking back that's my assessment.

SO EVEN THEN, HIS ART WAS A MODIFIED FORM OF WING CHUN, NOT THE TRADITIONAL ART?
TK: That's right. Bruce was a very keen minded fellow that could just look at something in a moments time and translate it in his own mind as to what works and what doesn't. That was sort of his make-up. Every style has a lot of classical motions as well as the more realistic, simplified things and so I think he picked out what he thought was more realistic and that's what he taught us.

SINCE YOU WERE IN CHARGE WHEN BRUCE COULDN'T BE THERE, WHAT DID HE STRESS TO YOU TO STAY AHEAD OF THE REGULAR STUDENTS?
TK: Well, he was always on the scene pretty much, but there were times when he was involved in his school work, so he actually let me lead the class to begin with, but he always came into the class before it was over to make sure we were doing things right. Prior to each session he would take me aside and we would rehearse different things that we would be working on for the next class. It wasn't as if I was doing something on my own. Everything I did was very realistic and what he wanted me to do.

BRUCE WAS FAMOUS FOR HIS ONE INCH PUNCH. WERE THE MECHANICS OF THIS PUNCH TAUGHT OPENLY AT THE SEATTLE SCHOOL?
TK: Oh yeah. The consensus is I guess if you teach someone, you teach them seventy five percent of what you know, so you have that other twenty five percent in reserve in case he turns on you (laughs). He was very free with his knowledge and if he looked at you and felt you were trustworthy and sincere, he taught you. He didn't care what race you were. He taught me the one inch punch and I try to follow through and show my students. The one-inch punch was always one of the things he demonstrated at tournaments.

CAN YOU RECALL BRUCE'S FIGHT WITH THE KARATE BLACK BELT IN KARATE?
TK: Well, I can tell you as much as I know. I actually wasn't on the scene when it happened. This guy was a second or third degree Black Belt from Japan. His first name was Yoechi, but I can't remember what his last name was now. This guy was a fanatic about what he thought he knew. He was on the scene here and of course both he and Bruce were going to the same school. Whenever Bruce would demonstrate something this guy took it personally, like Bruce was trying to put him down but that wasn't the case at all. He would pop up at exhibitions and he would get and challenge Bruce openly on the stage. It finally got to the point where Bruce had to tell him if he kept this up they would have to settle this thing. Of course the karate guy was ready to go immediately then. Bruce said, "Let's get this straight, your challenging me, right?" The guy said, "Yes, I'm challenging you." Then they decided to go down to the local handball court and locked themselves in there. When they got started the karate guy opened up with a kick that Bruce blocked and then he just straight punched him all the way down the length of the handball court. When he bumped into the wall and he was falling, Bruce kicked him. The whole thing was over in eleven seconds. After that this guy wanted to become a member of our class. He wanted to become Bruce's disciple. To show you what kind of guy Bruce was, he actually let him in our class for awhile.

HOW LONG DID THIS GUY LAST IN CLASS AFTER THAT?
TK: Well, he was in class for maybe a month and them he kind of petered out. Maybe he felt he was humbling himself too much. It's kind of hard to say.

EVEN BACK IN THOSE EARLY DAYS, PEOPLE USED TO SAY THEY BEAT UP BRUCE. DID YOU HEAR THAT A LOT?
TK: Yeah, I used to hear all kinds of things, but obviously...(laughs). You're still hearing things like that now.

WEREN'T YOU SEVERELY INJURED IN A DEMONSTRATION WITH BRUCE?
TK: It was a demo during a routine class workout. The group of students were to the far right of us and he was facing me to the left of the group and was telling them that the force of the punch had to be something that penetrated through rather than stopping at the point of impact. I was wearing glasses at the time and he was looking over to the students, so then he let go with this wicked punch that got me in the eye. It broke my glasses of course and I had glass splinters all through out my eye. It almost knocked me out. They took me to the hospital and I was okay. That's the only time he ever missed. He used to throw the nunchaku's around my head and I could just barely feel them touch my hair. After that particular incident I started to worry. He was keenly able to use those things (nunchaku's). It never bothered me because he never missed except for that one time.

DID JESSE GLOVER (LEE'S FIRST STUDENT) GET KNOCKED OUT AT A DEMONSTRATION?
TK: I don't recall Jesse ever getting knocked out but whenever we had these demonstrations we had free-style sticking hands to show the prowess of it. If you look at just brute strength, Jesse was probably bigger and stronger than Bruce, but you have that inner strength that sort of comes out of you. Bruce used to talk about how he could call it forth during an extreme emergency or something like when there is a fire. This adrenaline flow brings that kind of power forth. I think Bruce had the ability to call forth that kind of energy at will. He was only five foot seven and one hundred thirty five pounds. He had a defined physique but he still wasn't a big man. When you look at somebody of that stature coming up with that kind of power, you wonder where the hell it is coming from.

IT IS INTERESTING YOU BRING THAT UP SINCE TOM BLEEKER (LINDA LEE'S EX-HUSBAND AND BRIEF STUDENT OF BRUCE) SPOKE OF THAT IN A RECENT MAGAZINE ARTICLE. HE ALSO CLAIMS BRUCE COULD TAP INTO THAT SOURCE OF ADRENALINE AT WILL.
TK: Oh yeah. They talk about mind and body matter being two different things but I firmly believe they are one in the same. You can't just say it is a separate entity. That's just my feeling. I am sixty nine and I feel I'm still learning a lot of things within myself. I'm beginning to tap into that chapter that I have never been to.

HOW OFTEN DID YOU SEE BRUCE AFTER HE LEFT FOR OAKLAND?
TK: His mother in law was still up here, so he wanted to bring his wife and son to see them from time to time. I would say in the earlier part of after he left he was up here maybe two or three times a year. He would always tell me in advance when he was coming and ask me to set time away from my job so we could go over the new things he was doing. This was one of the things I really appreciated, because he would show me different things they were doing that he had gone into from what he had been doing here. I felt honored to be a part of a continuing friendship and the fact he hadn't forgot me.

