Nino bernardo

My journey in Wing Chun

By Nino Bernardo

My first experience with wing chun came when I was a teenager in Hong Kong. At 16, I practiced boxing with a Chinese coach. He showed us some counter-attacking moves, which years later I learnt came from wing chun.

When I found this out, I was a young musician playing at the Sheraton Hotel. It was the early 1970s. The maitre d' at the hotel´s restaurant at the time was an Italo-Belgian man whose hobby was running marathons. He used to go to the Po Lin Buddhist temple on Lan Tao island, where an old monk would help him with energy preservation techniques, or chi kung for marathon runners.

Although I was a little bit sceptical, I asked the maitre d' if he could ask the monk to recommend a wing chun teacher. He came back with Wong Shun Leung´s name written on a piece of paper. I put it in my trouser pocket and forgot about it.

Some time passed and eventually a fellow musician told me about a bone doctor at the Grenville Road market, who also taught wing chun. We decided to go and have a look. On the door was a brass plaque, which read: “Wing Chun Athletic Association, Wong Shun Leung.” I went and found my old trousers and dug out the piece of paper. It was the same name.

Of course, after that I didn´t need any further encouragement. It seemed to me that I was getting enough messages to check this guy out. I went back to the kwoon and went in. I can remember two people in the hall, with their arms interlocked and twisting. I asked them if their Sifu (teacher) was there. One of them shouted out “Sifu” and this small man in tracksuit bottoms and a sleeveless vest came out. He had a paunch belly and was smoking an unfiltered cigarette.

We had a short chat. He asked me for my ID card and two photos and implied that he would check with a contact in the police whether or not I had a criminal record.

At the time, I had no idea that this was the legendary “talking hands Wong,” who had won so many challenge fights. All I knew was that an old monk on Lan Tao island had recommended him. As I began training, what really blew me away was the way that my Sifu explained geometrical angles and tactics.

Over the next few years, I trained with my Sifu nearly every day and often up to seven hours a day. I also became friends with him and would sometimes go for a meal or a drink with him when we weren´t training.

Eventually, I was to become one of only a handful of students who completed the whole system with him. I can still remember the way that he carefully introduced each stage of the system in chronological order. As a teacher, I have tried to remember the system in the same order and present it to my students in the same way, first at the Basement in London and now at the Ibiza Kwoon.

One of the risks of the old way of doing things, passing knowledge down from generation to generation by word of mouth, is that it´s possible that mistakes can creep in. What would happen if I misunderstood the chronology myself? What if my Sifu had himself got the order wrong? Or one of the older generation had muddled things up?

Unfortunately, I have no answers for these questions. I can only test my memories and study the reaction of my own students to make sure that I´m not distorting the system.