Martial Arts instruction: Wu Wei Wing Chun Gung Fu/Filipino Martial Arts

Martial arts in southwest Minnesota. My school is located outside Marshall. MN. Contact me via the contact tab above. For an idea of my approach to martial arts, click martial arts on the categories menu to the right.

I’ve trained in the martial arts on and off since I was a teenager, beginning in Judo/Jujitsu, Karate, and fencing. I only really began to progress in my late 20s when I encountered the Filipino martial arts and teachers of the Bruce Lee lineage. (And by the way, that’s why it’s spelled “Gung Fu,” it’s the pronounciation in the Cantonese dialect of our Si-jo (founder.)

Gung fu, or Kung fu if you prefer, means something like “accomplishment,” or “skill.” Skill in fighting is only one aspect of Gung fu.

A Hung Gar master I studied under once defined it, “the worthy gentleman who has reaped the fruits of his labor.” (Well, Chinese aren’t Spartans…)

Before moving to Eastern Europe in 1991 I was for several years an associate student of the late Terry Gibson at the Inosanto-affiliated school in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I had the opportunity to train in Jun Fan Gung Fu, Pentjak Silat, Filipino Kali and Muay Thai under Sifu Gibson and many masters brought in for seminars such as: Danny Inosanto, Paul DeThouars, Surichai Surisute, Paul Vunak and others.

I was awarded a black sash in Wu Wei Gung Fu in 1990, training under Sifu John Haynes and Sifu John Douvier in Oklahoma City. Sokedai/Sifu Douvier later promoted me to the rank of dai saam (third degree black sash.)


In the Filipino arts I hold a lakan isa (black belt) in Modern Arnis, awarded in 1999 at the Dahran Arnis Club in Saudi Arabia, and was a Recognized Instructor in Pekiti Tirsia Kali, training with Maginoo-Mandala Uli Weidle in Germany, and Maginoo-Mandala Tim Waid in Dallas, Texas, under Grand Tuhon Leo T. Gaje. For personal reasons I do not choose to claim affiliation with any Pekiti Tirsia organization but my respect for these teachers is immense.

I hold a Mushin-Kan Advanced Blademaster certificate, a military knife fighting curriculum devised by Sokadai John Douvier for the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program (MCMAP.)

I hold a Military CQC Instructor’s certificate of the Military Edged-Impact Weapon Close-Quarters-Combat System of PTK-SMF.

In addition I’ve trained in Yip Man lineage Wing Chun Kung Fu, Muay Thai (Thai boxing), Israeli combatives, classical Jujitsu, Brazilian Jujitsu and classical Western Swordsmanship.

Fitness: Let’s face it, most of us aren’t going to be MMA fighters, and many of us aren’t 18 anymore either. I emphasize martial fitness training for the non-athlete. Most of us have sedentary lifestyles and need physical training that helps attain a level of fitness that enables us to defend ourselves if needed, is fun to practice, and helps maintain our health and zest for living.

I train with gentle non-impact Chinese Chi Gung exercises, Yoga stretching, Indian clubs and Russian kettlebells for strength and flexibility; iron ball, heavy and light bags for power; Thai pads and focus mitts for speed and form, and others.

Exercise/training gear: suburito, escrima baston, Indian clubs, Russian kettlebell, Tai Chi ruler, iron ball, hand weights, chi balls.

My primary arts.

Wu Wei Gung Fu

Wu-Wei Wing Chun Gung Fu is a Wing Chun-derived style with influences from several other martial arts, including aiki-jujitsu, western boxing and fencing. It was founded by Joseph Cowells who studied with Bruce Lee during the Seattle period of Lee’s evolution towards Jeet Kune Do. It is taught in autonomous schools by instructors who are encouraged to follow their own path, but it was the founder’s wish the core curriculum be centered around the three empty-hand forms of Wing Chun: Sil lum tao, Chum kil, and Bil jee.

Filipino Martial Arts: I have studied the Inosanto style of Filipino Martial Arts, Modern Arnis, Pekiti Tirsia Kali, and have some experience with several others.

Inosanto Kali is an eclectic style drawn from a broad number of sources by Guro Danny Inosanto which I studied under the late Terry Gibson.

Modern Arnis is the style taught by the late Ernesto Presas.

Pekiti Tirsia Kali is the family style of the Tortal family in Negros, whose current Grand Tuhon is Leo Tortal Gaje. It is the official training style of the Filipino Force Recon Marines.

