I was born in good ole New Zealand but my travels allowed me to train with martial arts instructors around the world (including 3 Wing Chun schools that just weren’t cutting it), before I finally found Sifu Xuan tucked away in South East Asia. I was EXTREMELY lucky our paths crossed at all! At first I was not impressed. I expected a large school based on the profound teachings on his homemade website. But instead he chose to live humbly and not make a big deal of himself. He settled instead for hands-on quality instead of bigger classes. I could see the benefit in that, so, I put my prejudices aside … and found myself blown away. WHY? Well. many reasons, but what really got to me at first was that, at 60 years old, he was still training and fighting with his younger and stronger guys without breaking a sweat. It was stuff from the movies!!! I watched in awe as he LITERALLY: Dissolved attacks by sending force down his structure Delivered attacks by sending force UP his structure Fought blindfolded and knew our moves through touch Exploded with sharp, short and efficient power Controlled his opponent’s limbs and rendered them impotent Flowed from technique to technique seamlessly I almost couldn’t see what was happening! IT WAS LIKE FIGHTING RUBBER! Now, here I was ... a 2nd-Dan Blackbelt in Taekwondo; several tournament titles under my belt; learnt various martial arts since a child; almost 40 years younger, fitter, stronger, faster AND bigger than this guy. So, you can imagine I was eager to test him out this “kung fu master” myself and took him on in a sparring match. I found myself tangled up and on the floor in seconds! No matter how many times, no matter what attack I used, every attempt ended up the same. 15 years of my martial arts training was reduced to a puddle on the floor. What had I done wrong? How could this old geezer beat me no matter what I did? Noticing my puzzled look. Sifu explained that I had spent my life simply cramming techniques into a bag and dishing them out as I fought. As he received every one of my attacks and gave it back with interest It dawned on me that I had spent my life learning techniques that I had to recall rapidly one after the other, countering moves with different moves. But the problem with that approach is, there is a never-ending supply of moves! I was useless against someone who did not draw his attacks from set moves, but from adapting naturally; in other words … His whole body WAS the technique. Wingchun in its true form is a methodology that trains your body to fight instinctively and naturally based on the universal principles of combat. I had wasted my time by not training my body to adapt to ANY move or situation. All my other martial arts training had taught me simply the branches … but not the ROOTS. And that was just one of my problems. In several weeks of classes, I realised dozens of limitations of all the martial arts I had studied. Yep, I had been fooling myself all these years. Sifu Xuan’s teachings addressed the root of fighting itself. The universal physical laws of the world we live in. In fact I’ve applied his Kungfu to many aspects of my personal life with great results! I also realised I wasn’t alone in my admiration! Many others who had found him through the internet or head hunted him down knew his teachings were life changing stuff. A session with him was a mixture of Geometry, Physics, Biology and perhaps most heavily, his teachings drew from the ancient yet ever relevant battle strategies of the Great Generals: Sun Tzu’s Art of War and Miyamoto Musashi’s Book of 5 Rings. He showed me how the Wing Chun system had hidden concepts through its forms for your body structure to decipher. It was difficult for my ego to admit. but, it was powerful teachings that all my other teachers combined could not compare to.