 At Art of One Dojo, we like to take a look at a lot of different martial arts. Not just their history, but often in the way that their practice and teaching is approached. Now Wing Chun is an art with a rich past and a diverse and sometimes divided community. So instead of doing just a single history episode, we are choosing to look at Wing Chun through different perspectives of practitioners in the hopes that little by little we can explore what the art has in common and leave all the politics outside. Today's guest is Sifu Bender, the founder of San Jose Wing Chun and the director of Bay Area Wing Chun Students' Association. He founded the association in 1968, but his journey into the art began in 1958 when he started training in Hong Kong. Sifu Bender gives us his rich history beginning at Yitman School and having Bruce Lee as a classmate and he provides a valuable perspective, taking the authentic teachings of Wing Chun and spending a lifetime teaching and adapting the art for his students. Can you tell us a little bit about your background? How did you get started with Wing Chun and who did you start training with? When I was in teenage at the time, I went to Catholic High School, which is St. Francis Xavier College in Hong Kong, Kowloon, 1956. And then like about 1958 at the time, a lot of my friends are very interested in martial arts. And the group of friends I hang around mostly are Wing Chun guys and then Bruce Lee on the same school too. In 1958, my friend went to Yitman School in Kowloon, the area to start. That was the December of 1958. I started over there. And during that time, I think the school fee was $15 a month. As a matter of fact, Yitman never taught that much. We just paid the school fee and then some of the seeing and then show us what to do and things like that. After the class, they all come to my house and then start working out on our self. I don't only train about three months. That's why I never dare to consider Yitman as my real teacher, even though I pay him. To me, the name does not mean anything. Who you really learn from is the real thing. I don't care. A lot of people never learn from him and they say, hey, he's my teacher. I'm not that type of guy. I left Hong Kong about April of 1959. And Bruce Lee at that time. And then he used to be my schoolmate in Hong Kong. So a lot of times after school, a lot of my friends came to my house. One day, Bruce Lee came to my house and then he told me that, hey, Ben, I'm going to USA pretty soon. I said, really? I get approved to USA too. So both of us are very happy to find out that we all go to USA. And then we exchange address. And we're also so excited. We're going to San Francisco. And then we exchange the address. And he stayed in the same street with me in San Francisco. So we both are very, very excited. And then he arrived later than I was because I took the plane. He took the boat. So when he and I get together at that time, he took me to his place. And then he showed me the Wing Chun. And then in Hong Kong, he was showing me some of the Wing Chun too and dancing, that kind of thing. And then my father, he was in Temple Forest. And then he wants me to go over there with him. I could go school over there. Then I took the train to Temple Forest. And then from then on, I lost contact with Bruce Lee in Temple Forest at that time. There were nobody doing any martial arts. All they do is karate. So I went high school in there. And then I have no friends and nobody to talk to. I was so boring. But every day, I spent time on the laundry in my small business. In the laundry room, I practiced myself with the first set and things like that. And then the street punch and others, whatever I know. And then by 1961, two years later, I flew back to San Francisco. And I go to City College at that time. I met somebody who was in Wing Chun too. And then accidentally, we were fooling around on the cafeteria, trying to grab something. And then I noticed, I could do this. And then he did the same thing. We both so happy. And then we started doing the Wing Chun together. I met another friend who is from St. Francis College to San Francisco too. And then he was in Wing Chun too. I started asking, hey, where did you learn from? How did you know this? Saying, oh, I learned from the guy in the main store, in the basement. He's doing Wing Chun. I said, really? So I went down to the basement in the main store, the bakery area. And then his name is Felix Ho. So both him and I are so happy to get together. So from then on, we both worked out in the basement. And then after a while, we were killing each other. I mean, sparring and all these things, when you were young. Then until 1968, one of my buddies introduced me, a guy called Kenneth Chung. Kenneth Chung, he just came from Hong Kong. And then he told me that he was in Liang Sheng lineage. Liang Sheng was the number one student of Yip Man. He's the top, top student of Yip Man. He learned from Liang Sheng directly. So when Kenneth Chung met me the second day, okay? So I brought him to see the Wing Chun friend and this and that. So when I was away, Kenneth asked me, hey, man, how about let's do something. So I do the cheese out with him. And then when