Like all classical warrior arts, Filipino martial arts start with weapons training and includes unarmed combat as an auxiliary sub-specialty. Classical martial arts did not make a distinction between armed and empty-hand arts. You could be armed, but attacked by surprise with no opportunity to draw a weapon. A weapon can be dropped or broken in combat, or a makeshift weapon could be acquired from the environment. Armed combat can turn to unarmed in the heat of battle – or vice versa.

The training progression of many styles of Filipino Martial Arts is: single stick/blade, double sticks, espada y daga (stick/sword and knife,) mano daga (single and double dagger,) and panantukan (Filipino kickboxing.) Advanced training covers long weapons (staff and spear,) flexible weapons, thrown weapons, and modern adaptations to firearms and bayonet.

Reading (Yes, there’s a reading list, see quote by William Francis Butler below.)

No Nonsense Self-Defence website by Marc “Animal” MacYoung, is the best and most comprehensive single source on the web covering self defence issues, martial arts training, the psychology of aggression and predation, martial ethics and philosophy, and you could probably find a kitchen sink in there if you looked hard enough. I know Animal and have trained with him in Sweden at a seminar of the International Police Defence Tactics Association and other venues in three countries on two continents. (We’ve got to do Asia someday.) This site is required reading for students who wish to progress in my classes – and who want to study the more dangerous aspects of the arts.

Special studies

Self Defense with a walking stick

Effective and street legal.

A good Kali man should be able to find a weapon in his environment, the world is full of sticks. A walking stick is just one possibility. With techniques taken from Kali, Japanese Kenjutsu, Thai Krabi Krabong, and French La Canne de Combat, whatever your age or disability you need never be helpless.

Way of the Sword

As part of advanced training we’ll be handling different designs of swords from different cultures: Japanese katana/bokken, rapier, western saber, Chinese willow leaf saber, straight sword, etc. I’ve begun the stduy of Highland broadsword as recorded in military manuals of the British Army and the German grosse messer. We’ll play with basic guards, parries, cuts, thrusts etc.

The idea is to get a feel for how the design of the weapon dictates how it is used, and to apply Kali principles to anything to hand. A PTK teacher once said, “Karate means empty hand. We are not the way of the empty hand, it’s just that whatever is in the hand is whatever is in it.”

Phobologia

The “science of fear.” How to deal with it. What it’s for. Why it’s a gift.

Martial Philosophy

“After having trained intermittently in martial arts for most of my life, I find that I am still not Superman, nor am I 18 anymore. If I can’t be stronger than my opponent, perhaps I can be smarter.”
Steve Browne

“For many years it was generally assumed that the improvement in power and range of firearms would lead to battles being decided at a distance, and that handto-hand fighting would be a rare exception…how completely has the twentieth century campaign exploded this theory.”
Colonel Sir John Macdonald, British Army, 1917

“Everyone gets into martial arts at first because of fear. Afterwards you discover better reasons.”
Sokedai John Douvier

“I believe in having a few pupils at one time as it requires a constant alert observation of each individual in order to establish a direct relationship. A good teacher can never be fixed in a routine… each moment requires a sensitive mind that is constantly changing and constantly adapting.
A teacher must never impose this student to fit his favourite pattern; a good teacher functions as a pointer, exposing his student’s vulnerability (and) causing him to explore both internally and finally integrating himself with his being. Martial art should not be passed out indiscriminately.”
Lee Jun-fan (Bruce Lee)

“Using lethal force is like chemotherapy. It is a horrible, traumatic, painful and life altering experience. One that no sane, healthy person would willingly submit himself to. But when the choice is that or dying of cancer — you take the treatment.”
Masaad Ayoob

“All men with even a small store of reason, know that peace is chiefest of blessings.”
Flavius Belisarius

“The true solider fights, not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.”
G.K. Chesterton

“So what is self-defense? The working definition we use is: Using whatever means necessary to quickly end a situation that offers you grievous bodily injury…Self-defense is never oriented towards ending a perceived emotional threat, such as hurt pride, wounded feelings or to prove yourself right. It is not a form of punishment or to prove your superiority over another human being.”
Marc “Animal” MacYoung

“Where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence.”
Mohandas Gandhi

“If you are not prepared to use force to defend civilization, you must be prepared to accept barbarism.”
Thomas Sowell

“A fair fight is the result of poor preparation.”
Anonymous

An alternate way of stating the above: “If you find yourself in a fair fight. YOUR TACTICS SUCK!”

