Two weeks ago we had a visit from my junior kung fu brother, Sifu Haw Kuo. It was a great treat for the students to see their "si-suk" in action. Sifu Haw taught some private lessons and taught two of my regularly scheduled tutorial classes. I love exposing my students to different ways of seeing Wing Tsun as I find this is the best way to help them grow. Sometimes it takes another instructor to say the same thing I say everyday before the students have that "ah ha" moment. When students are isolated from other instructors and viewpoints they will never have this feeling or have that opportunity to grow.
Training with BJJ guys doesn't mean you do BJJ! We are WT through and through, we are just not afraid to practice with others :)Saturday morning we pretty much hit the ground running when Sifu Haw arrived at 7am. By 12pm we had already strategized over breakfast and started our first training session. Our first training session was a bit out of the ordinary for WT people. Once a month I have a BJJ expert come to our fighter class to teach my guys what BJJ people do and what they might try to do to WT people if the fight ends up on the floor. This was the first time we did it and it happened to come on the week that Sifu Haw was here so the timing was perfect. We had a private, small group session with one of my students (and Marcelo Garcia BJJ student) Jose Sanchez.
As I can hear the smug & conservative dogmatists squawking now I must qualify this move unfortunately. I do not teach BJJ nor do I teach my students to do BJJ. However, the WT "anti-grappling" or "anti-groundfighting" methods are a bit untested in my opinion (which does not imply inferior, just untested). The WT methods just need to be tested, improved and re-tweaked. Unfortunately legions of WT instructors teach their students to defend against "takedowns" or dubious ground moves that no expert would do. WT people need an operational understanding of what a BJJ/grappler is trying to do on the ground. In this way they can better avoid the pitfalls of getting stuck in an armbar or triangle choke when they are applying their WT on the ground. I have heard funny stories of WT "masters" who were helpless on the ground against WT students with BJJ skills. These masters did not even know they needed to tap when caught!
For this reason I want to expose my students to different people and styles in an effort to improve WT's training methods (not change the principles or concepts). I also want to do this in an effort to change the negative isolationist image of WT into a friendly and more cooperative vibe with other styles.
We worked on throw, positional techniques, escapes and controls on the ground. The students had a really great time and learned a lot. At the end of the class Sifu Haw ran the students through 15 minutes of his modified insanity workout. Soreness was had for days!
More coming soon in part 2!
Sunday, July 29, 2012 
