The masters and phonies you have met who are famous.

[Wong Fei Hong]

As the title says, who have you met, who is famous and your impressions.
Im not talking about your teacher who was famous in his circles, I mean people who are famous allover wether because of the net, good marketing , if they are pro stand up fighters (boxers karate tkd whatever) or pro mma guys , masters or so called masters.
No hearsay and nothing youve read online only people you have met.
Why were you impressed or did you think he was a phoney and what made you go wow about them.

I havent met many being in this neck of the woods.

Wing chuns william cheung, did a few seminars with him about 10 years ago now, thought the guy was impressive, but in retrospect he was just well marketed and dont think much of him, he sat drank coffee through out the whole seminar and showed us some combination techniques without correcting anyone. Oh and brought out lots of fotos of bruce lee and himself doing mountain poses.
His techniques were textbook wing chun,just like his books, nothing special.

Chen Tai chi's Chen xiao wang
Had one seminar and this guy is amazing, his fajing is phenomenal , i dont know if he can apply it in a sports style fight as its got that coil up to it but the guy is pure power, he cracks the air around him, he is full of energy over flowing and a really nice guy would answer questions as much as possible, cared about teaching and didnt charge much at all. His thighs were so powerful that his muscles bulged through his silk trousers. And we are talking about a 60+ year old man.
We did only a form , the short chen form i think it was 18 movements, no analysis of technique or explanation of tai chi basics. He also showed us the basics of how to generate fajing, using chan si chi kung and explained this.
At the end he demonstrated applications from the form, and i swear to you if there is any such thing as killing in one move, if he could pull off those applications which im sure he can the guy on the receiveing end is a gonner

Wado ryu's tatsuo suzuki
Wow is all i can say, he is 78 years old and had 2 seminars with him, since i wasnt affiliated with his organisation he didnt pay too much attention to me but he did to his students, fair enough i think he wasnt feeling to great and maybe this is why. He is a nice guy though.
The guy is pure speed and fluidity. In the second seminar 1-2 years after he took notice and he was punching me telling me to shift out of the way, i swear to you i have never seen anything so fast. I felt like an idiot i got hit 10/10 in retrospect i think his secret was he would mask his intent so there was no sign he was attacking.
It wasnt just the speed , it was that my body got no signal to tell me to get the hell out of the way !
About what we learnt it was a bit different from what i expected, one seminar was only knife defenses and it was very traditional based. no other techniques, in the second seminar it was weird, didnt agree with most of the stuff, it was very sport karate based and they used techniques that are one move counters as combinations and came out quite weird. However the body shifting was very very high level concepts.

I tried to give an overall of the guys skill level / difference in techniques and personality. Please share your experiences !!!

[David Jamieson]

IMO- First impressions in regards to kungfu don't have a lot of weight. Barring complete and obvious incompetence, it is difficult to get any sort of valid assessment of the value of someones body of teachings from a one or two day seminar.

seminar's are generally more for promotional purposes and introductions to an artist or that artists style. In reality, you are likely to walk away from a seminar with relatively few things. Maybe one or two things you hadn't thought about but mostly, you will walk away with more questions than you came in with.

a person who has 20 years or whatnot in the martial arts is unlikely to be able to transmit that art over the course of a day or two.

How would it be possible to assess overall value of training in an art or even to assess what sort of relationship you may develop with taht person if you were to decide to learn from them.

You can be studying with someone for 5 years before you discover that maybe that's not what your looking for afterall. You'll still walk away with something martially, but it is about you getting a grasp of things. In that time, you can more properly form an opinion because you will find success or failure within your ability and as wlel you will find success or failure within an art as you come to know it more.

Your goals and objectives may not match the criteria of the art at all after the zenith of your learning cycle or even before it.

Main point being, a seminar is no real measure of someone or their art. It's like a bit sized thing on a larger buffet that you couldn't possibly eat in one sitting. You go away not knowing whethere the rest will taste good to you or bad and sometimes you will only draw a conclusion after one or two bites from one or two ends of the table. YOu never know if that thing in the middle was bitter or sweet.