WOULD HE TRY TO LIBERATE YOU FROM HIS PREVIOUS TEACHINGS IN SEATTLE AND IF SO, WHAT DID HE STRESS TO YOU?
TK: Well, one of the things he did when you talk about liberation is at one point he said how strongly we attach the importance of chi sau. When he started teaching Kareem Abdul Jabbar for instance - sticking hands, he could recognize there was such a vast physical difference between him and Kareem that chi sao became much more useless than it would be with someone in the range of your own size. At one point he called me and said sticking hands was really not the focal point of things as we thought earlier. At this time I didn't understand the impact of what he was saying, but now I understand. He told me when he was looking at Kareem s navel and he said normally if you extend your foot you could keep yourself out of range from getting hit if you got your leg out there. With Kareem, he (Bruce) could have his leg out there, but Kareem could still hit him. He was over a foot taller. One of the things about Bruce as I said earlier was that he was a guy that could look at something in a flashing moment and tell you the value of it. I think when he first got here to when he was in Oakland and Los Angeles, he was on an up plane of learning things about himself. You read these life stories of all these martial artist and they tell how they learn something from one guy and then they can]t learn anything more so they go to the next guy and they]re always looking for some kind of challenge that will take them up to the next step. I think Bruce went through that same process. The big difference was that he was a man that wasn't tied down to a "classical mess" as he used to call a lot of things. He was self-liberated in that he was looking for things that kept him away from just having tunnel vision.

HAVE YOU FOUND THE SAME LIMITATIONS IN WING CHUN THAT BRUCE DID?
TK: As far as Wing Chun goes there is a vast amount of knowledge there and, to be honest with you, I don't know much of it. The only thing I know is the modified techniques that Bruce taught us. If some of those people who are real Wing Chun artists would come into our club and see us they would probably shake their heads and say "What the hell are these guys doing?" I can't really say one way or the other about it. I think the concept of Wing Chun in principle is very good. It's a simplified straight movement in that it takes away a lot of the impractical things you might see in another structure. When I mention this I certainly don't mean to take anything away from anyone else. I always tell guys that want to get into our private club that you might think wrestling or boxing is the best thing and if that's the case, that's what your going to excel in if that's how you feel. We're not here to tell you we have something that is better than boxing or anything else.

DO YOU THINK BRUCE KEPT A LOT OF THINGS TO HIMSELF?
TK: I think Bruce was very open with me and I think one of the reasons was he didn't see any threat from me. I'm a very passive guy and I was much older than he was. We had a very strong friendship bond between us and I always felt Bruce never held anything back from me that he had but at the same time he knew I was only capable of digesting so much at any given point in time so he wouldn't try to inundate me by throwing a bunch of stuff at me. Every time he came up he would have the next little set of things he wanted me to practice on. At the same time I never pestered him or pushed him because I always had a strong feeling in my mind he wasn't going to hold anything back from me and that he was going to give me whatever he thought I needed at what point in time he felt I needed it.

HOW DO YOU VIEW BRUCE LEE'S ART OF JEET KUNE DO?
TK: Well, I think he certainly has to be given credit for revolutionizing the whole industry of the martial arts. During the late fifties and early sixties there was a lot of mysticism in terms of the martial arts. A lot of the stuff you saw was classical motions and forms and those kind of things and again I don't say this to try to put anybody down or minimize the value of it in terms of the total goal of where you're going. Bruce had his own way of doing things and I just feel very honored that I was one of the guys that got to know him as well as anybody did.

DID YOU ACTUALLY SEE JEET KUNE DO?
TK: I guess I can say that I was the only guy in Seattle that really saw the stages of Jeet Kune Do that he was into whenever he came up here. At that point he wasn't teaching anybody. He would teach me privately different things he was doing. I guess I can say I was the only guy he kept pace at the level he was in when he came up here. It's a very confusing thing. Everybody looks at JKD and tries to say what it is.

DO YOU THINK THERE WAS AN ACTUAL SYSTEM OF JEET KUNE DO?
TK: Here's my view point: If you want to compare it to a sculptor that takes a piece of clay and ends up with a beautiful art object, then he's casting off these little pieces of clay that aren't necessary but in order to get to that beautiful sculpture you will still have to know how he got there. So, yes I think there are pieces that need to be gone through to get up to that point.

WITH YOUR BUSY SCHEDULE, HOW OFTEN AND HOW MANY PEOPLE DO YOU TEACH?
TK: First of all, it's a private club, we won't charge anything and we are not looking for students. I'm a guy that likes to stay in the woodwork here. I'm not at all trying to make any statements or let anybody think anybody knows anymore than someone else. My knowledge is very limited but I feel secure with what Bruce taught me. My satisfaction is if I can share that knowledge with somebody who's out there afraid to assert himself in the group that he's in because he might be ashamed of something he said wrong. Bruce used to say, "If you have something to say, for God's sake-say it!" In other words, instill a little more confidence in yourself. It relates itself to so many facets of life whether you're driving down the road, attending a business meeting or if you're just talking to somebody. Actually, you're in some form of oral combat with the guy your talking to. You have to harmonize yourself and let it flow. I think that's one of the big things I gained form Bruce. This group I have here, we're not teaching anybody how to fight, we're just sharing something with them that if it gets them on the next level of feeling good about yourself then we've done something.

DO YOU CERTIFY PEOPLE IN JUN FAN GUNG FU?
TK: Oh no, I don't do any of that kind of stuff. I'm not looking for anyone to put me on a pedestal because I know I don't belong there. One of the good feelings is I can work with these people but if there's anything to do with certification I just tell them to go to Dan Inosanto. He's the guy who I believe has been left with the legacy of Bruce Lee.