“Fair fights are stupid, let’s go hunting.”
Kasey Keckeisen

“To get good at unarmed dueling is to develop skill at a very bad strategy, a strategy which has the sole purpose of stroking your ego. Don’t quit playing. I love to play. But don’t make it something it’s not. If someone was trying to kill someone you loved would you tap them on the shoulder and step back so that they could face you at the appropriate distance? Or would you hit them in the back of the neck with the best tool you could find? Your choice, but one choice is stupid and that choice is the one you have likely practiced most.”
Rory Miller

“The development of physical attributes, psychological conditioning and legal knowledge for the purpose of personal protection. The goal is to escape physical harm and protect loved ones by using whatever means are necessary within the boundaries of the law.”
Kelly S. Worden, definition of self-defense

“During free training, beginners will usually practice the last thing they were taught while advanced karateka will spend time working on what they learned first.”
Dave Lowry

“The nation that will insist upon drawing a broad line of demarcation between the fighting man and the thinking man is liable to find its fighting done by fools and its thinking by cowards.”
Lt. Gen Sir William Francis Butler

“To manage fear you only need to believe you can do things. To manage danger you need to be able to do things.”
Rory Miller

“It is spiritless to think that you cannot attain to that which you have seen and heard the masters attain. The masters are men. You are a man. If you think that you will be inferior in doing something, you will be on that road very soon.”
― Yamamoto Tsunetomo, Hagakure

“Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men.”
Gen. George S. Patton

“He (Rudyard Kipling) sees clearly that men can only be highly civilized while other men, inevitably less civilized, are there to guard and feed them.”
George Orwell

“The weakest of all weak things is a virtue that has not been tested in the fire.”
Mark Twain

“The will to conquer is the first condition of victory.”
Ferdinand Foch, Marshall of France, Field Marshall of the United Kingdom, Marshall of Poland

“Violence is rarely the answer, but when it is, it’s the only answer.”
Tim Larkin

“Anger is momentary madness, so control your passion or it will control you.”
Horace

“Courage first, power second, technique third.”
Author unknown

“Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die.”
G.K. Chesterton

“Rudeness is the weak man’s imitation of strength.”
Eric Hoffer

“The strong do what they will and the weak suffer what they must.”
Thucydides

“Don’t hit at all if it is honorably possible to avoid hitting; but never hit soft.”
Theodore Roosevelt

“If the battle for civilization comes down to the wimps versus the barbarians, the barbarians are going to win.”
Thomas Sowell

“Those who are skilled in combat do not become angered, those who are skilled at winning do not become afraid. Thus the wise win before the fight, while the ignorant fight to win.”
O sensei Morihei Ueshiba, founder of Aikido

“Everyone has a plan until they’ve been hit.”
Joe Lewis “the brown bomber”

“Until you:
1. Develop the ability to take a hit without having an emotional meltdown
2. Have firsthand experience that you can be struck and it won’t “destroy” you
3. Don’t get all trauma-drama-esque and “triggered” over having been hit in the past
4. Get over your fear of being struck
You:
1. Have no baseline to accurately assess danger
2. Are likely to freak out and emotionally overreact when confronted
3. More likely to get furious and overreact to the insult of being struck rather than the actual danger
4. Will attempt to negotiate and de-escalate from a position of fear
5. Will attempt to deal with the situation from a position of overconfidence
6. Will be reacting to past events instead of what’s happening now.”
Marc “Animal” MacYoung

“My teaching is principle based. True self-defense has one purpose and one purpose only. Like I said it’s to cover your ass while you are leaving: ending it now and escaping. That is my work regarding self-defense. I try to run a balance between the realities of self-defense and understanding the depth of your martial arts beyond what you are being taught. You can do both if you understand. The difference between knowing and understanding is that if I know something I know it from one perspective, if I understand something that means I know it from many perspectives … I understand it’s implications, strengths, limits, etc. When you seek understanding rather than just knowing you can take your martial arts training and apply it to self-defense because you know what not to bring along and what not to do. This is a different ballgame with different rules. In order to survive in a self-defense situation you have to think. I cannot teach you how you are going to be attacked. What I can show you, however, are principles that if you understand them and apply them you can use them anywhere and at any time. No matter what is happening you will see the opportunity.”
Marc “Animal” MacYoung

