Moy Bing Wah visits Austin, TX

GrandMaster Moy Bing Wah in Austin, TX at Moy Yat Kung Fu Academy

This December, we were able to spend a few weeks learning from Grandmasters Moy Bing Wah and Moy Tung. We also had guests from Minnesota, Houston, San Antonio, Denver, Boston, Virginia and Detroit.  It was a great experience for all who attended the training sessions.

My Sigung Bak (great-senior-uncle) Grandmaster Moy Bing Wah is an "Uncle" to the Moy Tung Family. He is one of the few surviving students of Grandmaster Yip Man and also biological cousin to the late Grandmaster Moy Yat. He began his training in 1956 and introduced Moy Yat to Yip Man in 1957.  Sigung Moy Yat always gave Sigung Bak all the credit and respect for introducing him to his Sifu Yip Man and the reason the Moy Yat Ving Tsun Kung Fu Family exists!

What Sigung Bak  gave us during his visit to Texas, was nothing less than an experience that will never be forgotten. Many said that he was a living affirmation of the kung fu. At his age, almost in his 90's, it is amazing to feel his energy and kung fu.  His arms are like iron and when you hit his stomach, it is a true definition of "chi belly"... it can hurt your hand.  In four days we trained about 46 hours and Sigung Bak was right there most of the time doing his thing. It was amazing to see.

Many of the instructors from my Austin and Houston Academies have been traveling with me during 2011 to visit and train with Sigung Bak and learn his interpretation of Ving Tsun. It is a Ving Tsun tradition to start your kung fu over throughout the course of your Ving Tsun career and I have been fortunate to learn from Sigung Moy Yat and my Sifu Moy Tung.  Going through the system again with Moy Bing Wah has been an amazing opportunity and I really give thanks to my Sifu for putting me in that position. Also, being able to give my students an experience with a legitimate grandmaster and student of Yip Man like I had with my Sigung before he passed away is really important to me.

The details and movements that we learned are as practical as they are deadly - Phoenix Eye Fist, Ginger Fist, "Taking The Heart", Bui Ji and "Musical Conductor hands" that sorta trains you to cover your center-line in a  figure 8 like pattern (hard to really describe). Sigung Bak's techniques were easy enough to learn and train but I can imagine that they might be something most of us just need to catalogue and keep in our storage banks for when we have enough kung fu to really and safely comprehend what we are actually doing.

The drill that our women and kids classes really enjoyed that Sigung Bak taught us was the Walking Bong Sau drill.  It taught, that with proper structure, anyone, any size could move a much larger opponent.

What we can really take from this, is foundation! foundation! foundation! Keep at it and we might just get an idea of what we can accomplish with our kung fu!



 --- Vyvial Sifu
we are all alone in this together.
Moy Yat Kung Fu Academy

Slow Motion Jong (Wooden Dummy) Details

Still taken from Jong Video

We put up a new video of Nic Bartell at his new school location Houston Moy Yat Kung Fu Academy.

Sigung Moy Yat compared the Mook Yan Jong (wooden dummy) to a typewriter. The idea being that the Jong is just a tool to help your kung fu. Using a typewriter doesn't make you a better writer, it just makes your writing look better. The jong doesn't teach you anything new - it just cleans up your positions, timing, footwork, etc... It is NOT meant to be used as arm conditioning, or to go through the form as fast as possible while smashing your arms against it. A well-learned Ving Tsun sifu should be able to tell whether the Jong is being played correctly by just listening to the sounds it makes when a student is playing it. Sigung was also known to comment that he could not tell which one was the dummy sometimes when he could hear a student playing the form poorly.

I like to say that you can't tell one Mook from the other when watching videos of people playing in super speed online.

I think this video is pretty interesting with the dolly move around to the back of the jong. Also it is the first  posted online to be in slow motion HD.  We threw in some special details that you may have not seen before from anyone playing the jong form, have fun learning and trying them out.

Please click the thumbs up on the video if you like it, thank you.
Slow Motion Jong Video


--Vyvial Sifu
We are all alone in this together
Moy Yat Kung Fu Academy