WT Vancouver Nucleus

The school that I attend is one of a kind. My instructor brought over the German-flavoured Wing Tsun and made it his own.  His teaching, and thus our resource, stems from a variety of teachers, seminars, and life experiences (read about his history here). 

From day 1, he's stressed that my Wing Tsun will be expressed differently from his, and from my colleagues as it reflects our physical attributes, character, temperament, preference, etc.  Of course, as students we have to go through the process of mimicking or copying the teacher, but we all know that eventually this dissolves and true expression of ourselves through WT is the ultimate goal.

Now, i've been fortunate to be one of the few - I would say part of the nucleus - that have made it to the technician levels under my Sifu and to join the ranks of a handful of other fellow WT'ers. 

What I've started to watch for in the last year or two is to see how each individual has or is in progress of making WT their own. I would say that some struggle, while others you can see their approach and how they try to make it work, and often enough, it totally reflects their character. 

It is very interesting. 

This is how kung fu (whether wing chun, tong long, choy lee fat, karate, etc) ought to be applied.  I think this where many students in other arts struggle. When it comes to any activity, you have to make it your own. Is this an insult to your kung fu ancestors? Hell no. It's only an insult to a teacher that's full of it, has no idea what he's teaching and is threatened by students not growing and learning for themselves.

Does this mean you should learn ground fighting in addition to WT? No, not necessarily. But if you wanted to, more power to you. What this DOES mean is that you express a little bit about yourself in every tan sao, punch, chop that you throw.

Until then.