YOU RECENTLY DROPPED OUT A JKD SUMMER CAMP. WHY WAS THIS?
TK: That's not my bag, Paul. If I were into that scene I would have started a school a long time ago. With my closeness to Bruce I could have made a lot of money but that's not where it's at as far as I am concerned. I'm just interested in being in my little corner. People want to come into the club but unless they are of the same philosophy I am, then I just don't take them. It's just wasting their time and mine. Bruce and I had a long and harmonious feeling about nationwide schools. At one time he and I were talking about starting a nationwide string of schools but when he found out that...and I say this in a very qualified manner because there are many schools that are dedicated in a very sincere manner but then there are other guys out there who are looking to make a lot of money and they don't care if you come today or tomorrow, they're just going to appease you by giving you rank if they think. you've been there long enough. As long as the moneys flowing. When Bruce saw that, he was frustrated with it, so we decided against the idea. One of the last things he said, and I concur with him totally, was that, "What is really important except that you have a few close friends around you and workout twice week and go down to Chinatown o have a cup of tea." I think there is a lot of importance there, you know. That's kind of where I am. I'm not a fighter or anything like that. I'm a very passive guy. If I can help somebody then that's important.

WITH THE "JKD SOCIETY" DISBANDED, DO YOU FEEL THERE NEEDS TO BE A NEW GOVERNING BODY?
TK: I think Dan Inosanto is the person that has been left with the legacy of Bruce Lee, so with him lies the key to some kind of consensus there. Otherwise Bruce is going to be forgotten. If he isn't forgotten it's going to be so fragmented and in different directions nobody's going to understand what he stood for. Dan is the guy who is at the head of the group to lead us into the future with a true perspective of what Bruce was and who he was. Dan is the kind of guy that has such humbleness about him and is so dedicated to making sure whatever Bruce stood for doesn't get misconstrued. He's logically the fellow that needs to be there. I think all these other people around him will rally around him and allow him to form a body that will take this thing into the future. My feeling is Dan needs to come out to assert the leadership that everyone is looking for. Dan might emphasize Kali but that's what people want him for. People like Ted Wong, Dan Lee and all those guys, they were the nucleus of who Bruce was teaching down there. For anything to occur that shows different directions among these people obviously shows a lack of communication. We can't have it continue by having different people doing different things. It has to be structured and made into a focal point, much more than it is now. It takes things like this to get things back together.

CAN YOU GIVE ME SOME INSIGHT INTO LINDA LEE?
TK: Nobody has ever given Linda the credit she deserves. This woman has been one hell of a pillar of strength out thee. I don't think Bruce would have aspired to the height that he did without her support. Look what she did for her son. She was a pillar of strength for him him, too. Nobody ever gives Linda credit. I tell you, she's ten feet tall. First her husband, now her son. Dan was hopeful one day he [Brandon] could take the whole thing over and lead it. That's exactly what Dan told me. He said Brandon came in very humble. He worked from the very beginning. He didn't come in and say, "Hey, I'm Bruce Lee's son, I'm going to start at the top," he started at the bottom like everybody else. He very humbly took his lumps and worked his way up. Dan said this young man had all the moves and the coordination similar to what his dad had. Dan was hopeful one day he could groom him and he could be the leader and take over. What a beautiful thought. If Dan was a greedy, dishonest guy he would never had any feelings like that.

HOW HAVE YOU FELT ABOUT THE LOSS OF BRANDON LEE?
TK: I think it is tragic from the emotional stand point that a mother, after she lost her husband then loses her son in a rather similar way, in a shroud of mystery. Here was a young man who was just on the threshold of doing a lot of big, fine things. You find yourself asking questions. How is it you find all these derelicts out there year after year, falling over the sidewalk just like they were fifteen years ago, but they're still up and around. I'm not one to judge, but it seems these people haven't contributed anything to society but here comes a shining star that has all the potential to contribute something and his life is snuffed out. Your find yourself questioning. One thing about Brandon, I saw some films recently of him doing some choreography on his own, different fight scenes, things like that. I knew Bruce pretty well, I knew the ability he had: the moves, the intense look he had in his eyes. It really made me feel good that I saw that same spark and cunningness and quickness in Brandon.

Copied from http://voices.yahoo.com/bruce-lee-student-interview-taky-kimura-397889.html

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ARTICLES: David Peterson - WONG SHUN LEUNG: Wing Chun Personified

2/03/2013 11:00:00 AM David Peterson, Jesse Glover, Wing Chun Kuen, Wong Shun Leung No comments

WONG SHUN LEUNG: Wing Chun Personified

Trained by the late grandmaster Yip Man, teacher to the great Bruce Lee, Wong Shun Leung is perhaps best-known as the wing chun man who routinely challenged anyone of any style and lived to tell about it.

by David Peterson

* The following article was previously published within the pages of “Inside Kung-Fu” magazine (Vol.18/No.2) as ‘Wong Shun Leung: Wing Chun’s Living Legend’. It is reproduced here in its original form as a tribute to Sifu Wong, who passed away on January 28th 1997 - the Author. *

Hong Kong-based Wing Chun instructor, Wong Shun Leung, has been called many things by people in the martial arts world. England’s ‘Fighters’ magazine called him, “…a communicator and teacher of Wing Chun par excellence”; Jesse Glover, the first American student of the late Bruce Lee, wrote in his book ‘Bruce Lee’s Non-Classical Gung Fu’ that Wong Shun Leung “…is one of the greatest Wing Chun teachers in the world”; Bey Logan, editor of the British martial arts magazine ‘Combat’ wrote that “…Wong Shun Leung is far more important as a Wing Chun teacher in his own right than just a figure in the life of Bruce Lee. He deserves better than to be in anyone’s shadow”; America’s ‘Black Belt’ magazine simply called him “…a Wing Chun phenomenon.”

Which ever way you want to look at it, there is no denying that Wong Shun Leung is possibly the greatest living representative of the dynamic Chinese fighting art of Wing Chun, the man who put Wing Chun on the map in the late ‘fifties and early ‘sixties in his well publicised challenge matches against representatives of all the major combat arts in Hong Kong. He is the man who can rightly claim to have been the late Bruce Lee’s teacher, and to have influenced the development of Lee’s personal art of combat, Jeet Kune Do. His ego is such, however, that Wong Shun Leung prefers to be known simply as a teacher, a sifu, and he refuses to accept accolades such as “master” or “grandmaster”, terms which he believes are worthless because they have been abused so readily in recent years.

