Patrick Chow was a slim built individual who was a private student of the late Grandmaster Yip Man. His family was wealthy so he could afford the fees.

When I met him in 1976, he was teaching various people with eight to ten years of martial arts in different styles like boxing, Hung Gar, Choy Lee Fut, Tai Chi and others. He asked people to come up and try anything they liked on him.

What impressed me was that he handled the attacks in a very controlled manner without relying on speed or strength. He was very, very relaxed and supple in his actions. He said that Wing Chun was small circle Kung Fu. He said other Kung Fu systems also have many of the techniques, but teach them at a much later stage. He said Wing Chun just disposed of the big movements.

In 1976 Patrick Chow charged $50/month which was more than double what anyone else charged. He had no intention of teaching the complete Wing Chun system. He said, "None of what any of you learned will work on me." I will teach you just a bit of Wing Chun but I guarantee it will improve your skill. Because of Patrick's skill level, everyone thought it was worthwhile.

For quite a few months, practice consisted of getting into the Wing Chun pigeon-toed stance or goat-restraining stance. Then students would slowly (very slowly) bring the Tan sau (Palm up hand) out, do a Heun sau (Circling hand), and slowly bring it back (Guarding hand). Then do the same with the Fook sau (Controlling hand). We did this for one hour straight each class. I didn't know why at the time. All I knew was that Patrick was incredibly relaxed had a very solid stance and constantly outmaneuvered me like a world class chess champion would do to a beginner.

He had very short range powerful hits and he always outmaneuvered everyone.

He never hurt one person in a fight. For seven months straight, we only learned part one of the "Siu Lim Tao" form plus some applications.

After training with three different teachers: Patrick Chow (Ip Man), Johnnie Yu (Moy Yat), and Mark Lee (Jiu Wan), I met a student from Saskatchewan who I trained with for a year. His name was Keenan.

I didn’t really have any trouble handling his techniques because I studied wing Chun and had ten years of martial arts experience in Karate, Hung Gar, Tai Chi and also Wing Chun, not to mention my wrestling background.

Then Keenan moved to Vancouver to go to the University of British Columbia. I received a letter at Christmas time 1981 which said that he had looked all over Vancouver and finally found a good teacher who knew and taught the complete art.

I wanted to join and asked Keenan to please make a case for me joining the UBC club. He said OK and the teacher Dr. G.K. Khoe accepted me. I went every week to Vancouver and stayed overnight somewhere and came back the next day. It was expensive but worth every penny.

When I met Keenan again, he had been training with Dr. G.K. Khoe for just three months but he totally could “beat the crap out of me!” I was impressed. Here is a small portion of his lengthy letter to me:

”Anyway, what luck! We are now learning Wing Chun about as pure as you can get. Our club did not advertise at all but we relied on “Clubs Day” to attract students. We have about 20 students right now. The Sifu Dr. Khoe started us on the 1st form and all of its theory and applications in the 2nd week of October. He also started single hand chi sau (sticky hand) on the very first lesson (He said he wanted us to be familiarized with the “feeling” as soon as possible) with very good results.

We went through a lot since then. Presently, we are well into double sticky hand, slap blocks, trapping hands, grabbing hands, and even some limited chi sau sparring.

We have also started the 2nd form and its applications as well as foot mobility and kicking. This sounds rushed I know, but the Sifu feels that he may not be here (at UBC) after October 1982 since he is on a sabbatical leave from a Dutch university, so he wants to teach us the system and establish the club. From there, we can practice and solidify our knowledge.

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Kenneth Chung: Although Kenneth Chung was not my official teacher, I felt I learned more from his teachings than from anyone else because I had the chance to really feel one on one what real mastery of Wing Chun feels like. You cannot judge much from a Youtube video at all. Also Ken spent countless hours explaining the theory of Wing Chun to me. Realistically he said it is difficult for me to really absorb his art unless he were here looking over my shoulder every second. Wing Chun really is a one on one art. The next major influence, I would say was Ralph Haenel from Vancouver. But all the teachers I had were good.