SiFu Leung will be back from seminars in Switzerland on the 25th and hopefully a repost will be forthcoming shortly thereafter.



In the meantime, we received a couple of letters from John Smith, a Wong SiFu student. He has an entry in the guestbook as well as a response to the Tan Sau question below.



You may however post this to the rude people out there.

The issue of certification in Gung Fu is indeed a lot of Baloney.

There was never any certification or black belt required in the Yip Man days,
even before Yip Man there was only a Student/ teacher relationship. Really the
certification/rank system was brought in by Jigoro Kano of Judo, thus Karate
followed on, and recently several Gung Fu groups have got into the act.

From my own perspective it does`nt matter if the guy has a black belt or black
underpants, it is the person behind the system. In my school I do not have a
rigid training/rank system, just when I know that a student is ready I will
teach them the next form, as I believe if the student trains hard he or she can
complete the Wing Chun system in about 4 years (some sooner some later). I do
not endorse a student to go out and teach as I believe in a strong nucleus, and
as yet this has not been broken, but when some one walks into my school they see
( I believe) a good representation of the Wing Chun system. Some people have a
stuctured training syllabus, I do not as I am constantly monitoring my students
progress. I guess I do not run a commercial operation, and maybe if I did I
would choose otherwise.

I shake my head in disbelief at the 14 year old fourth dan black belt. My motto
is " Actions speak louder than words". I have seen junior grades in other
systems beat up and be more proficient than senior grades. How does the grading
syllabus stand up to that?

Yip Man never had such a rigid syllabus as the 14 year old 4th Dan, and really
all people of that training era know and respect each others as teachers, you
can never lie about your past as long as there are people still alive to judge
you!!!!!

John Smith

In another letter from John Smith he writes:

Let me tell you now no one got any certificates, Wong Shun Leung stayed with the
old man for 12 years and never received a piece of paper, just a nod of approval
when he wanted to open a formal school. As for the criticism of Mr Leung not
having an certificate, it is not an issue, NO ONE that learnt under Yip Man got
any paper. I look at the whole issue like this, if some one who is going out to
open a school that is now qualified or unskilled, will soon get found out, Mr
Leung has been teaching for 20 years, I guess and over that period would have a
loyal following, you guys know the truth. Another motto is let the buyer beware,
I always judge a school by their students, and not by the guy up front, if the
students look good then so does the Instructor.

John Smith

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