[Wong Fei Hong]

Agreed but im just curious as to what made an impression on people. About them being famous, take note i dont believe that their being famous means that they are good, its just a measure of the fact that everyone on the board knows them !
Some might say you know i met such and such and he is a real assh0le. Cool ! or they might say ive never seen this sort of strength in a demo. You can never tell what its like through the tv.

I will give you an example of this with my teacher the first time i saw him break a stone , i was in shock because the amount of heat generated i stood about 2-3 metres away and he broke a stone he picked up from the garden a big fat one.
Now for ages i had seen 101 block breaking brick breaking slab breaking set on fire headbutted demos. I was so bored i thought so what.
When i saw my teacher do it i was like holy **** this is the real deal. This is nothing like those other demos they are so faked !
I swear the heat given off was as much as when i had crashed and wrote off my car, if anyone has ever been in such a huge crash they will know about the heat i mean.
Another example is when i had seen the 100+ super heavyweight east asian wka champion a few years back. I have seen big bouncers before and fighters but this guy wasnt only huge he was solid resilient as a steel door the other guy just couldnt hurt him. Now through the tv ernesto hoost is pale compared to this guy, but in real life i bet he is a beast.

[GunnedDownAtrocity]

met gary dill if that counts.

[Yum Cha]

Chen Yong Fa (CLF) small guy, but burning intent. Can be very scary.

Chan Hak Fu (Pak Hok) - genteel elder gentleman, dignified and dedicated.

Chan Hak Fu's Son - crazy, spiritual and friendly. Deadliest man I ever met.

There are others seniors, like Jim Fung (WC), Corneilus Coleho (LHBF), Chan Chuck Fei (Double Dragon), Leung Cheung (YKM), and others, but they are probably just local heros...i.e. not famous outside Sydney, or Australia.

If there were some I couldn't respect, then they wouldn't be on the list now, would they...

Thing is, I know some unknown guys in their 40's who deserve to be on the list, and perhaps will be one day.

[Wong Fei Hong]

chan hak fu thats the man himself !!!! From that really bad fight with wu gong yi
What was he like in real life, i know you said gentle dignified and dedicated, but so was my nanny to knitting (if i had one).
Did he look like he had fighting spirit ? like he practised martial arts or just health and kept a legacy going on ?, i mean was he so different in real life from that video ?


I know some people say you cant judge by outward appearnce, but cmon after years of being in martial arts you get to be able to read people and their power.

His son sounds cool btw, and i know what you mean about ppl who deserve to be on the list and arent. Some people just never wanted it i guess and some never had the chance.

btw gene you can answer too considering youve interviewed every master alive lol !!

Another thing i personally am trying to extract from the posts is that each master has something special about him and definately a different sort of vibe no two masters give off the same energy and im trying to see how different it is too . Even phoneys have somethign special to be able and woo the masses .

[EarthDragon]

In my years I have been fortunate to meet some very impressive martial artists.
Adam Hsu
Brendan Li
Wong Fei Hung
Lin Muo Hao
Tat Ma Wong
Yoshiki Takahasi
John Newberry
Zhang Yaun Ming
Yen Chu Feng

I have included some photos........ The qi gong masters have the highest skil level I have ever heard of also Yoshiki takahashi is one of the toughest guys I ever sparred with. for those who dont know of im he is the World pancrase champion. and came to the US to train at my school for the UFC 7 and 8 bouts, both of which he won with a broken hand.

[Wong Fei Hong]

Did i just read wong fei hung on that list ? I thought he died 70yrs ago. j/k
Thats an impressive list , more info please !

What was Yoshiki takahashi like ? i mean whats it like to have guy like that trying to take your head off in sparring ? Is he solid rock is he fluid fast agressive, is everythign so spontaneous with him ?

