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Indonesian Fighting Fundamentals

By Steven Moody September 9, 2012 3 Comments

Adhesion requires the fighter to move in very close to his opponent and remain there.  That is a scary place to be … very few really know how to fight ‘inside.'”
Bob Orlando

Indonesian Fighting FundamentalsThe 1996 book Indonesian Fighting Fundamentals: The Brutal Arts of the Archipelago by Bob Orlando is one of my favorite martial arts books (and I have read hundreds).

Why is it so good?  This is something I’ve thought a lot about as I’ve tried to follow in his and other writer’s footsteps and use words to discuss fighting arts.  Most martial arts books, going back hundreds of years, give a little history, then attempt to document techniques and forms.

Most Wing Chun books have a series of photos of someone doing Siu Lum Tao and Chum Kiu.  Then there will be a number of Kung Fu Illustrated-style illustrations of a series of techniques.  The instructor in their Sunday best beats up a compliant student with a series of typical techniques from the style.

This is cool, but does it teach us anything worth learning?

Bob Orlando, following more in the footsteps of Miyamoto Musashi and Sun Tzu, chooses to focus on the principles of his art.  He breaks them down into five major groups: adhesion, whiplash, shearing, seating, and gyroscopic rotation.

The techniques he shows are there to demonstrate or show an instance of the technique, not to teach the technique itself.  Let me say this again: you can’t learn martial arts from a book!

But martial arts, especially subtle and sophisticated arts like Penjat Silat and Wing Chun, benefit from explanation which discusses the principles and uses metaphor to try and tell you what a move is like or feels like or wants to accomplish.

Despite major differences, the Penjat Silat and Kuntao Orland describes in his book has many parallels with other arts I am familiar with, such as Wing Chun and Escrima.  The empty-hand approach of all three styles takes the fight close.  Wing Chun “goes into the house to fight the fire” and “receives what comes and follows what goes.”  Wing Chun sticks.    Penjat Silat use “adhesion” which is “the first and most important principle.”  They adhere in order to use the “tactile sense to monitor and control.”

All three styles employ a parry-check style of blocking and training methods which involve flow and trapping.  They all use elbows extensively.  Wing Chun has an entire form, Biu Jee, that delivers an elbow every other technique.  Penjat Silat has three distances of elbow, a subtle reading on a technique Wing Chun would call 2nd Gate.

I’m re-reading Indonesian Fighting Fundamentals, so I’ll probably have more to say later on – I find I am understanding it much better now and seeing all the similarities. My teacher notes how high-level martial arts all start to look similar from a certain level.

Bob Orlando

Filed Under: Fighting Books

Wing Chun Masters: Hawkins Cheung

By Steven Moody September 7, 2012 Leave a Comment

“Attack me, anyway you like” … Just as I did, I suddenly felt stunned, and I had Hawkins’ fist in my face. He smiled. “Did you feel the shock? Did your mind ‘blank out?'”
Robert Chu

Hawkins Cheung is one of the original Ip Man students, starting with him in 1953. He was a Kung Fu brother of Wong Shun Leung and a classmate of Bruce Lee’s from before they started studying Wing Chun.

Hawkins has taught here and there but mostly seems to have spent his life studying different arts. He was with Ip Man on and off for 20 years. He earned a fourth degree black belt in Goju-Ryu Karate. He studied the Wu style of tai chi as well as the Yang, Chen and Sun styles.

Most unusually, he seems to be the one guy everyone in the Wing Chun world likes. He was friends with Wong Shun Leung and  Leung Ting and  William Chung and Gary Lam and everyone else, it seems.  So he occupies an unusual position as the one person who knew and talked with them all.

Wing Chun, as you may or may not know, is a bit splintered, since Ip Man did not name a successor. There is a lot of contention over who is the “Grandmaster.” I’ve counted at least eight teachers using this title or having others use it of them, and I haven’t really made an exhaustive search.

Hawkins Cheung

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Wing Chun Teachers

Wing Chun Masters: Barry Lee

By Steven Moody September 2, 2012 12 Comments

Master Wong Shun Leung called him “The Machine” and said that “if Barry hit any man hard, he would not get up”.

Australian Barry Lee discovered Wing Chun in his early twenties just before Bruce Lee‘s Enter the Dragon dropped a bomb on the martial arts world. Barry Lee took the dramatic step of selling all his possessions and moving to Hong Kong, where he became one of the first Westerners to master Wing Chun, studying with Wong Shun Leung.

As described in the  article “They Called Him ‘The Machine‘” by Neville Burns, he trained “twelve to fifteen hours a day, seven days a week” for 18 months.

He “wouldn’t rest, wouldn’t give up, wouldn’t stop” and “wore out one training partner after another.” This hardcore dedication resulted in a legendary set of fighting skills.

Barry Lee is one of the most enigmatic figures I’ve found studying Wing Chun and its practitioners. Ten years ago, you couldn’t find much on anyone, but in these days of millions of Youtube videos and chat forumns and webpages, there is more information than you can absorb.

Yet on Barry Lee, there is only one seconds long glimpse of video (which looks like it was filmed off a TV), a few articles, and one interview (which was actually a Wong Shun Leung interview!).

Theo Pasialis and Barry Lee

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Wing Chun Teachers

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Hi. I'm Steve, a professional researcher. I started learning Wing Chun Kung Fu in 2000. Since then, I've trained with some of the best Wing Chun teachers in the world (including Greg LeBlanc and Gary Lam) and done hundreds of hours of research into fight science. This website contains the best of what I've learned. Contact: [email protected]

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