Good morning.

 

Last night I visited the Dulwich school, taught by Si-Mei Della. It was excellent to see that the school is constantly growing and the classes are going from strength to strength. However, there were two other things that pleased me. The first was that the students had readily taken onboard the teachings on Wing Tsun, particularly the etiquette. While there were a few minor mistakes, they have done well to appreciate it in such as short amount of time. I will be writing more on the importance of this subject in due course, but for now it is suffice to say that etiquette is the foundation on which Wing Tsun is built.

 

The second thing that pleased me was the actual students themselves. As a master you have to be able to make accurate judgements about the characteristics of people within a few seconds of meeting them. Teaching martial arts is one of those few careers when you have to be constantly switched on, as you never know who will walk in the class or if someone will just suddenly deicide to attack you without warning just to ‘test you’ (this has happened to me far too many times to recall). I have alluded to this before, but Wing Tsun is not about techniques and theories – it is the art of understanding people. Techniques and principles mean absolutely nothing if you do not have a good understanding of both how you work, and the same for others. So, the point I am trying to make here is that there is not one person in the room last night that did not turn up both with a full heart to learn and the right attitude. The Chinese have a saying: ‘it is hard to find a good master, but it is even harder to find a good student.’ As a student is always a reflection on their teacher, Si-Mei can be proud of her students, she has done well. If they continue the hard work and also apply the principles that I taught them last night I am sure they will have a very successful future in Wing Tsun.

 

I am looking forward to seeing many of them at the upcoming seminar and grading, as well, of course, at the graduation.

 

 Sifu