Also what did it feel like being around those qigong masters ? Could you feel the qi all the time around them, was it different from normal qigong practitioners ? did they need to "power up" to do the demonstrations they did like when they inserted that needle in your leg ?

[SPJ]

Road shows, 2 days seminars or crash courses and hand on or wet stuff --

As pointed out, it is only for promotion and some exchange of ideas or tips or Q and A for other practitioners.

As a beginner, there is only so little or so much to "take home".

Nowadays, people just call themself a teacher or Lao Shi or just mister.

Da Shi or master is abandoned in China and Taiwan. Although Shi Fu is still retained in Hongkong.

As long as no false claims or ads to promote, be honest with oneself and with others, and phoneyness will not be there.

If a teacher of white crane and some knowledge of Tai Chi and try to say he or she knows more about Tai Chi, it would not be true.

However, if he or she said he or she extrapolated techniques from white crane learning into understanding of Tai Chi, that is totally honest and true. Then it is all good. There are some crane moves in Tai Chi and some even said Tai Chi is from crane style mixed with--

[SPJ]

Fame or not.

There are many good practitioners out there have good ideas and experiences to share. And she or he may not be famed or known.

Nowadays, there are a lot of promotions out there.

As long as we know what he or she is talking about from what experiences or practices.

Leave all the promotions out of the window and get to know the said person.

[SevenStar]

John Tsai

Ajarn Chai Sirusute

Royce Gracie

Quentin 'Rampage' Jackson

Dr. Yang Jwing Ming

Adriano Lucio (his team is more known than he though - brazilian top team)

Manu Ntoh

Brandon Slay - Gold medal at 2000 olympics - wrestling

[Yum Cha]

Wong FH,

He was an old man that was kind and respected by the Sydey Martial Arts community, and amongst the cluster of old guys that made the rules. I know he flew with General Cheunault in the Flying Tigers, and that pizzes on any kind of ring bout, then, now or in the future.

His school was well developed, and he left behind several good students to carry on his teachings. When his boys fought, they didn't look like 'generic kick boxers' and there techniques transferred well into gloved matches. His school didn't win as much as Yau Kung Mun or Choi Lee Fut, but they weren't "also rans" by any means.

His son was a mercernary in South America under an English commander, and you got "rank" by beating the guy above you. His son was the top NCO in the unit. I think his experiences drove him around the twist. He was crazy as a loon, gave me much of my folk daoist training, and was the first man I met that could touch me at will, wherever he wanted, (while laughing) and there was nothing I could do to stop it but try and run away. He also created a great form for the giant screwdriver....

[Blacktiger]

Grandmaster Liu Jing Ru - 70 years plus and skills that were off the planet.

He teaches, Bagua, Liu He Mantis, Tai Chi - One of the old school. He's of Cheng Shi Ba Gua Zhang from Cheng Tinghua's lineage.



Have not met many frauds. Lucky I guess!

[GruBianca]

Sorry,

do you have any picture of Chan Hak Fu's son? Do you know whether he lives in Macau?

Thanks and Regards

Luca

[Yum Cha]

Sorry,

do you have any picture of Chan Hak Fu's son? Do you know whether he lives in Macau?

Thanks and Regards

Luca

Top Picture, second from left on this page http://www.aaron.net.au/pak_mei/pix/pix_temple.html Circa 1993.

He was living as the caretaker "monk" at this temple when we met him. He wore rags ate what people left him and filled our heads with folk-daoist stories while he filled our cups with tea.

When asked, he said his style was Ba Qua. He would often train with us, but more often he would just drink tea and chat. It was all very entertaining to him, he had a run-in with the police awhile later and I have only seen him occasionally over the last 10 years, and not for several years.

Gee, I'm surprised nobody is interested in Chen Yong Fa....I once went to a dinner hosted by CLF with him and his father to honour his grandfather. It was the social highlight on the Sydney TCMA Calendar. All the old boys dusted off their silks and put on quite a show. One guy even took down a crystal chandelier with a three section staff and hardly missed a beat finishing up, dancing amongst the glass shards.