I don’t get out much. On the rare occasion that I meet people other than my current or soon-to-be students and the conversation naturally turns to what I do for a living, they often comment that; “You must be very disciplined”. Of course these are people who do not know me!
I dropped out of school at fifteen years of age, left home at sixteen, moved to New Zealand’s capital city of Wellington at seventeen and by nineteen years of age I was living in Australia. Much of this time, I lived a musician’s life of touring and playing in hotels throughout both countries. If you have never toured with a band as a teenager just take my word; discipline is not a feature of that lifestyle!
From the gateway drug of music I then advanced at the tender age of twenty-four to the hard stuff – Wing Chun. A friend took me along to a class and from day one I was hooked. I found myself thinking about Wing Chun constantly. By the time I reached twenty-eight years of age I was working as a full-time Wing Chun instructor to support my habit. As my addiction advanced I began travelling to Hong Kong three times per year to pick up a higher grade and more pure Wing Chun from a major distributor known as Chu Shong Tin. There was no turning back.
Now I am almost sixty years old and still doing Wing Chun for a living. What’s more my usage is higher than ever. I teach more than thirty hours of private lessons and then another ten or so hours of general classes at my school each week. Embarrassingly the little spare time I have is usually taken up playing Chi Sau with friends in my garage on the weekend.
This has affected the lives of the people I love. My wife knows me as a shadowy figure that arises from our bed at five-thirty each morning and plays guitar for an hour or so in the lounge room. (Yes, that addiction also remains). She hears the door close around seven am when I disappear to the garage to teach private lessons. Around lunch time I come inside for lunch and then I am off to my school to do more Wing Chun. The school closes at 9pm and I arrive home about 9:45pm, when I generally play guitar ruining any television program she may be watching.
Since 1984 I have introduced thousands of people to Wing Chun. About a dozen or more of these have gone on to open their own schools to support their habits. They now spread Wing Chun in several countries including Australia, Hong Kong and New Zealand. They all seem unable to kick the habit. Some have been as consumed as I have. (I am looking at you Nima King). Others keep things at a more normal level, but hardly anyone ever manages to give it up entirely.
You may expect the closer to this tale to be cautionary advice along the lines of “Stay away from Wing Chun kids”; however I prefer to once again quote the greatest Wing Chun addict of them all, Chu Shong Tin. When writing about his experience he said that: “Wing Chun has dominated my life, but I have no regrets!”….. I feel the same.
~ Mark Spence