SIFU CLIFF AU YEUNG BEGAN HIS WING CHUN TRAINING UNDER THE LATE SIFU WONG SHUN LEUNG IN 1981. HE TRAVELLED WITH SIFU WONG TO SEMINARS IN EUROPE TWICE, IN 1990 AND 1992, AND WAS ONE OF SIFU WONG’S CHIEF INTERPRETERS IN DELIVERING HIS COMBAT THEORY AND PHILOSOPHY TO FOREIGN STUDENTS. SIFU CLIFF IS THE PRINCIPLE INSTRUCTOR AT THE VING TSUN MARTIAL ARTS INSTITUTE IN HONG KONG.
Has your vision of Wing Chun changed since you started teaching?
Of course! I only understood what Wing Chun really was about when I started teaching. I thought about what teaching is, what movement is, what my own feelings within is. To find the right way, I studied science, physics and biomechanics to change my Gung Fu into a more understandable, modern approach. Nowadays, many people only try to use brute force, but if you felt Chi Sau with those great masters, such as Wong Shun Leung and Ip Man, they were so soft, like leather on your arms. That fascinated me, and I tried to reproduce that feeling using scientific explanations.