I did, I tried my best. I cannot do anything. He was showing me back, you know, like a yo-yo, okay? So, you know, like I said, well, you know, that's it. So I'm going to learn from you. But at the same time, I brought about three or four guys, have an instant class for him in my garage. So from then on until, you know, like all the way until 1973. And then, you know, Shifu Ken went to Hong Kong. And then, hey, Ben, why don't you take over my place when I'm going to Hong Kong. So I took over San Jose. And then from then on, you know, every time when he come back from Hong Kong to San Jose, we always get together, you know, visit to work out Wing Chun, you know. Whatever he know what he experienced, he show it to me. Until, you know, until today, we still get together all the time. And today, I am 81. I'm 81-year-old. I'm still, you know, training people and still work out. That's my whole story about the Wing Chun, okay? So we live in a time where there's a lot of different lineages of Wing Chun. And sometimes people try to argue that one is better than another. Is lineage important? And how can a student educate themselves on choosing one over the other? I mean, at the beginning, when a group of people learn from Yip Man, Yip Man still have a hard time because, you know, Wing Chun style, you know, a lot of people are not, you know, don't have the patience. And Wing Chun is very boring, very painful at the beginning. So, you know, people, a lot of people quit. And then Liang Sheng always, you know, keep on maintaining, you know, try to find people to maintain the Wing Chun system, get it, carry on, you know. After Liang Sheng, you know, like, learned from Yip Man about seven years, I think. And then he, Liang Sheng and his buddy, Lok Yew, you know, is number one, number two student of Yip Man, you know. After so many years, they start go outside to teach. And then a bunch of people learn from Yip Man that time. So, you know, that's why, you know, like afterwards, you know, will be have so many so-called lineage, you know, people learn from Yip Man. But of course, you know, Yip Man have so many, many students, you know. You know, I don't, I think he only have a handful of among students that he consider, you know, is very suitable to teach. It's good enough to teach. But afterwards, everybody, you know, a little bit, you know, everybody claim, I learned from Yip Man, you know, one or two years, they start teaching about, because of, you know, the popularity of the market. Everybody start teaching Wing Chun now, you know, in, you know, China, in Hong Kong, everywhere. Even, you know, even in America, there are so many people teach Wing Chun. The main thing, you know, Yip Man really teach, you know, the old tradition way. You know, they don't, they don't only show the top student, you know, what to do and things like that. You know, for the young kid, they don't even care. But I think Wing Chun most important, you know, is the knowledge. And the secondly, is how dedicated you are. You have to be 100, you know, you know, percent, you know, you could eat the bitter, then you get the sweetness. That means you have to really train hard, you know. I mean, regardless who teach you, if you don't train, of course, you know, when somebody train you, the person have, they must have the knowledge. The guy have to be know what he's doing, know the Wing Chun concept, know the Wing Chun skill. And he is very honest to show you whatever he know. If the guy is not honest, you still don't learn anything, okay? Even though he's good. Or even martial art, not talking about just Wing Chun. You find a real good martial art teacher, and he show you the proper way, the correct way, plus you work hard all the way. You will be success. Otherwise, if the guy don't have knowledge, and then even he show you everything, you still learning a lot of garbage. Like you said, there are many lineage in there, you know, because of, you know, they want to be make a living. They want to be marketing this, marketing that, you know, everybody have different purposes. Some people just emphasize on MMA, I want to learn Wing Chun, I want to use Wing Chun a little bit, use MMA and then make a living. So many lineage, they have their own opinion. They have their own goal. Some people, oh, my goal is to make a lot of money. I don't care you learn or not. Or my goal is to make you become champion, MMA, whatever. You know, I mean, all different ways. I don't teach people to make a career out of it. I want my own goal. I want make people to dedicate, you know, to concentrate on the tradition way, and then to have a good way of life. One thing Wing Chun is about, you know, it's good for, you know, like it's good for health. And also Wing Chun is good for the thinking too. You know, people, you know, to make people alert, you know, about not just physically, alert into your mind, so you understand that Wing Chun, you know, is not just helping you physically, it's helping you mentally too. How do you treat people? So you said in the previous interview that when it comes to Wing Chun, simplicity is the key to brilliance. What does that mean? The Wing Chun, you know, all the movement we are doing, we eliminate