How Did You Find Your Sifu?

[cha kuen]

How did you guys find your sifu? Was it through the yellow pages? Perhaps through a friend? Or were you walking down some ghetto alley and saw someone teaching?


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[Ish]

my brother had been practicing for a few years and when he started to take a beguiners class me and a couple of friends went down. it was mainly for support cos i didn't really now anything about it, but loved it and kept going back.

[black and blue]

Having had a brief introduction to Wing Chun when I was working abroad, I knew it was for me. When I returned to the UK I knew I wanted to train 3-4 times a week.

There were a variety of lineages and clubs nearby, but I wanted to pick classes that were not only within a feasible travel distance, but also had good instructors and good WC.

I consider myself lucky to have found an organisation that is all of the above.

[kj]

Through dialog and inquiry with intelligent Wing Chun practitioners of good will on the internet, and in forums not entirely unlike this one.

To test the theory that those practitioners might be onto something of importance and value, I took my first opportunity to attend a workshop with their teacher, so as to see and judge for myself. The rest is history (http://www.rochesterwingchun.com/RWC_files/pages/readings/boston_kjbcNov1997.htm).

Regards,
- Kathy Jo

[aelward]

In high school, after taking Yang Taiji (which I was too young to appreciate) and some Shaolin kung fu, I met a class mate who did Wing Chun-- he simply amazed me with his ability to control anything I threw at him. So I always wanted to study Wing Chun.

My first week living in Taiwan, a newspaper article discussing martial arts in Japan came out, and I found out there was a Wing Chun teacher there. At the time, I didn't care too much about lineage or anything, I just wanted to learn. But after a couple of months of learning, it found out that my Sifu was a student of Grandmaster Yip Man! How cool is that?

However, this is not nearly as amusing as one of my senior brothers, who went looking for my Sifu's school one day, and was in the general area. He is totally lost, and runs into this little old man; he asks the man if he knows where a Wing Chun school might be, and the man points him in a general direction without so much as a word. That night, when my senior goes to school, he finds out that said old man is the instructor! Kind of like how Luke stumbles across Yoda in Empire Strikes Back....

[reneritchie]

I was practicing bad Karate with my friend Antony and a little old Chinese man walked up, big smile on his face, and asked what we were doing (in fairly broken English). We told him. He invited me to punch him, which I did, and he used Noi Dap to counter, then showed quite effectively how I could no longer touch or harm him at all, while he was free to pummel me with both hands and feet at will. Not knowing anything about WCK at the time, we asked him to teach us and he, remarkably enough, agreed. (We later found out he'd been turning down people in Chinatown for years, and to this day I have no idea why he agreed to take us on).

RR

[black and blue]

Excuse my ignorance, but what is Noi Dap?

Thanks,

Duncan

[black and blue]

Is this a concept or a particular technique in your line?

Cheers,

Duncan

[reneritchie]

B&B - Apologies in advance for the quick hijack. Dap/Join is the first method. Noi Dap (aka Noi Liem Sao/Inner Sickle Hand) is one of the core San Sik cycles that embodies the concept. It would be like an inside vertical fook sao in other lines (the kind that occurs when the opponent Bong Sao's in Chi Sao).

RR

[yuanfen]

How-did I find my wing chun teacher-Augustine Fong?

Simple- destiny- good fortune- yuanfen

I happened to live in Tucson, Arizona and I was checking out all the martial arts schools to look for something appropriate for my kids- and there he was back in 1976.

joy chaudhuri

[Sandman2[Wing Chun]]

I had been doing "Northern Shaolin" (Read: Standard Generic Kickboxing) for about 5 years before I moved away from my instructor. After 3 years of not really doing anything, I decided to take the practice back up, and started looking around for a new kung fu school. I probably visited 20-30 places, as I didn't want to put effort in to something that wasn't the best thing available. When I finally went by and observed a class, it was love at first sight.
:)

[old jong]

I was watching a fight beetween a caterpilar and a cricket when....No! I found him in a discussion forum and was intrigued by his sense of humor so,I contacted him. (A guy needs a good sense of humor to be able to teach me!) ;)

[yenhoi]

My first sifu, Michael Tse, I met at a the Double Tree Hotel in Seattle about 3 years ago.

