Watchful Dragon, Chu Sau Lei Wing Chun - Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Friendship Seminar: Dayton 1999

The 1999 Friendship Seminar in Dayton, Ohio ran from May 21-23. It opened on Friday evening at the Ving Tsun Museum with introductions, demonstrations, questions & answers, and an overview of what's to come. Saturday & Sunday were two 8-hour days consisting of 3 main seminars introducing unique aspects of the different Wing Chun Kuen branches presented by Marty Goldberg, Rene Ritchie, and host Benny Meng; several short guest seminars by the likes of John Crescione, Pete Pajil, and Garret Gee, highlighting different aspects; as well a free time for friendly exchange and chi sao play.

Like many others from this list, I recently returned home after attending the Friendship Seminar at the Ving Tsun Museum. All in all, I had a great time. Although I left early Sunday, I still experienced sensory overload! The event was so "action packed" that it's hard to give a full description - but here are a few of the things that I feel I should comment on: Garrett Gee of Hung Fa Yi WCK gave a brief overview of his system on Friday night. The scheduled speakers - Rene, Marty, and Benny Meng - were all excellent. Marty did a fine job demonstrating and explaining TWC's approach (primarily through its footwork). Rene gave an informative presentation on his research into wing chun (and China's) history before presenting some of the basics of YKS WCK. Benny took us through Moy Yat's chi sao progression. Personally, I found the after hours the best part of the seminar (no offense meant to the presenters!). Besides doing chi sao late (and I mean very late!) into the night with Dzu, Dave, David, Keith, and many others - there were "unscheduled mini-seminars" by John Crescione on structure and neurology (I'm telling you - this guy should do a nightclub act!), Rene on his visit with Sum Nung, Marty working on the wooden dummy and sharing his insights. Everyone mentioned above was very open and sharing, giving individual attention, with no ego intruding. IMO, this was the true friendship aspect of the seminar. I saw many new things and met some new friends. My major disappointment was that more people from the WCML were not there - it would have been great to have met you. I understand that the next seminar is scheduled for sometime in November in NY and will be hosted by John Crescione. I'm certain more details will be forthcoming. I only hope to see more of you there. Thanks again to everyone I met at the Seminar. It was fun! - Terence

I want thank Benny Meng and his committee for hosting the even at the VT Museum. The building itself is very well put together and the museum portion of the facility is very nice and worth taking a tour of. I enjoyed meeting (in no particlar order) Dave and his students, Keiths, Parriski, Marty and his student Oliver, John Crescione and his student Randy, and Jeremy from the VT museum. It was also good to see Rene and Terence again. Friday night was for introductions of the guest speakers (Garret Gee, Marty Goldberg, Benny Meng, John Crescione). Some of Benny's WC brothers (Pete Pajil, Miguel Hernandez, Leo Immomura) from the Moy Yat family were also introduced. Garret Gee gave a brief introduction to his Hung Fa Yi WC system and a demonstration was given of their SLT. He answered a couple general questions as well. Afterwards, there was time for informal introductions to WCML list members and a late bite to eat followed by some chi sau. On Saturday, Marty talked about the TWC footwork and answered some questions about the TWC system and some of it's concepts. Benny and Pete Pajil discussed their chi sau progression and emphasized forward energy and capturing the centerline with position rather than chasing hands. Around this time we all broke for lunch and Rene finally decided to show up Rene shared with us the research that has been done into the history of WCK as well as sharing some info with his time spend with Sum Nung. We practiced some drills which emphasized the first 4 points of the san sik found in YKS and Gu Lao wingchun. Afterwards, Garret Gee came back and talked a little bit more about his system followed by some Q & A. We had a banquet that night where awards were presented to the speakers for their time, effort, and contribution to the art of WCK. After the banquet we went back to the museum for free time. People were doing chi sau and also just talking in small clusters about various things. John Crescione told us some funny training stories about the old (old old ..just kidding John! :) days in New York. Sunday got off to a late start at about 10 am (originally scheduled for 8 am). Rene continued a bit on the previous day's session on YKS WC. He was followed by Marty, who talked some more about the TWC system and presented some drills for us to develop the various unorthodox punches not commonly found in most people's WC practice. At this point Benny was up again for more on the Moy Yat chi sau progression and Garret Gee was scheduled to talk after that. David and I had to leave early and missed the last half of Sunday's session. As a whole, I would have to say it was an enjoyable experience. - Dzu

I had a great time and learned a lot as well. I wish I had taken better notes. :-) I stayed to the end and still had an 8 hour drive home afterwards. I got home at 3 am, but it was definitely a worthwhile trip. I learned a lot! And I was impressed with the museum tour as well. They have done a very professional job at the museum and need everyone's support. Benny showed us his scrapbooks of WCK family pictures. I got to see Yip Man in a t shirt and shorts. :-) The best photo was a 8 X 10 done to look like a tin-type from the 1800's. It featured Yip Ching, Yip Chun, Moy Yat, and Mok Po dressed as old-west gunfighters complete with cowboy hats, guns, and very stern looks. :-) Terence helped me with Robert Chu's structure tests. I thought I was doing OK until he should me what to work on. Really guys, you need to be on the receiving end and be pushed by someone that has done it. Its not hard, but its one of those things that needs to be experienced directly. John is great! A natural born speaker. :-) His approach to WCK is very common sense and based upon anatomy and neurologic functioning. Like he says, you can disagree on different approaches in different lineages, but you can't disagree with proper biomechanics. They definitely kept it focused on what they set out to do......create an open dialogue between members of various WCK families. I'm sure everyone there must have seen things that they didn't know about another WCK system. Even Garrett Gee said that he didn't know much about the other WCK families and was impressed with what he was seeing. - Keith

I had a great time. It was great to finally meet WCML people and put faces to names. Additionally, I like to think I made some good and lasting friendships. As for the seminar part, very informative and enjoyable. A big thanks to the presenters and the host. I would have liked a little more "down time" to mingle with the folk there and to just stretch my legs, but to be fair, there was a lot of material to cover in a short amount of time. My brain went into overload fairly early on (simple mind ;-) ) and am still swimming through it mentally. The whole weekend gave me a lot to think about which was the whole point, so for me it was a success. As for Benny's museum - outstanding. It's still being put together, but what I saw thus far, he's done an great job. I'm sorry to say, i missed Sunday's session. I had a bad hotel room on Friday night, so Saturday i was running on little sleep, then the late night of chi sau (and John's charismatic talk about neurology and biomechanics - really liked that impromtu talk John - and oh, thanks for fixing the wrist!) i just could NOT wake up Sunday morning and then had to head back for a long 7 hour through the driving rain ride home. Seriously, it was a great time, and my only regret, too, was more of the WCML people weren't there. - Dave