Wong Sifu, in his own typical fashion, usually downplays his “deadly” image by stating that, “I can’t fight very well and my Kung Fu is not very good.” He decries the claims of other so-called “masters” by emphasising that it matters not whether one is the son of a grandmaster, or that one knows “every deadly move known to man.” In his opinion it is far more important that one must practise hard, to “become the master of the art, not its slave.” To Wong Sifu it makes no difference how senior you are, but how good you are. He considers that Wing Chun is a SKILL, not an ART, and he sees nothing wrong with using ones skills.

In comparing skills and art, Wong Sifu has been quoted as saying, “…if A and B have a fight and B gets knocked out, then everyone knows that A won. There’s a winner and a loser. However, in music, you can like someone’s guitar playing or not like it and it doesn’t matter. Because it’s an ART, you can’t PROVE that one painting or piece of music is better than another. However, in Kung Fu, you can prove your skill in such a way that there is no doubt! This is the difference….in other ARTS, beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but in MARTIAL ART, the only judgement is whether or not it works!” Statements such as this one are characteristic of the very down-to-earth approach that Wong Sifu has to combat, and he certainly has the fighting record to back up such a beliefs.

Wong Shun Leung began his training in the martial arts while in his early teens. He tried his hand at several styles, including Western boxing, in which he developed a real interest, an interest which he still maintains today. Wong Sifu considers boxing to be very practical for the street because boxers learn to give and take punishment right from the word go, concentrating on attacking instead of “chasing the opponent’s hands” like many of the classical Kung Fu styles do. He probably would have still been boxing now if it hadn’t been for two particular incidents which changed his approach to combat once and for all.

Firstly, while sparring with his boxing coach one afternoon, Wong accidently landed a damaging blow to the face. In a rage, the coach began pounding Wong until, bleeding from nose and mouth, Wong managed to gain the upper hand, eventually knocking his coach out cold. After this event, Wong lost all respect for his boxing coach and never went back for another lesson. Wong’s father and grandfather had both been doctors of traditional Chinese medicine and were well acquainted with members of Hong Kong’s martial arts community so that from a very early age, Wong had heard hundreds of tales of the exploits of various local heroes. His grandfather had even been a good friend of Chan Wa Sun, the first of his future instructor Yip Man’s Wing Chun teachers, so Wong was aware of the fighting art of Chan the “money-changer” (Jau Chin Wa) from Fatsaan.

Wong recalled some of the stories he had been told about Chan Wa Sun, and of Chan’s teacher, the legendary Fatsaan Jan Sinsaang (Dr.Leung Jan, a noted herbalist in the nineteenth century, renowned for his unrivalled fighting skills) and he decided to seek out a Wing Chun teacher to see what the system had to offer him. As it turned out, friends of his older brother were learning Wing Chun so it was arranged that he would go to see them train. To cut a long story short, Wong ended up having a match with the man who was to become his teacher, the late grandmaster Yip Man, after initially having “held his own” with a couple of the junior students at the school, and was very soundly beaten. From that moment onwards, Wong Shun Leung became a devoted member of the Wing Chun clan and within a year had single-handedly elevated the Wing Chun system from the position of an obscure, virtually unknown, southern Chinese martial art, to that of a real force to be reckoned with.

Now 55 years old, Wong Shun Leung has been involved in Wing Chun for over 38 years, constantly working to develop and pass on the skills of the system to literally thousands of students. These days he spends at least three months of every year travelling to various places around the world, spreading his interpretation of Wing Chun in an honest, effective and realistic manner. Wong Sifu is a realist when it comes to combat, advising his audiences that martial artists are not invincible, and that sometimes the best solution when surrounded by villains is “…run away!” It is foolhardy, he suggests, to believe that training in the martial arts will enable a person to dispose of a group of attackers without raising as much as a sweat.
“If someone practises any martial art,” says Wong, “then that person must become stronger and more durable than someone who hasn’t practised. So if you are punched you are able to take a lot more punishment than a normal person. I have been hit many times, as have all of the great martial artists that I know of. So we are not supermen, but we can take a lot more. Any martial artist who says that he does not get hit is lying to himself!”

To him, fighting is like a game of chess; just as one cannot expect to win a game of chess without firstly sacrificing one or more pieces, so one cannot expect to be victorious in a fight without sustaining some kind of injury, even if only a few bruises. Several jagged scars on his knuckles, as well as scars from a knife on his arm and forehead attest to this belief. When it comes to combat experience, Wong Shun Leung could tell many tales, but with his usual modesty he tends to downplay this aspect of his career in martial arts.
It is a well-known fact in Hong Kong, however, that from around the time Wong Sifu was 18 until about the age of 24, he took part in countless challenge matches (referred to in Cantonese as bei mo) against fighters from virtually every style of martial art in the colony. Bruce Lee credited Wong with hundreds of victories, but conservative estimates suggest something along the lines of at least 50 to 60 such matches, with Wong always emerging as the winner. So successful was he that the local Hong Kong press picked up on his exploits and one enterprising reporter (now a resident in Australia) actually went out and arranged fights for him against non-Chinese as well, including a 250lb Russian boxer named Giko!

In the press reports Wong became known as Gong Sau Wong, meaning the “King of the Challenge Fight,” the sound wong meaning both “king” as well as being the same as his surname (although a different written character). The term gong sau was actually coined by Wong during an interview conducted at the time and means literally “talking with the hands,” a very apt description of exactly what he did. When pressed about these matches while being interviewed in Australia two years ago, Wong Sifu responded by saying, “I didn’t actually learn Wing Chun just to go out and fight. Kung Fu should really be used as a way of protecting yourself in circumstances where you are physically threatened.