[kungfu cowboy]

Deleting posts is poopy.:p

[BrotherHopsing]

I met my sifu while attending a David Peterson seminar on the Wong Shun Leung method of wing chun, at the Lee Gar Lin school of ving tsun. At the time I was a student of Sifu Floyd Jackson of the Inasanto lineage in Jee Kuen Do. After he moved to D.C. a couple months later and since I had originaly been looking for a ving tsun school when I met Sifu Floyd, that was when I decided to continue my training with Sifu Lee Gar Lin.

[S.Teebas]

Visited all the WC schools in my area and did chi-sau with them. This schools students rocked me around alot using next to no effort. Thought it would be good to know..so i joined.

[Sandman2[Wing Chun]]

Originally posted by kungfu cowboy
Deleting posts is poopy.:p

Putting 1 in place of I so that you can get around the autocensor and use profanity is more poopy than deleting posts. :rolleyes:

[Neurotic]

My friend (who no longer trains in WC, and is livling is Israel) introducted me to it around the same time my volleyball club started to fall over.

I thought 'this looks kewl' - and presto, I was hooked.

Had never visited a school before, or done any MA.

The world works in mysterious ways.

Neurotic

[jesper]

Way back in the stone age when I was a wee lass I was really full of myself, having trained martial art since my pre teens.
I read a magazine called "Kungfu magasin" where there was an advertize on this mystiscal style which bruce lee had trained in his youth, so naturally I had to investigate.

Well what a downer. There was nothing of the "bruce lee" moves going on, only people standing around doing these weird motions.
Furthermore, there were no real sifu, and only 10th degrees students holding classes. So bold as I was I challenged one of the instructors to a sparring match.
Well 10-15 seconds later I was done for without him breaking a sweat. So I thought to my self. If thats what a student can do, what about a real sifu.

Well off to training I went and 1 month later I met Kernsprech sifu and that really opened my eyes to the potential of WT.
I must say that I havent regretted my decision since. Although nowadays I havent got the time to train properly :(

[gnugear]

I was looking for something classical in Seattle (which is hard to find) and stumbled on a phone number while surfing the web.

[kungfu cowboy]

Putting 1 in place of I so that you can get around the autocensor and use profanity is more poopy than deleting posts. Fair enough. But that word is in the dictionary. I will repost with appropriate changes.:)


How I met my sifu.

Well, I used to be a pimp, and the john of one of my Ho's was a kungfu master. The rest is history.

[Redd]

Originally posted by kungfu cowboy
Fair enough. But that word is in the dictionary. I will repost with appropriate changes.:)


How I met my sifu.

Well, I used to be a pimp, and the john of one of my Ho's was a kungfu master. The rest is history.

Is that a true story?

[kungfu cowboy]

Nope.:D But it would make a really lousy movie.

[canglong]

My sifu moved into my neighborhood so I like to think of it in terms of him finding me and I am so thankful that he did.

Kung fu cowboy maybe the book will be better than the movie:D

[cha kuen]

Sandman wing chun,

What do you mean by "generic kickboxing" when you were referring to Northern Shaolin? Do you mean that most people who teach northern shaolin today teach it was kickboxing?

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[tparkerkfo]

First instructor,
Looked around for a LONG time and narrowed it down to a Leung Sheung and a Leung Ting guy. Choose the Leung Sheung/Eddie Chong lineage teacher. Found them in the phone book.

Second Teacher,
Joined a similar list as KJ and was offered a chance to meet a top notch sifu. I visited for the weekend and was a convert. However I still had loyalties so I stayed with my first teacher for another year or so until he moved, then I switched. The funny thing, I know live a couple miles from Eddie Chong, who was my first Sigung. My teacher is too far away to attend regular classes, and he is Eddies teacher. So, my Sigung(Grandfather) is my Sihing(Older Brother), ....lol

Inbreed wing chun?!?!?
Tom
________
VAPORIZER (http://vaporizers.tv/)

[Sandman2[Wing Chun]]

Originally posted by cha kuen
Sandman wing chun,

What do you mean by "generic kickboxing" when you were referring to Northern Shaolin? Do you mean that most people who teach northern shaolin today teach it was kickboxing?

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No, I mean the guy called what we studied "Northern Shaolin", but it was just kickboxing.