Ronnie is a fellow Jiu Jitsu black belt at Lange’s MMA in Sydney. He took the initiative to interview his fellow instructors at Lange’s to break down the distance and divide between instructors and students and hopefully make us more approachable … and human. Songs
Category: Wing Chun
My interview on the Jungle Brothers podcast
I was invited by Joe Worthington of the Jungle Brothers gym to be a guest on their podcast. It was fun. We talked about my forty plus years training martial arts, and how I’ve been able to maintain my practice and my enthusiasm into my late sixties. https://junglebrothers.com/121-martial-arts-being-a-life-long-learner/ There were quite a few ideas I…
Will/Machado Terminology Clarification
Some students found the terminology of the old Will-Machado Blue to Purple Belt grading sheet confusing in class today. Part of this is due to a name change for two guards, and related sweeps, that happened over time. The guard where our opponent is kneeling, with our feet between and hooked inside their thighs, was…
Secrets
In some traditional martial arts, there are secret techniques too deadly to spar with. There may also be kata or forms, containing such techniques, which must never be shown to anyone outside the particular lineage of the dojo or kwoon. Such techniques are usually reserved for the highest student levels, those who have proven themselves…
My Interview on the Higher Jiu Jitsu Stories Podcast
Brad Hampson of Higher Jiu Jitsu kindly invited me to sit down with him for a podcast interview. I have spent over forty years in martial arts, and had a few stories to tell. We talked for more than three hours. The first podcast discusses my introduction to martial arts and Kung Fu, with Sifu…
Ip Man – The Stuff of Legend (Humour)
A strange article I found on a Wing Chun forum, perhaps Kung Fu Online, way back in the early 2000s. Needless to say (hopefully), I did not write the article, and have some issues with its veracity, to put it mildly. Pretty funny, though. According to the Hong Kong newspapers, Yip Man broke a stack…
Traditional Wing Chun Ground Fighting
Traditional Wing Chun, William Cheung’s system, has always contained ground fighting techniques and concepts. I had my first ground fighting lesson in 1977, from David Crook, who studied with William Cheung in the late 1960s. Edit: I got a message from David after I first published this saying that back in the day William Cheung…
True Story #15 – the Dragon Pole
I practice Wing Chun Kung Fu under the tutelage of Sifu Rick Spain. Wing Chun is a pretty minimalist Kung Fu system. Its standard curriculum consists of three empty hand forms, then a set of techniques to be practised on a specialised wooden dummy, though they can also be done without it – “Air Dummy”,…
Wing Chun Forms
These videos are of myself performing Wing Chun forms – which are solo movement patterns, analogous to kata in Japanese systems. These forms are from the Traditional Wing Chun system of William Cheung. My instructor, Rick Spain, teaches them with modified stances and extra footwork from those normally taught in a Traditional Wing Chun school,…
Tales of a Grandmaster
Who am I? A twenty-eight year student of Sifu Rick Spain, who was for a while Grandmaster Cheung’s highest ranked student. I achieved my tenth level / instructor credentials in 1995, while Rick was still aligned with GM Cheung’s World Wing Chun Kung Fu Association (WWCKFA). GM Cheung’s signature and Chops appear on my instructor…