“After I learnt the skills of Wing Chun from Yip Man I often had the opportunity to test them. By experimenting with my skills I could discover their limitations and how they compared with other disciplines and so improve myself. After a time of this experimentation I learnt that I needed to rely less on the fighting part to get that self-satisfaction and feeling of achievement.” It was also during this period of experimentation that Wong Shun Leung introduced Bruce Lee to the experience of the challenge fight. In the first of Lee’s matches, Wong coached him between rounds, encouraging Lee to continue when it seemed that he was about to give up.

The result was a victory that possibly changed the course of Lee’s life and certainly began the development of the martial arts superstar whom the world was later to discover. Grandmaster Yip Man, on hearing of the event, was said to have told Wong, “Fortunately you accompanied him to the venue and encouraged him to go on with the match. This trial of martial skill may be a decisive influence on him in the future. If someday Bruce Lee succeeds, the credit should rightfully go to you.” In discussing this period in Lee’s life, Jesse Glover wrote, “Wong was four years senior to Bruce in Yip Man’s clan and Bruce studied privately for a year and a half under both him and Yip Man” and that Wong was “…the man most responsible for the development of Bruce Lee.” Glover also wrote, “In ’59 Bruce told me that Wong was the greatest fighter in the Wing Chun style, and that he had successfully defeated all challengers.”

Wong Shun Leung is not just a gifted fighter and excellent teacher, he is also a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine, and a self-taught calligrapher whose writing is greatly prized by those who appreciate such talent. He enjoys reading classical Chinese poetry, eating fine food, sipping a glass of good brandy with friends and sharing amusing anecdotes and jokes with his students. Bey Logan, in his article ‘Bruce Lee’s Teacher’ wrote, “The first thing you notice is how normal he looks. He looks too short, too friendly to be the legendary Wong Shun Leung Sifu. It is only the way he moves, the way he watches, that reveals the nature of the discipline he has mastered.

“Next, you’re surprised by his keen sense of humour. Many Westerners seem to cling to the idea that a Sifu must be a very old, very solemn man. There is none of the stereotypical Master Po-figure about Wong Shun Leung. He is very funny.” But as well as being a very friendly, amusing and approachable man, Wong Sifu is first and foremost an exponent and teacher of combat with quite definite views on the purpose and function of Kung Fu. Being the one student of Yip Man to have taught for him rather than go out and open his own school, Wong was able to truly absorb all that his teacher had to offer, the result being that he, above all other pretenders to the throne, could rightfully claim to be the inheritor of the system. Instead, Wong simply gets on with the task of teaching, letting his skills and experiences speak for themselves.

On the subject of self-defence, Wong says, “If you learn Kung Fu, your purpose is to fight. If you can’t fight and win, how can you defend yourself? Therefore, if you want to defend yourself, you must train until you can overpower others.” In an article on him which appeared in ‘Black Belt’ magazine, Wong said, “Wing Chun Kung Fu is a very sophisticated weapon… nothing else. It is a science of combat, the intent of which is the total incapacitation of an opponent. It is straightforward, efficient and deadly. If you’re looking to learn self-defence, don’t study Wing Chun. It would be better for you to master the art of invisibility.”

Strong opinions indeed, but then Wong Shun Leung bases such opinions upon many years of experience in what could only be described as real combat. He views many of the practices of modern martial artists as little more than games. Although he realises that the days of the challenge fight are well and truly over, he looks upon their passing with an element of sadness, not because he is an advocate of violence, but because today’s generation of martial artists are missing out on realistic training, and he sees the kinds of sparring exercises common to most styles as being a poor substitute for the realities of street combat.

Wong Sifu is constantly warning his students against the dangers of blindly following an instructor, copying every move he or she makes and accepting everything that they say as gospel. “You must become the master of your system, not its slave” is his often repeated motto. Using art as an example yet again, Wong Sifu says, “…Kung Fu is like painting a picture. When you learn to paint from your teacher you cannot be exactly the same as he or she because there are differences in age and experience, and so there must be personal differences.

“A person’s nature and physique influences the way in which one does things. Besides, if you do things exactly the same way your teacher does them, you’re just copying, not expressing yourself and will therefore not improve yourself.” He is not suggesting by these words that the Wing Chun student should go out and invent his or her own way of doing things. On the contrary, Wong Sifu is a firm believer in passing on and practising the skills of Wing Chun exactly as he himself learnt them. However, he accepts the fact that all people are different, having different levels of ability and so on, and therefore adopts the more realistic approach of passing on the essence of Wing Chun in the form of its concepts and basic principles with which the students are then free to interpret and utilise in their own particular way.

Wong Sifu also enjoys dispelling the many myths that shroud the martial arts, myths that give martial arts a bad name and detract from their credibility. “Martial artists are not people who learn magical powers to become mystical monks like the movies portray them to be. A lot of Kung Fu styles have in the past lived off reputations of having some secret level that you can eventually attain and, unfortunately, some instructors have maintained these ridiculous ideas.” He cites an example from his younger days when he was involved in a fight that had erupted between a friend of his and another man.

He defeated the person in question and was about to leave the scene when the guy, still lying on the ground, called out, “Hey little fella, don’t go! I’ve already given you the dim mak (death touch). You’re doomed!” Wong then adds, “That was around thirty-five years ago and the dim mak hasn’t worked yet…” Once, when asked by a journalist for an Australian magazine about the existence or non-existence of dim mak techniques in Wing Chun, Wong Sifu jokingly replied, “You might kill yourself if you touch yourself,” and then in a slightly more serious tone, “Besides, if a person is moving very fast, it’s almost impossible to touch some small areas with such precision.”

Wong Shun Leung is indeed a rare breed of man. He doesn’t try to exploit his reputation as one of Hong Kong’s most formidable streetfighters, nor his influence on the career of the late Bruce Lee. He doesn’t go around telling everyone how good he is, nor does he run down other instructors and styles. Despite his obvious skill he is not a pretentious man and his school in Hong Kong is small and drab, containing none of the mod cons found in most Western schools, just an excellent teacher who embodies all the qualities one could ever hope for in an instructor.

