During the week of September 20,1990 we had the honor of meeting Master Wong Shun Leung and Master Tsui Sheung Tin from Hong Kong. Master Tsui Sheung Tin was the third official student of the late Grandmaster Yip Man in Hong Kong and Master Wong Shun Leung was probably THE most famous fighter of the Wing Chun clan in the early 1950’s. Bruce Lee was a student of Yip Man but it was mostly Wong Shun Leung who taught Bruce Lee his Wing Chun.

Yvette Wong invited the two masters to visit the city of Victoria, B.C. for a holiday and at the same time arranged for them to give a two hour seminar. During their stay, she had frequent opportunity to clarify various points about Wing Chun. We hope some of these points will help the current generation of practitioners with their Wing Chun. After reading these points again, I am amazed at how many things these masters said in a very short seminar. They were literally overflowing with knowledge. These points were translated by Yvette Wong from the Cantonese talk that Master Wong Shun Leung gave. This means we may not have captured the true essence of all that was said.

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Patrick Chow was a slimly built individual who was a private student of the late Grandmaster Yip Man. His family was wealthy so he could afford the fees. When I met him, he was teaching various people with eight to ten years of martial arts in different styles like boxing, Hung Gar, Choy Lee Fut, Tai Chi and others. He asked people to come up and try anything they liked on him. What impressed me was that he handled the attacks in a very controlled manner without relying on speed or strength. He was very, very relaxed and supple in his actions. He said that Wing Chun was small circle Kung Fu. He said other Kung Fu systems also have many of the techniques, but teach them at a much later stage. He said Wing Chun just disposed of the big movements. In 1976 Patrick Chow charged $50/month which was more than double what anyone else charged. He had no intention of teaching the complete Wing Chun system. He said, “None of what any of you learned will work on me.” I will teach you just a bit of Wing Chun but I guarantee it will improve your skill. Because of Patrick’s skill level, everyone thought it was worthwhile.

For quite a few months, practice consisted of getting into the Wing Chun pigeon-toed stance or goat-restraining stance. Then students would slowly (very slowly) bring the Tan sau out, do a Heun sau, and slowly bring it back. Then do the same with the Fook sau. We did this for one hour straight each class. I didn’t know why at the time. All I knew was that Patrick was incredibly relaxed. He had very short range powerful hits and he always outmaneuvered everyone else. He never hurt one person in a fight. For seven months straight, we only learned part one of the “Siu Lim Tao” form plus some applications.

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I first heard about Kenneth Chung in 1982 when I visited Eddie Chong’s school in San Francisco. I was told that you could hear the air whip from his punch and that every kind of kick that Eddie threw at him was easily handled with just the PoPai movement from Wing Chun. That’s all I knew.

In 1992 I decided to take a holiday in San Francisco and managed to locate one of Ken’s students through whom I eventually connected with Ken. I explained we were not maniacs and sincerly wanted to improve our art. So Ken agreed to meet me. I phoned John Adams, one of Ken’s students and asked, what was good about Ken anyway? John told me he was very very soft and he could cut through you like a hot knife cuts through butter. I had already read an article about Ken in Inside Kung Fu and had a good impression already. But I wanted to pin down why he was good. Our club already stressed a good stance, accurate angles, suppleness in the touch, stickiness and proper training during the Chi sau and not just wild fighting. From our experience, some of us were not that bad. So I wondered how could Ken’s stuff be really different?

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1. Leung Sheung was noted for his expertise at the Bil Jee.
2. The knees are in to stop the front kick. When you turn a kick is also
   stopped. Practice with a brick between your legs.
3. Practice with a tennis ball between your elbows.
4. The Bil Jee is the enemy of the Chain punch.
5. Practice the wrist hit on the sandbag. Practice the slanted kick on
   the dummy post.

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I first heard of Emin Boztepe when he had an encounter with Grandmaster William Cheung in Germany in the late I was studying Wing Chun under Dr. G.K. Khoe, a student of Wang Kiu. At the time I didn’t think too much about Emin except that he was just a wrestler kind of a guy who took William to the ground and that was that.

Many years went by and during those years I continued to study Wing Chun and learn from different masters. I am familiar with many branches of the Wing Chun family. One day I read a note on Internet which said how skillful Emin Boztepe was. This sparked my interest because the note put him at a level where he could handle very high ranking people of different arts. In my own mind Wing Chun was good but somehow I always wondered whether it can really handle those super fast kicks from the other styles like you are taught in class or whether they would just be too fast. We were told that the Wing Chun people do very well in tournaments in Europe but we have never seen such tournaments and so it was just talk to most club members. Some of our members eventually in fact switched arts and went back to other styles because they lacked confidence in Wing Chun. They knew it was good in the close range but did not trust it at all in the distance fighting.

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Master Wang Kiu would just talk endlessly on all aspects of Wing Chun.He was full of historical stories, fighting stories, theory, and set explanations. Whatever you wanted to know, he had a big detailed story to tell about it. These notes are just a small portion of the kinds of things he said. In 1985 he gave a seminar which was to just cover the wooden dummy techniques. It ended up being almost a course in all aspects of Wing Chun because he showed how everythingis connected and everything relates. Hopefully he will put down his knowledge some day because my notes present a very scattered disconnected view.

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1. The Bong sau angle is always greater than 90 degrees.
2. Make sure the power at the wrist goes straight to the opponent’s centerline.
3. All forms can be changed to all other forms.
4. The straight punch in the first set is level not at the nose.
5. Always use the combined force of two hands. When you hit, use the
   other hand as a reaction force.

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