“A man cannot understand the art he is studying if he only looks for the end result without taking the time to delve deeply into the reasoning of the study.”
Miyamoto Musashi

“People always die for their inability and suffer defeat for their lack of training. Therefore education and discipline are priorities of the art of war.”
Wu Qi’s Art of War

“If you want to kick the tiger in his ass you’d better have a plan for dealing with his teeth.”
Tom Clancy

“If you ever get into a real fight, you forget Wing Chun.”
Wing Chun Master Wong Sheun Leung, one of Bruce Lee’s seniors in Yip Man’s school. (Personal communication to me and my Polish comrades in the Wing Chun school of Sifu Janusz Szymankiewic in Warsaw. When you understand this, you will understand a lot about martial arts training.)

“You are the weapon. Everything else is a tool.”
Anonymous

“A bokken (wooden sword) wielded by a more experienced swordsman might defeat another less skilled or less lucky swordsman who’s using a shinken (steel sword). Miyamoto Musashi defeated many swordsmen using only a bokken, but it was Musashi who defeated them, not his bokken.”
Masayuki Shimabukuro and Carl E. Long

“No martial art has ever worked in self-defence or in combat. There has been zero cases of any individual ever being knocked out/incapacitated by a martial art. What does work are the actions of martial artISTS. Pick any martial art you like and it is ultimately an ethereal concept. It can only be brought into being by the actions of the martial artist. Our martial art can’t fight for us and it can never protect us. Only we can do those things. We therefore need to focus on the making ourselves work, because the martial art is nothing but an intangible idea without us.”
Iain Abernethy

“The sword is more important than the shield, and skill is more important than either. The final weapon is the brain. All else is supplemental.”
John Steinbeck

“I come in peace, I didn’t bring artillery. But I am pleading with you with tears in my eyes: If you fuck with me, I’ll kill you all.”
Marine General James “Mad Dog” Mattis, to Iraqi tribal leaders

“Seek not to follow in the footsteps of men of old; seek what they sought.”
Matsu Basho

“Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.”
Napoleon Bonaparte

“Am fear nach gheidh na h-airm ‘nam na sith, cha bhi iad aige n’am a chogaidli.”
(Who keeps not his arms in times of peace, will have no arms in times of war.)
-Scottish Gaelic proverb

“A wise man fights to win, but he is twice a fool who has no plan for possible defeat.”
Louis L’Amour

“A warrior may choose pacifism; others are condemned to it.”
Bob Orlando

“Being scared can keep a man from getting killed, and often makes a better fighter of him.”
– Louis L’Amour

“Beware of old men in professions where most die young.”
– Marc “Animal” MacYoung

“If you wish to argue convincingly for peace, you must be neither a bully nor a wimp. If you are a bully, a plea for peace will be seen as a demand for surrender or playing for time. If you are a wimp, it will be seen as a willingness to submit.”
Steve Browne

“Claiming to teach self-defense without teaching self-defense law is like teaching someone to drive without teaching them about traffic laws.”
Montie Guthrie

“It is better to avoid than to run; better to run than to de-escalate; better to de-escalate than to fight; better to fight than to die. The very essence of self-defense is a thin list of things that might get you out alive when you are already screwed.”
Rory Miller

“Of old the expert in battle would first make himself invincible and then wait for his enemy to expose his vulnerability.”
Sun Tzu

“I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.”
Bruce Lee

“We must make our students attack-minded; and dangerously so!”
W.E. Fairbairn

“But, the bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it.”
Thucydides

“It is folly to imagine that the aggressive types, whether individuals or nations, can be bought off … since the payment of danegeld stimulates a demand for more danegeld. But they can be curbed. Their very belief in force makes them more susceptible to the deterrent effect of a formidable opposing force.”
– Sir Basil H. Liddell Hart

“Never underestimate a coward! Cowards, like alcoholics and sociopaths, can be very sneaky, and if you’re not careful always a step ahead of you in their thinking.”
Steve Browne

The nine principles:
1. Do not think dishonestly.
2. The Way is in training.
3. Become acquainted with every art.
4. Know the Way of all professions.
5. Distinguish between gain and loss in worldly matters.
6. Develop intuitive judgment and understanding for everything.
7. Perceive those things which cannot be seen.
8. Pay attention even to trifles.
9. Do nothing which is of no use.
Miyamoto Musashi, A Book of Five Rings

“It’s not the bullet with your name on it that’s the problem. It’s the one addressed, ‘To whom it may concern.'”
– Attributed to a resident of Belfast during the Troubles.