He has dedicated his life to the advancement and understanding of Wing Chun, “spreading the word” everywhere from Melbourne to Munich, establishing schools wherever he goes, teaching anyone willing to listen to what he has to say regardless of race, colour or creed. Wong Sifu is the enemy of all who make false claims about Kung Fu and the friend to everyone searching for the truth about combat and themselves. He has been described as “… an appropriate example of a man who has become his art and vice-versa. He started as a gifted fighter, studied both the physical and mental aspects of Wing Chun, and finally became Wing Chun spiritually.

“He’s a man who can be either soft-spoken or out-spoken depending upon the situation at hand. He has learned to understand his own limitations and thereby the limitations of others. His demeanour is calm, relaxed, and his intent unwavering. He is philosophy without embellishment, like an old sword that doesn’t appear dangerous at first, until you’ve tasted its razor edge.” Wong Shun Leung Sifu is Wing Chun personified, a living example of what can be achieved by anyone willing to devote all their energy into the practice and understanding of their chosen field of endeavour. The fact that he refuses to accept such praise makes him all the more deserving of it. Why he has achieved the level of expertise that he has is due to a very simple philosophy:”My aim,” says Wong, “is to better myself with each day of training.”

Copied from http://www.wslwingchun.com/

ARTICLES: David Peterson - Wong Shun Leung Ving Tsun Gung Fu

2/01/2013 11:00:00 AM Articles, Centerline Theory, David Peterson, Economy of Motion, Jesse Glover, Wing Chun Kuen, Wong Shun Leung No comments

Author’s Note: For those “in the know” in the world of ving tsun gung-fu (or wing chun gung-fu, the spelling variant by which this combat system is better known), the late Wong sifu is famous (or at least deserves to be) for two very good reasons, especially in Hong Kong where he was based until his death in January of 1997. The first reason is due to his formidable reputation as an unbeaten participant in dozens of “no-holds-barred” tests of skill (beimo) in the Hong Kong of the ‘50s and ‘60s, against practitioners of a myriad of Chinese and other fighting disciplines. He became known as Gong Sau Wong, “King of Talking With the Hands”, quite literally putting the previously unknown ving tsun system of the late grandmaster Yip Man on the martial arts map. The second reason, for which I hasten to add that he never personally claimed credit, was that Wong sifu was the late Bruce Lee’s most influential instructor prior to his departure to fame and glory in the United States. It is well known that Lee was a student of the Yip Man school, but it was in fact under the direct instruction of Wong Shun Leung that he learnt his most valuable lessons, and it was Wong’s philosophy of combat that steered Lee in his quest for martial arts perfection. Bruce Lee’s own original student in the USA, sifu Jesse Glover, maintains that if it were not for Wong Shun Leung and his influence, the world would never have seen the greatness that was Bruce Lee. With Wong sifu’s passing, the world has certainly lost one of the great warriors and teachers of the 20th century, a man who was as brilliant an instructor, as he was a fighter, something most would agree is a rarity. His pragmatic approach to combat was honed in the real world, not in the relative safety of the kwoon, dojo or dojang, and as such, his interpretation of the ving tsun system truly reflects the reality of what personal combat is all about. With respect to him, the spelling “ving tsun” that he preferred, has been used throughout this article. He coined this spelling way back in the early 60s when he became annoyed that rival styles, jealous of his successes in the challenge fights, started referring to WC as “toilet fist”, so he chose to use the less phonetically less accurate VT spelling, which he liked to say stood for “victory fist”. I hope that the reader will enjoy this introduction to his the legacy he has left us with.

The Wong Shun Leung (WSL) ving tsun system of Chinese gung-fu is not a style for robots, nor is it a form of martial arts practiced purely for its visual appeal. It is the thinking person’s fighting art, perfectly suited to today’s high-tech environment where quick results and practicality are the chief requirements of any activity. This is not to say that WSL ving tsun is beyond the reach of the “average” person, nor does it suggest that WSL ving tsun is an “ugly” martial art. On the contrary, WSL ving tsun has an inherent beauty all its own – it is simple, direct and efficient, and offers a no-nonsense approach to combat.

To learn and make use of WSL ving tsun, one doesn’t (and should not) have to concern oneself with the drilling of endless combinations of techniques to deal with endless possible situations. WSL ving tsun is not a system which requires the rote learning of set sequences of movement. Instead, it makes use of a handful of concepts, coupled with a small repertoire of techniques (which are all derived from just six basics – taan sau, bong sau, fook sau, the basic vertical punch (yat ji jik kuen), basic stance (yi ji kim yeung ma), and the dang geuk, or basic “ascending heel kick”) to deal with any situation. These concepts and techniques are taught within the three basic forms (or “empty-hand” training patterns) and are collectively trained via a series of reflex drills, the most famous of which is chi sau, or “sticking hands” technique.

The road to proficiency in WSL ving tsun begins with the first form – siu nim tau, or “young idea” form – which lays the foundation for all which follows. siu nim tau exposes the student of WSL ving tsun to all the basic concepts, such as the Centreline Theory and the principle of Economy of Motion, and the cultivation of constant forward force (lat sau jik chung), the most basic essential requirement of the ving tsun system. It guides the student through the various hand techniques which form the basis of chi sau practice, and also offers some practical solutions to many of the typical grappling-type attacks that can occur in combat, such as wrist grabs, arm-locks, bear hugs, and so on.

Although the siu nim tau form contains no movement of the feet or stance, it provides the basis of all stepping and kicking techniques in the guise of the basic “goat-gripping” stance (yi ji kim yeung ma). This is not a “fighting form” like those of other systems, where the practitioner goes through the motions of fighting one or more opponents. In fact, in WSL ving tsun, none of the training patterns could be regarded as “fighting forms” – they are more like “moving textbooks” of theory and technique, set out in a logical and very structured fashion. siu nim tau form is practised in a stationary position, from beginning to end, the ving tsun approach being to train the concepts without motion first so as to perfect positioning and structure, and to prevent the ving tsun fighter from over using or over-relying on footwork, as well as developing stability, balance and a “power base” for all techniques.

