If you consider yourself a gentle person and never would expect to be
involved into any fight or life-threatening confrontation, but still
want to learn how to protect yourself and your family in case you were
to be engaged in a life or death situation, then I'd highly suggest you
consider Wing Chun, a Chinese Kung Fu system popularized by one of the
greatest martial artists of all times - Bruce Lee, as your best choice
of self defense system.
It's a system that is simple and yet powerful. Its advantages have been
well appreciated by professionals worldwide whose lives depend on their
abilities to engage and win in life- threatening combats. VIPs
protection units, soldiers, elite forces, police personel, body guards,
or just plain civilians who want to ensure and secure safety from
potential threats that might occur in unexpected situations. Let's not
forget the martial art enthusiasts who consider martial arts as part of
their lifestyle. They all consider Wing Chun to be one of the most
practical and yet gentle form of fighting skills that can be learned
easily.
The Wing Chun system operates on the subconscious levels. I've had the
honor to study my Wing Chun skills under the discipleship of Sifu.
Wong, shun-leung whose name you can very easily look up from the
Blackbelt magazine, who was one of the few true masters of the art of
Wing Chun, and did many a session of translation for him as he had many
students who flew from all over the world to come to Hong Kong just to
learn from him.
One of the basic and important principles of Wing Chun can be revealed
via a simple mathematical formula: "Between 2 points the shortest
distance is a straight line." Imagine that, all the fancy moves seen in
many other martial art systems would have you move in big circular
movements, or a big arc, so as to generate enough force to hit your
target.
And yet the basic form of movement in Wing Chun is to station yourself
squarely with the opponent and all you need is to carry out your
movements in a straight line. And guess what, you'd end up hitting your
target faster and harder 9 out of 10 times - before the opponent has a
chance to reach you travelling in an arc form. Simple math, right?
Another great and interesting thing about Wing Chun is: it trains your
body not to think when in combat, especially in close combat. The
'Sticky Hands' training is so powerful that even Bruce Lee came back to
Hong Kong to meet with Sifu. Wong, shun-leung to freshen up his 'Sticky
Hands' techniques. And by the way, this 'Sticky Hands' technique is one
of the most essential parts of the whole Wing Chun system, which is
then the backbone of Bruce Lee's Jeet Kun Do system.
I remember many years ago about a piece of news of a famous movie star
in Hong Kong who was also a Wing Chun practitioner - he had a fight in
the bar with a big and tall westerner who was then a police academy
karate trainer. Both of them were drunk and involved in quite a fierce
fight in the dark and confined area in the bar. Guess who won? The
movie star did. Simply because when both of them were so drunk that
they couldn't really think logically and that's when the advantage of
the Wing Chun system came in.
When one is a competent Wing Chun martial artist, one can be
blind-folded and still win the fight. That's how powerful the system
is. Are you interested to become one of these gentle and yet powerful
person?
Besides being a naturopathic physican, Dr. Kang-pang Chan is a personal
trainer certified by the International Sports Sciences Association
(ISSA) as well as a certified instructor in Yiquan - an advanced form
of holistic Chinese martial art that utilises precise bodymind
coordination as the real source of power.
He practised Wing Chun under the discipleship of Sifu. Wong, shun-leung
for a long time before jumping to Yiquan.