all the fancy stuff. So, you know, like the whole thing is Wing Chun, we have only three sets, very simple, very direct. And all the Wing Chun movement is very logical. You know, I mean, I would say it's very scientific. You know, that's why, you know, Wing Chun, we do not emphasize on brutal forces. You know, we don't emphasize on very lifting and all those things. You know, we want to be relaxed. You know, Wing Chun, we always tell people, Wing Chun was invented by a woman. A woman's physical size, there's no way they are big as the guy. So that means in order for them to survive in fighting, they must be have a very relaxed, very good in position, you know, the accuracy, the position and simple. For real fight, there's no way you can fight the guy half hour with non-stopping. Two minutes is a lot already, you know. So that means, you got to be fast and quick and, you know, simple. You cannot be, you know, like jumping around, like all those who shooting, you know, I mean, looks so beautiful. Wing Chun never designed to show on the public. We don't have much of a performance, you know, on the stage. Because when we do the first set performance, all the martial art people, people, they will laugh at you. Can you, how can you fight like this? You know, they don't realize that, you know. Because the first set we're doing, nothing but stand still, the hand moves, that's all. So, you know, like Wing Chun, we never designed to show people. We designed to use it, that's it. That's why, you know, everything is so simple and direct. Can you tell us the importance of core structure and functional energy? Yeah, yeah, the structure, we have the stance. The way we are doing it, we always emphasize on the centerline. From here, all the way down. When we want to attack, it's the guy's centerline. And we also want to protect our own centerline. Number two, you know, we would not struggling with the person's energy. When the guys use a lot of force on me, I don't want to be rocking him so heavy, you know. I want to delete him, you know. But of course, you know, talking is easy. You know, doing it is hard, okay. But that's why Wing Chun, we have Chi Sao. Chi Sao, you know, is the kind of training, you know. It's two persons to work on our sensitivity and position. The Chi Sao is similar to the Tai Chi, okay. Tai Chi are pushing hand, but Chi Sao, the way we are doing it, we are like doing the defense and attacking at the same time. At the beginning, we want to get the position built up endurance and build up the coordination of the whole body. It's not just the upper energy. You know, 90% of the American people are upper heavy. But, you know, in Wing Chun, we want to balance the whole body. The Si Fu have to be able to, you know, spend X amount of time with the student by the hand and by working out together with technique. It's not just like killing yourself with no structure in there. Are there any ideas or principles in Wing Chun that work with other martial arts? So, if someone has experience in different art, what kind of compatibility is there with Wing Chun? Okay, you know, as far as I know, the people in other martial arts, they want to combine with Wing Chun, you know, that might help them a little bit on the fighting experience. You know, for my opinion, when you're in different style so many years, suddenly you come to learn this style, you may find yourself a lot of movement contradict to each other. So, it might not be benefit to you when you're in a critical movement at the time, you know, sparring and then, very normally, you go back to your old habit. It's a good idea to know a little bit. I mean, it depends on what the person wants. You know, even though I do not learn karate or do not learn Muay Thai or whatever, you know, I still open up my eyes. What is your favorite? What is the style to learn? What is the major thing? What is the specialty and how are they doing to keep myself and open mind about what other style would do? You know what I mean? What is the five element theory and how is it used in practice? Well, the five element is, you know, in Wing Chun is, you know, my head has to be up. When I fight with you, I will not put my head down, you know, like those boxing. They do this, you know, we don't do that. We want to be head up. My eye to look at your eye. I don't look at your, my eye do not look at your, your hand, do not look at your, your, your kicking. I focus to your eye contact because when I look at your eye, I could tell your whole body's vision. Okay. Number two, lower down my stance. You know, that means I will not be used upper energy. I lower down my stance and I squeeze my knee. Lower down my stance is the number two. Number three, I squeeze my knee, you know, squeeze my knee is we call Kim said when we squeeze the knee, that means I build up my knee energy, you know, because this the knee energy Wing Chun re-emphasized on the wrist, wrist energy, the elbow energy, and the knee energy. Okay. We don't, we don't use the head but that kind of thing. Okay. The power come from the ground, come from the ground, that means the power come from the knee stand up, then coming out from my hand to give it out, you know, that kind of thing. It's