Stance-shifting and stepping is only used when necessary, in response to the opponent’s actions, and it is not introduced formally until the second form, Cham kiu, in which kicking is also seen (although both stepping and kicking are normally taught separately prior to learning Cham kiu). In this second form, the concepts of motion and angles are explored, adding to the knowledge already developed in siu nim tau. Likewise, chi sau is also practiced in a stationary position first, footwork only being added when arm positions and efficiency of technique have been developed to the point where the addition of footwork is both necessary and applicable.

Like siu nim tau, the chi sau exercise begins with one hand, then two in unison, and finally the independent use of both hands, often with one hand performing several movements in sequence. Chi sau is really the siu nim tau form with a partner, each person either acting on, or reacting to, their partner’s techniques, competing for control of the Centreline. Footwork is used sparingly, and where necessary, to achieve the most favourable angles or positions for the concepts and techniques of siu nim tau to be applied.
The siu nim tau form can be thought of as the “alphabet”, the “primary school” stage of learning in WSL ving tsun. It provides the student with the building blocks, the basic “letters” and “words” of the WSL ving tsun “language”. Cham kiu form helps the student to understand and exploit subtle variations that can occur to the “words” and “expressions” of the first form. Where siu nim tau is very “one-dimensional” in its concept of the “target”, like shooting at a stationary target from a stationary position, Cham kiu is “multi-dimensional” in its approach, in that it considers the complex reality of hitting a moving target while oneself also in motion. Like a kind of “middle/secondary school” stage, Cham kiu allows the WSL ving tsun student to practice the more complex “combinations of words” while at the same time adding some “new expressions” to the student’s “vocabulary”. Finally, chi sau acts as the “university” stage, allowing the WSL ving tsun practitioner to explore and perfect the use of the “language” in a free-flowing exercise in which anything can, and does, take place.

This then is the very practical stage where the students are exposed to an ever-changing, unpredictable environment and must learn, by trial and error, to express themselves in a natural, free-flowing and efficient manner, making use of all that the previous stages have made available to them. By constantly drilling their skills against partners whose techniques are as efficient as their own, WSL ving tsun practitioners are able to fine-tune their skills and reflexes to the point where they will react instinctively, without conscious thought, to counter their opponent’s attack with a superior attack, and not to engage in unnecessary defensive actions, the so-called “chasing the hands” syndrome common in many interpretations of this style. They learn to become the master of the system, making it serve them, instead of impeding their progress with too much thought and analysis. The “what ifs” that plague and over-complicate other interpretations of ving tsun, play no role in WSL ving tsun because students are trained to only react to “what is”, always putting reality and substance ahead of style and appearance.

At the Cham kiu/chi sau stage of learning, the muk yan jong (“wooden dummy”) form is usually commenced. The jong provides the WSL ving tsun student with someone to practice with when there isn’t a “live” training partner available, or when something more dangerous needs to be drilled with full power and intensity. More importantly, it also provides one with a training partner who will never become bored with endless repetitions of one or more movements. The jong allows for techniques from all three “empty-hand” forms to be trained, as well as many variations of the basic kicking technique. Correct distancing, timing, application of force, striking and trapping techniques can all be drilled with this training apparatus.
Ving tsun’s third form, biu ji, offers the student a collection of practical solutions for situations where the techniques from siu nim tau and Cham kiu have been mis-used or countered, or in instances where the WSL ving tsun fighter has been injured, overpowered or otherwise caught out of position. In other words, biu ji is a “problem-solving” form, its purpose being to look at ving tsun from “outside” the system to see what could go wrong, and to provide, or else inspire, a solution which may, or may not, require the “bending of the rules” in order to regain control of the situation, or at the very least, survive and escape it. The late Wong Shun Leung sifu, founder of and inspiration behind this approach to ving tsun, likened the theory of biu ji to a smart modern businessman’s attempts to survive an impending financial crisis – in other words, it provides one with strategies and/or methods for “cutting one’s losses” in order to escape relatively unscathed. Wong sifu was always quick to add, when speaking about this form, that if the occasion arose where biu ji concepts needed to be applied, one had better realise that the situation was already quite serious, and that there was a very real chance of sustaining injury – WSL ving tsun practitioners therefore always hope that they will not need to make use of the techniques or concepts of the biu ji form as these do not guarantee victory, but rather only really offer some hope of survival under extreme circumstances.
Formal training in WSL ving tsun ends with the learning of the two weapons of the system. These are of course the luk dim boon gwan (“6½-point pole” form) and the baat jaam do (“eight-slash knives” form). Few people reach this stage of training, even fewer ending up mastering these weapons. The basic principles of directness and logic still apply, however, and any differences in technical application are readily explainable once the extra length and/or weight and physical characteristics of the weapons are taken into account. There is also the important fact that these forms were designed to counter an enemy who is also armed, hence the strategies of distance, stepping and so on may differ from the “empty-hands” forms, but the underlying principles remain the same.

Although there are those people who claim that traditional weapons have no place in modern martial arts, the usefulness in learning the ving tsun weapons should not be underestimated. The concepts contained within the weapons forms are just as applicable to “empty-hand” training, and lay a foundation which can be applied to many objects commonly at hand which would enable them to be utilised in combat with great efficiency and effect. These factors aside, there is still the very obvious benefit to the health and well-being as the weight and size of these weapons forces one to train much harder, developing strength and stamina as a result. Both weapons are especially valuable in developing strong wrists (from where much of the power in the hand techniques is derived) as well as strong, yet nimble footwork.

Progress in WSL ving tsun is of course up to the student and his or her teacher. The teacher must keep an open mind and really understand the theory of the system, while the student must work hard, making the most of each opportunity to train. It is important to realise that there are no “right” or “wrong” techniques in the system, only more or less efficient ones. In WSL ving tsun, the angle of the arm is never as important as the concept behind the movement, so long as logic and commonsense is always applied. One has to make the system work for them, to be the master of ving tsun, not its slave!