“It needs but one foe to breed a war, and those who have not swords can still die upon them.”
J.R.R Tolkien.

“Si vicit pacem, para bellum.” (“If you would have peace, prepare for war.”)
Flavius Vegetius

“Mortal danger is an effective antidote for fixed ideas.”
~Erwin Rommel

“Many years ago, as a cadet hoping some day to be an officer, I was poring over the ‘Principles of War,’ listed in the
old Field Service Regulations, when the Sergeant-Major came up to me. He surveyed me with kindly amusement. ‘Don’t bother your head about all them things, me lad,’ he said. ‘There’s only one principle of war and that’s this. Hit the other fellow, as quick as you can, and as hard as you can, where it hurts him most, when he ain’t lookin’!’”
Field-Marshall Sir William Slim, 1st Viscount Slim

“I divide my officers into four groups. There are clever, diligent, stupid, and lazy officers. Usually two characteristics are combined. Some are clever and diligent — their place is the General Staff. The next lot are stupid and lazy — they make up 90 percent of every army and are suited to routine duties. Anyone who is both clever and lazy is qualified for the highest leadership duties, because he possesses the intellectual clarity and the composure necessary for difficult decisions. One must beware of anyone who is stupid and diligent — he must not be entrusted with any responsibility because he will always cause only mischief.”
Kurt von Hammerstein-Eqouard

“Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.”
C.S. Lewis

“The traditional martial arts tend to teach young men to undertake flashy and impressive, but not terribly effective, fighting techniques. Only as you grow older do the masters of the art teach you the real secrets–the subtle, quick, physically simple ways in which the human body can be destroyed. In this way, the old retain their power over the young–although they lack the speed and strength, they have in discipline in training more than enough to maintain the order. Social harmony is maintained in the dojo: the young revere the old, and seek to emulate them.”
Grim Beorn

“Beware the fury of a patient man.”
John Dryden

I once asked the founder:
“Sensei, what’s the most important thing in martial arts?”
“O’ Sensei replied: Appropriate behavior for every day of life – because knowing others and showing them respect, is part of the art of not making enemies and not getting in the situation to be attacked. In the past, as in the present, those who are considered teachers have always been honest, modest and behaved correctly..
In my youth I followed the masters of different martial arts. What I discovered was that the best teachers were also the most disciplined and stressed the importance of etiquette and good conduct.”
– Mitsugi Saotome Sensei
Jugoshin Ryu Jujutsu

“How can a man who is so tough be so gentle?” she wondered.
“If I weren’t tough, I wouldn’t be alive. If I couldn’t be gentle, I wouldn’t deserve to be alive.”
Raymond Chandler

Master Azato (one of the karate teachers of Gichin Funakoshi – founder of Shotokan) said, “A true martial artist is one whose smile will warm the hearts of little children, and whose anger will make tigers cower in fear.”

“The man who is at the peak of his success and the man who has just failed are in exactly the same position. Each must decide what he will do next.”
Jigoro Kano, founder of Judo

“SKILLS ARE NOT DEVELOPED IN CHAOS.
Skills must be developed in isolation, then integrated with other layers of skills, then trained into a thought and movement pattern vis-a-vis repetitive programming. Then and only then, can they be tested in the unscripted crucible of chaos and made real and practical fighter’s attributes that can be used in real world combat.”
– GABE SUAREZ

“Boldly do men talk from a distance.”
~ Heitharvega Saga

“No place is weak where there are men capable of defending it.”
–Pierre Terrail, the Chevalier de Bayard (1476 – 1524)

“My life is simple, my food is plain, and my quarters are uncluttered. In all things, I have sought clarity. I face the troubles and problems of life and death willingly. Virtue, integrity and courage are my priorities. I can be approached, but never pushed; befriended but never coerced; killed but never shamed.”
– Admiral Yi Sun-shin, Last letter to an old friend.

“A man of character in peace is a man of courage in war. Character is a habit. The daily choice of right and wrong. It is a moral quality which grows to maturity in peace and is not suddenly developed in war.”
—General Sir James Glover, “A Soldier and His Conscience.”

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