New Book by Michael Kurth
Book Review
I just got through reading Michael Kurth’s first book on Ving Tsun, and thought I’d throw together a little review for all you guys here on the forum.
The book is available through Amazon http://http://www.amazon.de/VING-TSU.../dp/3842373074, but is currently available only in German. I’m working on an English translation.
First a little background on the author.
Michael, born in 1968 in Bielefeld-Brake, started practicing Ving Tsun in 1990 under Jochen Bentlage, a student of Philipp Bayer’s. A year later, Mr. Bentlage introduced him to his teacher, who at the time had withdrawn from public teaching. After a few meetings, telephone calls and after promising to pass on what he learned, Michael was accepted as a direct student by Philipp. That was the summer of 1991, and from that point on he’s devoted his life to his training and to the development of his students.
In 1994 the Ving Tsun Kung Fu Association Europe was founded, in which Michael remained an official teacher until April 2009, when he and Philipp parted ways due to personal reasons. Now he teaches independently in his own organization, the Association for Traditional Ving Tsun Kung Fu.
Michael is known throughout the Wing Chun community in Germany for his excellent fighting abilities, and, true to the spirit of the WSL way of Ving Tsun, he’s always maintained an open-door policy for people wanting to “test his skills” in his humble garage-kwoon.
A self-taught guitarist, I’ve heard him on more than one occasion sail through “Red House” or “Hey Joe” with authority, and the training in Brake is regularly accompanied by the likes of Janis Joplin, Hendrix, the Who and the Beatles.
The father of three children, Michael is a dedicated family man. His wife is from Saigon, and he taught himself to speak, read and write Vietnamese in order to better communicate with her and her family.
Now about the book.
It’s a short book at around 60 pages of text plus a few pages with photos of typical Ving Tsun actions and some training shots. At 15.80 € it’s a bit on the pricey side, but then again that’s the publishing business these days.
You could say that the book is like the WSL idea of Ving Tsun itself. Simple, direct and to the point. Perhaps the fact that it’s written in German, a language of uncompromising logic, adds to this effect. In any case, the book is true to its title: "Ving Tsun, Das Konzept der Vereinfachung" (Ving Tsun, The Concept of Simplification).
If you’re expecting the typical martial arts book, with pages dedicated to the “purity” of the author’s lineage, followed by a section on each form with the movements broken down and depicted in photos or drawings and finally culminating in a section on “applications” wherein movements from the forms are cut and pasted into various self-defence scenarios...well, you’ll be sorely disappointed.
The book begins with a simple dedication to the people without whom Michael would never have been able to develop his Ving tsun: His teacher Philipp Bayer and his long-time student Kai Bremmekamp.
Right off the bat, in his foreword, Michael reminds the reader that Ving Tsun is only one way among many. Nothing absolute. And although the system is a source of great potential for the development of one’s own “kung fu”, what one takes away from training is entirely up to oneself.
The foreword is followed by a couple of pages on the history of the style. And here again we are reminded that, in the end, colourful creation myths, great stories and predecessors who perform amazing feats do not help us directly in improving our skills. Every style can only offer certain possibilities, tools. It’s up to us to understand these and make them useable. Everything else is just smoke and mirrors.
The rest of the book is divided into five sections covering 1) the strategic concept of Ving Tsun, 2) the general attributes needed to apply these concepts, 3) the principal training methods of the style (solo and partner training), 4) a short section on Ving Tsun’s weapons and their importance, and 5) a three-part section with general training tips.
Again, this is not a “how to” book. It does not contain detailed descriptions about how to perform certain exercises or execute specific movements. It’s an overview of the Ving Tsun system (as Michael learned it from his teacher), and attempts only to lay out in a clear and precise manner the primary training methodologies and their guiding principals. The book does this very well, and one might say that its brevity is due only to its extreme clarity.
Ving Tsun is a collection of ideas concerning movement principals and strategies involved in combat, and not a mere collection of “techniques” following an “if x, then y” logic. If these ideas aren’t clearly explained and understood, the training methods risk being misapplied and the student has little chance in developing their Ving Tsun to its full potential.
With this book, Michael is definitely doing his part in de-mystifying Ving Tsun, explaining in simple terms its conceptual foundation and making the tools that it has to offer more accessible to the student.
I’ll end with a short quote from the afterword:
“The application of reduction and simplification is for many people much harder, both to understand and to work on practically, than they imagined it would be.....Simple paths and simple answers aren’t enough, and people seek after secrets, make things more complicated or present the system as totally unuseable instead of working hard on the practical application of the concept. Quality and not quantity is the key to success.”
