The Wing Chun of Kenneth Chung

I started my training under Dr. G.K. Khoe in 1982. At that time I already had trained Wing Chun for about 5 years under a few different teachers. I had the opportunity to visit San Francisco to attend a computer conference related to my work. Naturally I checked the phone book for any Wing Chun schools around and found one run by Sifu Eddie Chong.

When I visited Eddie Chong's school in San Franciscohe told me about his teacher Sifu Kenneth Chung. He said that you could hear the air whip from Ken’s punch and that every kind of kick that Eddie threw at him was easily handled with just the PoPai movement from Wing Chun. Eddie Chong was a brown belt in Taekwondo before he met Kenneth Chun. That's all I knew. What impressed me was that Eddie was very friendly and open to share with me everything about his Wing Chun. Later I invited Eddie to Victoria, BC a few times to teach us some of his Wing Chun.

In 1992 I decided to take a holiday in San Francisco and managed to locate one of Ken's students through whom I eventually connected with Ken. I explained we were not maniacs and sincerely wanted to improve our art. So Ken agreed to meet me. I phoned John Adams, one of Ken's students and asked, "What was good about Ken, anyway?" John told me he was very very soft and he could cut through you like a hot knife cuts through butter. I had already read an article about Ken in Inside Kung Fu and had a good impression from Ken’s theories and from the pictures in the article, but I wanted to pin down why exactly he was good? Our club already stressed a good stance, accurate angles, suppleness in the touch, stickiness and proper training during the Chi sau and not just wild fighting. From our experience, some of us were not that bad. So I wondered how could Ken's stuff be really different?

I was to find out that Ken was a master of the soft approach. He was what I had in mind for the ideal master. Many martial artists can totally demolish their opponent's, but the master in my mind can do so with perfect control, with relaxation, without the need to intimidate or hurt the student in any way. Is this an unrealistic movie master image? I didn't think so because we do this to beginner students all the time. So naturally a good master should be able to do the same to us. More important to us though was not the master's fighting prowess but the master's ability to improve our skill so that we could also reach mastery level. Kenneth Chung was humble in my opinion. He felt he was good, he didn't claim to be the best and he said, "Just call me Ken."

Ken suggested a two hour private lesson in order for him to explain his Wing Chun method to me. The first thing he said was, "I want to feel your touch." You can talk all you want but you can't hide your lack of skill when you are in contact with an expert. The first thing Ken did was to uproot me effortlessly. No one had done that to me in a lot of years. I already learned the value of a good stance from Karate in 1968, from Hung style Kung Fu in 1969, from Tai Chi in 1975 and from Wing Chun after that. Apparently my stance was still not good enough.

Next he asked me to do something. I thought I would be able to do something because if there is an arm sticking out then I can always apply Pak sau or Lap sau. Anything stiff I could jerk. To my surprise I had nothing to work with. Ken offered me no resistance whatsoever. He was totally relaxed the whole time. Never did he stiffen a muscle even for an instant. My success rate was zero percent. In our club we practiced pretty fast hands but as soon as I would even think of starting something with Ken, I was already countered. A flurry of movements could never even start.

When Ken held out his punch, I did a variety of techniques including Pak sau (slapping hand), Biu sau (Poking hand), Bong sau (Wing hand) and so on. These were all super good looking techniques. When I was finished showing him what I could do, he said in a nice way,  “None of those things are Wing Chun!” He explained further, the Wing Chun principle is to receive in incoming force. He said what you did with all of your movements was to push the force away like you didn’t want it to be there. Then he demonstrated for any attack I did, he somehow sucked me in and had his hand perfectly positioned on my face to do some major damage if he chose to do so. But never did he use speed or power against me. It was only superior positioning and superior sensitivity that did the job. I had encountered the same thing six years earlier with Patrick Chow. I instantly understood Ken’s idea because I knew all the ideas and sayings but I just wasn’t doing what I preached.  

Ken said, "You guys have very flowery hands." We keep our attacks simple but Ken's were even simpler. When Ken moved there were no signals, nothing moved. He hit powerfully and effortlessly. He did not intimidate me, he handled me with masterful skill. Ken was always one step ahead. Ken showed me many many things but when I was leaving he said, "Really, the only important thing to work on is the stance." Where have I heard that before? Ken did not teach me any specific techniques, nor did he show me any drills. He also didn't hold anything back. There just were no secret moves. Yet my Wing Chun improved significantly in just two hours.

When I got back to the club I had no new moves to show but my way of doing the actions I knew before had changed for the better. Having hands on practice with an expert and having the right mental concept is what made the difference. Whatever I told the club, they all decided that we should get Ken to Victoria for a seminar.

In January of 1993 Ken agreed to visit us. I found that Ken could talk Wing Chun nonstop for almost 24 hours of the day. He was like an ocean of knowledge. If we could absorb it, he was happy to give it. He didn't believe in the concept that you have to hide things in Wing Chun. Ken thought only if your Wing Chun was limited, would you have to hide that fact. What I found most beneficial about Ken's teaching was that he tried to improve our skill. He didn't just introduce "more new things" but he tried to improve the way we did our Wing Chun.

I would say that the junior members of the club did not quite appreciate or understand Ken’s high level of Wing Chun, but the senior members were convinced it was the way to go. Ken's knowledge was at a very high level but his movements were very simple.