not from my shoulder. Wing Chun, we are not using the shoulder energy. And then elbows in, we, that means elbow in, that means we do not punch people this way. Not this way. We don't punch this way. You know, when I do the punch this time to the center, that means I'm blocking all your sense, your movement coming to my center already. Because I punch, I go to the center like this. So that means whatever your punch come to me, my elbow is blocking half of your movement already. Okay. This is the five elements. That's Mai Zhang. Mai Zhang is elbow in. Kim Son, that means I squeeze my knee. Lok Ma, that means I lower down my horse. Deng Tou, that means my head's up. Ting Yu, that means my back straight. I would not be leaning. I would not be backward like that, to make your whole body posture correctly. That's very important. So can you tell us a little bit about your school? How do you find a balance in preserving the core principles while teaching the student to adapt the art for themselves? A lot, whatever, the way I do, you know, my school is like this. I am very honest to the, to my student. I'm, I open up for all kinds of questions. Even I emphasize to people to ask me questions about anything. Martial arts, you know, anything about martial arts, Wing Chun movement, whatever, I would tell them, you know, why we do this, why we don't do this. And then I would give them the example and prove it to them. You know, suppose, oh, why I do this? You know, because I, because I say so, I don't say that. Because I say that and I, I'm going to prove it to you. Some seafood say, I tell you to do this because I say so. Why? No, why not? You don't trust me? They yell at the guy, you know. To me, it's not like that. I tell them why, because of this. Now your son Francis is a seafood as well, correct? Can you tell us about his teaching? And how is he carrying the art forward with his own influence? My family are rude. All my kids, they must learn Wing Chun regardless they like it or not. When they are 12 years old, okay. You know, I want to make them become more, you know, not afraid, but, you know, easily intimidated by other people, you know. And Francis, you know, is the person, you know, really trained a lot. You know, he woke up with a lot of in the, in the, in the class. And also Francis, he have a lot of patience, you know. He, he, I think he have a lot of patience and he explained really well. So he could carry on my Wing Chun is pretty good. What is your advice for somebody who's just starting Wing Chun? What are the first and most important things that they should focus on? The first, the people first learn Wing Chun. I want them to focus on the body, relax. But to me, Wing Chun is more, is very internally. Not like at the start, a lot of brutal forces, you know. We relax and we, we want to be, you know, humble. So what do you hope for the future of Wing Chun? Are there any changes or adaptations that you would like to see in the future? I hope everything will carry on Liang Xiang Wei to make the person to become Wing Chun. The movement become more effective. But in a deep man's place, the only do is on the Chi Xiao movement, they start hitting each other. That's it. But Liang Xiang have a system to train people how to apply on the Wing Chun movement adapted correctly into effectively. So I just want to thank you so much for your time today and giving us a look at your history in Wing Chun and the way you teach it and the important aspects of it and give us such great advice for all those out there who are looking at the art and want to start. So thank you so much for spending your time with us today. Yeah, and also want to let you, want to let you know too. A lot of people look for the, want to look for the to learn martial art, to look for the teacher. Do not just, you know, finally go to the, to the internet, go to the marketing, you know, to look for the name. But would be the best go to search, you know, the person's background. And then to go to the school to see how the teacher teach. The teacher have to have to not, number one, the final, the teacher have a lot of knowledge. Number two, the teacher is willing to teach honestly. It's not just for the money. It's very important. And also the teacher is spend the time on the student willing to, you know, to answer, you know, all kind of questions. All right, excellent advice sir. Thank you so much. Okay. A great big thank you to Sifu Bender for spending his time with us to give us a glimpse into his world of Wing Chun training. Also an extended thank you to Francis Der, Mark Leong and Rain for their help in providing footage and making this episode happen. And there's so much more to explore with this art and it's interesting to see the different points of views that we can appreciate without all the toxic debate that we often find in the martial arts. So we'd like to continue down this road of hearing from different teachers in the arts. So please let us know, you know, what you think down in the comments any questions, thoughts or experiences that you have to share. Please keep the discussion civil. We're all about growing, not trolling. Thank you so much for watching and we'll see you next time.