Interviewer: Sifu, thank you for agreeing to talk with us on the topic of quality. May we begin by asking you how you would describe this?
Sifu Zopa: Sure. Quality is one of those features that people “know when they see it” but which is difficult to articulate, to define and, for some people, to discern. I think though, overall, if anyone saw a champion gymnast or world class ballet dancer perform or say, a Cirque du Soleil acrobat perform they would agree that they were seeing quality. The Japanese have a word for a performance that is superior, approaching perfection – “yugen”. It conveys it beautifully once you are able to enter a Japanese mindset. “A “quality” can also actually be an essential or distinctive feature of something. In this respect we can say that there are “qualities” that go to constitute a thing. With respect to this meaning, “quality” would be the qualities of gung fu. However, this is not what we mean by “quality” when it is employed in a phrase like “quality practice”, “quality training” or “quality performance”. In this instance it is descriptive. It refers to a grade of excellence or superiority. So, I would define “quality” as “of a high standard, approaching perfection or an ideal, with few, if any discernible flaws”.
Interviewer: So when we hear you say “I want quality not quantity”, you are referring to a degree of excellence, sifu?
Sifu Zopa: Yes. To my mind we must logically perform our art to the best of our ability. Not only this, we must abide by the standards for structures for techniques, applications, movement that our ancestors passed down to us. We have to focus our mind. Otherwise we alter the art, we water it down. If several successive generations do this then the art will degenerate. As indeed I think it has in some lineages! Yes, quality not quantity is a phrase I use to deter my students from thinking it is useful to train large numbers of repetitions of techniques or to strive overly physically. Anyone who says to me they do “hundreds of … (a given technique)” or that they do Siu Lien Tau for a long period of time doesn’t impress. I need to see the quality. They might be training very hard to reinforce flaws! Most people, in fact, at least most of those I’ve seen, training Wing Chun are doing exactly that. There is a point of diminishing returns when a practitioner performs so many repetitions or trains for so long that they are training errors. Enough is enough!
Interviewer: So it is important to invest our art with quality for two reasons, sifu? Personal excellence and the preservation of the art?
Sifu Zopa: Yes, indeed! Well put! Yes, you see you may not intend teaching, passing down the art when you are learning it but years, perhaps decades, later circumstances may cast you in the role of a sifu (given you have completed the training, of course). Actually, I myself had at one point decided not to teach outside my biological family anymore. But circumstances changed and here we are! Then if you were cast into a sifu role, I’d really like it if you taught with the same precision and emphasis on quality that I’ve displayed in teaching you and my other students. (Laughs)
Interviewer: You mentioned training with an emphasis simply on quantity or duration of effort, with respect to quality, sifu, can you expand a little on your observations of Wing Chun overall, worldwide these days?
Sifu Zopa: Phew! Of course others can argue this is only my opinion. OK, but I happen to know it is very similar to that which was held by Sum Num. Well, I think any sifu trained in my era would likely be a traditional thinker in many respects. This would imply we wouldn’t be very enthusiastic about a great deal of modern Wing Chun. Of course there were always a few different spin-off lineages going back into past generations. Some of these are ancestors to some of today’s “big names” so I’m not going to name them in this forum. These spin-off lineages had and have different standards, not the same quality I would insist on in my students. One well known example of variation in quality amongst modern Wing Chun is the Yip Man lineage – in which I spent twenty five years training. Because Yip Man was by all accounts a poor and disinterested teacher yet taught so many young fellows who did not finish their training as his few seniors did and left Hong Kong and taught Wing Chun that line has a great deal of variation in it. Also it has a great variation in quality. Then there have been lineages devised since (with fanciful “histories” to market them). These guys maintain they derive from prior figures in Wing Chun. Some actually existed and others are fanciful. These are invariably not high quality lineages. Overall, I’d have to say there is far more poor quality Wing Chun around than high quality. I think many legitimate higher level Wing Chun practitioners from a few lineages would think this is the case. The sad thing is that the proverbial “man on the street” and poor students know no better. Most are brainwashed into supporting their school early on and thus even if they see differences in quality, they are attributed to “we’re right, they’re wrong”. Overall, there are a few good practitioners, there are few good gwoons but there are far more mediocre ones and many, many poor quality ones.
Interviewer: What of our Wing Chun, sifu? Yuen Kay San and Ku Lo Pin Sun? Is there much variation there?
Sifu Zopa: Honestly but sadly I have to say there is! Ku Lo is fairly rare anyway. It is even rarer than Yuen Kay San Wing Chun. So, it is difficult for most people to see any of it. With respect to Ku Lo Pin Sun there are several branches. Yet only the Fung family have the authentic art from Leung Jan. The rest I’ve seen is of a poor quality or mixed with a lot more Hong Kong Wing Chun than Ku Lo. Some versions even include bits of other arts. I haven’t seen any of them that have impressed me I’m afraid! Some I have seen done with a Yip Man flavour – utterly incorrect. Many would think they both come from the same root but this is a very partial knowledge of the actual history! This is because Yip Man’s Wing Chun comes from the art which Leung Jan taught Chan Wah Sun and Yip’s teacher, Ng Chung So. That art was not actually Leung Jan’s art. The Yip Man people tell a version of this story – the Leung Bik myth - but there is another, in my view far more credible, with a different rationale attributed to Leung Jan – avoiding blackmail threats by Chan to bankrupt Leung Jan’s other students if he did not teach him Wing Chun. So, Leung Jan, unbeknown to Chan, taught him a different thing. With respect to Yuen Kay San Wing Chun, yes, there is variation there too in how much quality an individual sifu insists on. Quality is elusive! I guess it must relate to how serious the sifu is about wanting to produce high quality successors versus simply earning money from teaching Wing Chun.
Interviewer: What is the key factor in quality, sifu?
Sifu Zopa: I think it is by reference to my concept of “reference”. It’s what you compare your performance to. It’s what yardstick you use. With respect to Yuen Kay San Wing Chun, if I reference my performance against any of the Wing Chun sifus I see in commonly available Wing Chun books or DVDs rather than against Sum Num I would be aiming for a lower standard of quality, see? Some are laughable, some are lousy, most are average, some few are good but there are none I’d think of as excellent. You have to have a clear mental picture of what you want to look like, what outcome you anticipate. There is no point in aiming for a lesser standard than the best you’ve experienced. But, aha! Here lies the rub! Students of “Grand poobah X” or “Great-great-great grandpoobah Y” think that he is the “best”. Well, he may be the best they’ve seen. Or, more likely, they are brainwashed to believe he is the best. But that doesn’t mean he’s the best! I’ve seen lots of guys who happily call themselves, and encourage their students and the martial arts media to call them, “master”; “grandmaster”; “great grandmaster” etc. Yet they’re not very impressive either in their performance of their art, their personality, or their social skills! They may be rich, they may be famous, people may fawn on them, the sensation hungry martial arts media may beat a path to their doors – but that is not enough! In fact, that’s nothing! It’s worse than nothing because it reinforces their delusion! (Laughs) In the still of the night, they themselves know! Well, on second thoughts, maybe some of them have lied so much they believe their own myths! Sad! They look in the mirror and see Leung Jan looking back! (Laughs again).
Interviewer: Thank you, sifu, for an interesting interview.
Sifu Zopa: Thanks for some quality questions! (Laughs)