i was there for about 5 hours. it was ok but not as good as last time i went.
Jhoon Rhee was on the mini stage for a while he was very entertaining and in great shape for 80 odd yrs of age!
i visited both wing chun stands that i knew of and watched a "guest" roll with a visitor and basically showed off not giving any instruction of advice just showing that he could take out the obviously lesser experienced person so i wasnt impressed with his attitude, and i dont know enough to comment on his techniqyes except to say it was no way better than any of the top guys ive seen before.
i thought it was smaller an event than before and i spent more time watching the tournaments than the stands as very few of them held anything more than a nosy quick peek.
Yeah I know the stand you mean. Both wing chun stands were actually quite close together. i know that Sam Kwok was rolling with a few guys, but I rate Sam Kwok quite highly for traditional wing chun. My previoous experience of him was that he was very arrogant (I went to a seminar he was at and he didnt talk to anyone and appeared very unfriendly). This time he was actually very nice and giving advice on people doing forms etc. So I guess you can catch people on bad days and it was nice to see him givibng something back to the wing chun community
The other stand (East Anglian Wing Chun) was actually run by a really nice guy - Brian (tall guy with dreadlocks), who does a lot of work organising seminars to bring federations together etc
However, there was a guy there who seemed to be part of the stand, who was doing chi sao and he was an arrogant idiot. The guys approaching the stand were very enthusiastic and nice guys and they were leaving feeling a little empty. I was tempted to shut the guy but I hate doing chi sao in front of large crowds (ive always been shy, even when I was cage fighting etc). Its a shame that happened as I know Brian runs a good group and there is no need to 'show off' and then smirk about it
KG_" Leo Au Yeung was there still insisting that his wing chun was the best"
dont know who this is so did i miss anything special??
matsu
Leo is a guy who attempted to open a wing chun school in the hall that I teach in. I gave him a friendly phonecall to say that it was a bit silly as there are plenty of halls in the town I teach in. He then proceeded to get very defensive, threaten me and basically insult me.
He then did the same to another wing chun group in another town (opened up his school within their class).
Then I found out he had tried (and failed) to recruit one of our instructors to his federation on the sly.
Finally I found out that his group had opened up a school about 100 metres away from one of our classes on the same night at the same time
I dont know what his problem is, but he seems to try and compete aggressively with other schools when their is no need.
If you need a testament to his character, he claimed to be the sole choreographer to the movie Ip Man. Then he got told off and changed it to the sole wing chun choreographer for the Ip Man movie. And then changed it to the only certified wing chun instructor in the UK to be a choreographer on Ip Man....
Anyway, he had a stall at SENI with a DVD playing on a laptop, that had a line on it saying - train with the best wing chun school in the UK
Its just a frustrating thing to see people like that get away with fooling people to make money
