Saturday, June 18th, was a seminar to remember!! Matt Johnson’s seventh trip to the Rio Grande Valley was nothing short of insightful and very informative into Ip Ching’s Kung Fu!!!
The topics handled were Chum Kiu and Chi Sau’s relationship to fighting. In the Chum Kiu portion, Sifu Matt walked us all – including 7 new chum kiu students – through the form while explaining the positions, the footwork and the main concepts of each section as well as applications in chi sau and fighting. Some students enjoyed learning this form for the first time while veterans of the form were able to brush up on it as well as gain further insight into Chum Kiu. Congratulations to all the students who were bumped up to Chum Kiu and they got to do it with their Si Gung, Matt Johnson as well!!!
The other half of the seminar covered Chi Sau. In our previous seminars, chi sau techniques were covered in depth including pak sau, lap sau, jut sau and gum sau. We also detailed the purpose of Chi Sau as training and the different components of Chi Sau that one should be aware of while training in it. This seminar sought to convey how we can take the training and ideas from Chi Sau and begin to apply them, or at least understand how they makes sense of, real fighting situations. Sifu Matt explained that nobody fights in Chi Sau positions in a bar or in the streets. Rather, they just start throwing the punches at you. It is here, Sifu Matt, explains that Chi Sau takes over once you make a “bridge” with your opponent. This is where all the sensitivity and reflexes that should be developed through Chi Sau begin to kick in and help you to do, instinctively, what you know how to do from endless hours of Chi Sau training.
Overall this was one of our best seminars as well as one of our most attended with 20 participants! We look forward to bringing down Sifu Matt again hopefully before the year ends to bring us more good Kung Fu. Sifus Moses Flores and Tim Santos are proud to be the ONLY representatives for Ip Ching’s Wing Chun in the Rio Grande Valley, in the state of Texas, and possibly the whole Southwest region of the U.S through Sifu Matt Johnson. Our goal, as is our Sifu’s goal, is to pass on the teachings of Ip Ching. Students of the Ving Tsun Gung Fu Institute through Sifu Tim Santos or through Sifu Moses Flores see that happening as they hear and see the same things that Sifu Matt teaches from his Sifu Ip Ching being taught to them in the same manner with no variation.
Regards,
Sifu Moses Flores
