Dean Chin's Jow Ga Kung Fu Federation

This weekend I had a very long conversation with my younger Kung Fu brother, whom I will not name unless he gives me permission to do so. Despite talking for more than 3 hours, there were many topics we must finish discussing–and trust me, we covered a lot.

In the course of our lengthy discussion, he declared an admiration for my generation and our commitment to excellence and preservation of our skills. I have noticed a difference between our generation and not just his generation of Jow Ga men–but his generation of Kung Fu men in general.

And before feelings get hurt, please do not take offense to anything I may state in this article. My intentions are pure and nonjudgmental. They are only observations and opinions, although I do often state my opinions as fact. I think after four decades of practicing, applying, and teaching the art, anyone with opinion deserves the right to make such declarations. To keep it simple, we will make a bulleted list of points.

• My generation was the tail end of the generation of fanatics, from the. 70s into the 80s. We are the guys who slept, drink and ate Kung Fu. We had few distractions, and were naiive enough to think that we could live a life of not much more than practicing martial arts and dying. Today’s martial artist is preoccupied with social media, image, current fads, chasing celebrity teachers, pursuing add-on arts through self study and seminar, political connections, etc. My generation only trained and fought.
• Blame that first point on the economy or whatever, but there were many of us who were able to do that for years. I recall students coming to the Kung Fu school during the summer and working out from early in the morning until classes began in the evening. Weekends all year long were spent that way, taking a break for lunch and Black Belt Theater. Today’s martial arts student trains in a business. Some of our Sifus lived in our schools, or close by. Today’s Sifu commutes to the school like he’s going to the office. So sleepovers in the Kwoon? Eating and napping in the Kwoon? Inviting guys from other schools over for an impromtu fight night? In your dreams, buddy. Now get out, I have an intro coming in ten minutes…
• Today’s students know too much for their britches. They read websites and books and will create their own arts in their backyards and garages. They go online to these discussion forums on Facebook and get advice from other pencil-necks like “Go check him him out and see if his Tong Long is legit”. Right, so you, a beginner, are qualified to look at a master’s Kung Fu and determine if he is skilled or knowledgeable–but you want to sign up for lessons? Laughable. And I see these discussions every day
• My generation’s students usually only learned from one teacher all the way through to instructorship. This may not sound like much to a guy who is used to seeing “experts” with a 10-artlong resume, but compare a guy who trained with his Sifu for several hours a day, every day, for 7, 8 years vs a guy who flew to Hong Kong once a year or did 3 seminars with a well known master like Chiu Chi Ling and now he’s claiming the Tailor as his Hung Gar Sifu. There is no comparison, and we won’t even bother having a debate about it
• The Kung Fu student of yesteryear often was encouraged to seek out non-TCMA styles to prove our effectiveness and build our school’s reputation. Today’s student goes to Chinese only tournaments, fights in a division with often 5 or 10 (I’ve been to tournaments with fewer) competitors and walks out claiming to be a “National Champion”. I know guys touted as National Champions with fewer than 20 fights total. At the same time, I and some of my brothers have several hundred fights in our careers
• While many genres of martial arts have evolved to fit the times, there is a trend today to keep the Chinese arts ancient. This desire to remain authentic has resulted in the Chinese martial arts (again) become stagnant, irrelevent relics. Several classic TCMA texts written a hundred years ago chastized Kung Fu practitioners against this. The most famous TCMA school in recent times, Jing Wu, was founded on staying relevant. They skipped rope, practiced western boxing, wore military outfits and trained in track suits, and distinguished between modern self defense and classical martial arts theory. Today’s Sifu runs around in robes and puts more effort into learning Cantonese terms than he does testing his art against non-TCMA. Students who follow such leadership will lose what I call the “Killer Factor”. The type of student who is concerned with anything other than the Killer Factor will be one who trains casually. And herein lies the difference…

And we arrive at the point of this article. The Killer Factor. What is it?

The Killer Factor is a part of the Chinese martial arts that very few school have. It is a combination of identifying what techniques are most destructive, how to stop the most destructive techniques, how to develop the most destructive skills, putting those skills to the test against unfriendly opponents, and developing hands and feet that can actually do the damage you want done. Guys with the Killer Factor can break boards, cinder blocks, and bricks. Today’s Kung Fu guys say stuff like “hand conditioning gives you joint problems” and “boards don’t hit back”…

A martial arts school stuck on aesthetics will never reach the point that their students learn to kill a man–or how to stop a man from killing him. Most martial artists I’ve met aren’t even comfortable discussing this subject. I had a feud a few years back with a martial artist in Tennessee, who threatened to kick my ass. My cousin answered the message and offered to fight him in my place, since he lived in Tennessee. After no response, my cousin went to the school and the police were called on him. His dojo brothers on the West Coast offered to do the same–fight me by proxy–and I was asked to leave the community center they were teaching in when I went to accept the offer. This is the state of today’s martial artist. No Killer Factor. Hell, these guys don’t even have the Bloody Nose Factor. You see although we were around the same age, this was a clash of old school versus new school; those guys talked about it, but my cousin and I lived it. As outdated as that may sound, there are very few martial artists in the new generation who can walk as warriors. They prefer to use the rhetoric.

And the easiest part of the Killer Factor is something that most martial artists lack the stomach to do:  To spend entire days training; to practice hand conditioning for 20-30 minutes a day religiously, to perform thousands of repetitions of strikes and blocks and kicks every week, possibly every *weekend*, to develop a hard body, a stone level of courage, and enough humility to put one’s reputation on the line on a regular basis. My Kung Fu brother was advised not to fight in tournaments in case he lost because he had students. My brothers in my generations would go and win some, but even better–lose some every month, and still go back to fight the following month.

And 30 years later, many of us have kept our skills while others have deteriorated by the age of 31. Picture a trained killer and how he might treat his martial arts skills. Compare it to how you train. Now modify how you approach the martial arts until you are doing what you’d imagine a trained killer does. It’s nothing more than philosophy, and it’s that simple.

Say no to costumes and affiliations and long resumes, and say yes only to the effort to become dominant and unbeatable. Good luck. Thank you for visiting the DC Jow Ga Federation.