NEWCC - A New Path

Introduction by Alan Orr

As long as I can remember I have always looked to improve my knowledge of the martial arts. It has always been more important to me to have a full understanding of my art rather that to just be rolling along with it. That may sound simple and you could be thinking of course that’s what everybody doing. Well, after years in the martial arts I can tell you only the few keep learning, testing themselves and pushing their knowledge. In Wing Chun most seem to think if you know the forms and few drills you know Wing Chun. This is just the start point and most that I have seen have a low level of these parts anyway! So, when Alex contacted me and asked me to teach at the first North East Wing Chun Conference I had mixed views. After training many years most people don’t really what to hear a different view of Wing Chun and with the system I teach being very different in its application and core principles that’s what they would be hearing from me. So, in general I like to teach to people who are looking for answers rather that trying to change people who never asked to be changed as such. But Alex told me this would be a great way for lots of instructors to get a first hand look at Chu Sau Lei Wing Chun and the

Body Structure method. He was right of course. Not only was it a great way for others to openly see our method of Wing Chun, but it also a time to build lots of new friends within Wing Chun. Best of all we added some new blood to our Association, I will let Alex tell more on that. I would just say to have Alex and Ben within my group has been a great asset to me as friends and as students.

Article by Alex Wright

Everyone has a personal journey when they enter into martial arts training and Cyclone Wing Chun definitely represents a new path in mine. I started my training in Tae Kwon Do roughly 12 years ago and switched to boxing two years later. I became interested in Bruce Lee and his Kung Fu as did many guys of my age after having bought the “Tao of Jeet Kune Do” so I sought out a Wing Chun club as it seemed to be the source of Bruce Lee’s knowledge. I won’t bore you with the details but after a couple of attempts I found whom I believed to be an excellent (if unconventional) teacher in Sifu Trevor Jefferson. It was always my intention to be able to use what I had learned and boy did that get me into some scrapes. Trevor didn’t go in for hard physical training focusing on technique and theory which led me to continue my boxing and dabble in all sorts as I went along.

Forward almost ten years: I had taken a 2 year break in training and this was strangely a turning point. My training had come to a stand still due to the intensity of my chosen career in music and my band had hired a rehearsal studio that happened to be next to a martial arts academy (which will remain nameless!!) Having been inactive for almost 2 years I decided to join just for something to do, not so much a worry as to what style or in what way they trained. The training was fun but it wasn’t long before I found my Wing Chun reflexes kicking in and I returned to what I saw as more sensible training with Trevor. I had however met a bunch of guys who had embraced the new religion of Mixed Martial Arts. This took me to train with John Aitken and Lee Mair at the AFC ( Newcastle ), to build our own Gym ( Green Lane ) in Gateshead and eventually join Dave Elliot’s Brazilian Jiu Jitsu club Gracie Barra Newcastle. The experience of training, sparring and fighting in MMA, Judo, Sub Wrestling and BJJ competition totally changed my perspective on martial arts training and this neatly returns me to the beginnings of Cyclone Wing Chun.

Trevor had given me permission to teach and an instructor’s certificate some time ago but I didn’t feel quite ready and was focussing on my own training with the MMA slant being very apparent. In Early 2005 I decided to organise what I hope will become a regular event with the North East Wing Chun Conference. I invited several instructors to present a mini seminar and many others to attend resulting in 13 Instructors coming along with many of their students. The event is another story but most importantly for me it introduced me to Sifu Alan Orr.

The 1st Wing Chun Conference

I won’t try to review the 1st Conference in this article but will try to convey what it is that led me to setting up Cyclone Wing Chun a branch school of Chu Sau Lei / Ying Hung Wing Chun.

From the word go I found Alan and his students easy company. I’d arranged to meet Alan and his guys just outside of Newcastle to guide them in to where the conference meeting place was so when they arrived Alan jumped in the car with me and during the short journey across the city we chatted about the state our Wing Chun, MMA and general martial arts training. Alan seemed pretty certain I would find his system very different and I reserved a quiet idea that he might be surprised that mine was going somewhere along the same lines; the answers to who was right were only a few hours away. They too had embraced MMA and like me were also training grappling as well as striking therefore I knew we at least had something in common.

After everyone had met up and been introduced we moved on to the venue ‘Sor Thanikol Muay Thai’ Gym, where many of my MMA brothers and some of Newcastle’s best Muay Thai fighters practice their stand up skills under the excellent instruction of Mr Barry Norman whom had be generous in letting me use his gym as a venue for the conference. After a demonstration of Tuina by Errol Lynch we had some time for Chi Sao training so everyone could touch hands with people from other clubs and I of course wanted to check out Alan’s skills. Pride would like me to say I held my own and felt Alan had some nice moves but the truth is that to my surprise I got trashed in a way that hadn’t happened for many years against anyone. We moved from chi sao to clinch and traded knees, body shots and takedown attempts; I’d trained hard in Greco Roman wrestling for MMA and was delighted to find a Wing Chun guy with such skills. Alan suggested I trained with one of his guys Aaron who’d already had a couple of MMA fights. Although with Aaron I was far more comfortable than I was with Alan, Aaron too had strong fighting skills. I found we were pretty evenly matched and both sustained blows to the head and body during the ten minutes we trained ‘hard’ chi sao and clinch, no quarter asked or given, we finished both with the respect of the other and I felt I had what I had been looking for. Bearing in mind Aaron had only trained 3 years with Alan’s Wing Chun! With no question Alan’s seminar was interesting to say the least with a demonstration of the Chu Sau Lei body

structure but the appreciation of how much difference it made

would only come weeks later.

After the Conference I knew that I had to start training with Alan. It turned out that in a way we had both been right in our guess about the days outcome although I hadn’t expected to find such a great difference in our skill levels, it was the answer to many of my Wing Chun/ MMA prayers of the past two years as I was now certain I had a teacher/coach who could lead me to where I wanted to go with my Wing Chun.

A month later I had joined the Chu Sau Lei /Ying Hung Wing Chun Association and

started training to be an instructor within it. My debt to Trevor Jefferson cannot be underestimated here as I’m sure Alan wouldn’t have considered me as a worthy instructor within his association without the many hours of excellent instruction Trevor had given me, often one on one and free of charge but I felt to progress within my chosen field I had found the right environment and instruction. Trevor remains a close friend and mentor to whom I owe much gratitude and respect.

Over the years of training I had always employed modern training methodology such as pad work, fitness and sparring often outside of my Wing Chun training so when it came to teaching I envisaged mixing MMA style training with more typical Wing Chun to make up for what I saw as a short fall in many a ‘traditional’ syllabus. What I found as I started my training with Alan was that he’d already done much of the ground work for me using many of the types of drills and routines I had sought to employ myself and adding many that I hadn’t thought of but readily learned and introduced into my training routine. The real beauty of Sifu Orr’s method was that I felt it retained its roots in being truly effective pure Wing Chun that embraces the lessons learned from MMA competition, not a Wing Chun/western boxing hybrid that now in hindsight I know I could easily have slipped into. Its is pure Wing Chun Chinese Boxing as it should be!

The emphasis of the Chu Sau Lei Wing Chun system on ‘body structure’ and powerful striking makes it in my eyes a perfect striking system in and outside of MMA competition; I liken it very much to old school pre gloves boxing but with a level of sophistication unseen in many modern boxing styles, the sophistication that I feel still draws many people to this excellent system.