Too many people are bound-up by this technique or that technique, and in doing so, fail to see the simplicity and logic of the ving tsun concepts. Far too many people place barriers in front of their own development as martial artists by dismissing another person’s approach as “not ving tsun” when what they ought to be concerned with is the practicality and efficiency of what they have observed. After all, it is the end result that should be of the highest priority, that is, the defeat of the opponent. In simple terms, as far as WSL ving tsun is concerned, the “golden rule” of combat is to strike the nearest target with the closest available weapon, regardless of whether or not that means adhering to “classical/traditional” ving tsun techniques!
As the ving tsun system is one built on concepts rather than specific techniques, there are bound to be variations amongst its many practitioners. Surely this is to the betterment of the system for it indicates that the skills are being adapted to the changing needs of the practitioners, that it is being used rather than just copied. As stated at the beginning of this article, WSL ving tsun is not a style for robots, but for people who can think for themselves and who wish to express themselves through their chosen martial art. It was with this kind of thinking, and with the inspiration of his teacher and senior ving tsun brother Wong Shun Leung sifu, that the late Bruce Lee reached such an outstanding level of expertise through his art of jeet kune do, which was very simply his personal expression of the ving tsun concepts. This has been confirmed many times by his friend and original student, sifu Jesse Glover, who refutes all claims made by latter-day students and others that Lee ever “gave up” his beloved ving tsun.

As far as WSL ving tsun is concerned, students and teachers alike should keep two sayings in mind at all times so as to approach their training in the most positive and realistic way. The first, a paraphrase of the words of Confucius, the celebrated Chinese philosopher and teacher who lived over two thousand years ago, goes as follows: “One can learn for a lifetime and still not master all knowledge”. That is to say, there is always something to learn or improve, and someone from whom one can learn, regardless of age, status, sex or experience. Put more simply, you never stop learning and should strive to keep an open mind to ensure that you don’t. The second is a quote from Wong sifu, who said many times, “It doesn’t matter how senior you are, but how good you are. You need to study hard”. The message here is loud and clear. To sum up, as long as the teacher teaches the student to understand the concepts of the system and encourages the student to train hard, the necessary skills will be there when called upon, and the student and teacher alike will improve their skills as each day goes by. This is the most valuable lesson given to us by one who truly lived this philosophy throughout his lifetime, and who left us such a brilliant legacy in the form of his very pragmatic approach to combat.

Wong Shun Leung sifu, who preferred to call his interpretation of the system ‘Ving Tsun Kuen Hok’, or the “Science of Ving Tsun Gung-fu”, encouraged his followers to always “look beyond his pointing finger”, to take the knowledge that he gave us and train it, test it, prove or disprove it, and where necessary, discard it, refine or improve upon it, so as to reach our own potential through the system, and not to merely mimic him like cheap copies of an original work of art. For this reason, we his followers will be forever grateful to him for opening our eyes to both our own potential, and that of the system. It is also for this reason that we openly and unselfishly strive to share this knowledge with all ving tsun devotees around the world, just as he openly and generously shared it with us over the years that we were fortunate to learn from him. As a means of recognising and celebrating his gift to us, we proudly promote what we have chosen to name Wong Shun Leung Ving Tsun Gung-fu in his honour. Hopefully, you the reader may perhaps soon become a convert to the “WSL Way”, or at least open your mind to ideas that will enhance your own personal development as a martial artist, regardless of your background, lineage or chosen style.

* Published 'Fight Times' (formerly 'Australasian Martial Arts' magazine - NZ), October 2001 *

Copied from http://www.wslwingchun.com/

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ARTICLES: David Peterson - WONG SHUN LEUNG: Wing Chun Personified

WONG SHUN LEUNG: Wing Chun Personified

Trained by the late grandmaster Yip Man, teacher to the great Bruce Lee, Wong Shun Leung is perhaps best-known as the wing chun man who routinely challenged anyone of any style and lived to tell about it.

by David Peterson

* The following article was previously published within the pages of “Inside Kung-Fu” magazine (Vol.18/No.2) as ‘Wong Shun Leung: Wing Chun’s Living Legend’. It is reproduced here in its original form as a tribute to Sifu Wong, who passed away on January 28th 1997 - the Author. *

Friday, February 01, 2013

ARTICLES: David Peterson - Wong Shun Leung Ving Tsun Gung Fu

* Published 'Fight Times' (formerly 'Australasian Martial Arts' magazine - NZ), October 2001 *

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Thursday, June 21, 2018

Some of the Major Misconceptions or Fallacies of JKD by Badger Johnson

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Today would've been Jesse Glover sifu's 79th birthday!!

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Taky Kimura Interviewed by Paul Bax

Sunday, February 03, 2013

ARTICLES: David Peterson - WONG SHUN LEUNG: Wing Chun Personified

WONG SHUN LEUNG: Wing Chun Personified

Trained by the late grandmaster Yip Man, teacher to the great Bruce Lee, Wong Shun Leung is perhaps best-known as the wing chun man who routinely challenged anyone of any style and lived to tell about it.

by David Peterson

*** The following article was previously published within the pages of “Inside Kung-Fu” magazine (Vol.18/No.2) as ‘Wong Shun Leung: Wing Chun’s Living Legend’. It is reproduced here in its original form as a tribute to Sifu Wong, who passed away on January 28th 1997 - the Author. ***

Friday, February 01, 2013

ARTICLES: David Peterson - Wong Shun Leung Ving Tsun Gung Fu

*** Published 'Fight Times' (formerly 'Australasian Martial Arts' magazine - NZ), October 2001 ***

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* The following article was previously published within the pages of “Inside Kung-Fu” magazine (Vol.18/No.2) as ‘Wong Shun Leung: Wing Chun’s Living Legend’. It is reproduced here in its original form as a tribute to Sifu Wong, who passed away on January 28th 1997 - the Author. *

* Published 'Fight Times' (formerly 'Australasian Martial Arts' magazine - NZ), October 2001 *