Bak mei?

[diego]

Hey Diego..

I'm interested in hearing more about your Bak Mei training. I'm actually about to start training in Bak Mei myself. I'm a big guy and 51 yrs old... Wanted something a bit different from the Hak Fu Mun training now that I've recovered from the sudden passing of my sifu. I want to learn the Southern Mantis this sifu teaches... But he doesn't teach that out the gate. So my choices are Wing Chun, Lung ying, and Bak Mei.

Anything you can share would be appreciated.

Jeff��

I think almost every city has a Wing Chun school so if you can train Bak Mei you should do that just for how rare it is, plus it has Lung Ying techniques so it`s pretty normal for Sifu from both styles to be aware of the other. At my school we have a Wing Chun and Hung Gar Sifu in his 30`s learning Bak Mei as a hobby from my 70 year old Sifu. Like he said he trains Bak Mei for fun when he is not teaching Wing Chun and Hung Gar all week.

I guess it really matters about your ambition and skill level like Bak Mei starts off fast what I gather from Wing Chun DVDs lol they spend a year doing Sil Lim Tao slow...which is great for building your wrist and core rotating strength leading up to Staff and Butterfly swords footwork, but if you are more into like kickboxing, Bak Mei footwork may be a better work out.

But then there is the issue of the quality of school like you may have an Olympic boxer teaching Wing Chun and a Pokeman fan teaching some sort of Wu Shu Ballet Bak Mei lol so it hard to give advice. Vancouver has an old Hong Kong link so I lucked out finding my school but if I lived in Saskatoon with no Wifi I may just be training Judo at a community college watching martial arts of the world on Youtube.

It depends on your ambition do you want style and history..go learn from the university martial arts club with junior students who can teach you the basic forms so then you can travel for better teachers, or do you want to fight more then go to the school that spars for competition or has students with security experience like bar bouncers and such.

I don`t know much about Hak Fu Mun but most of the Bak Mei hands have a tiger claw backing up a strike like grab and punch or guard and chop, etc. The pulling is almost more important than the punching in the beginning like Karate pulls back fast and punches hard, Bak Mei pulls back hard and strikes fast...opens up core muscles and the pulling moves the enemy lol off balance as you control and strike with two hands.