The new Tommy Carruthers training venue on London Road, Glasgow got off to a flying start with a two day seminar held by the man who was there when it all started- Ted Wong! This was to be Ted Wong’s 8^th seminar at Tommy’s club and I was lucky enough to receive an invitation to head down and take a few photos whilst I was there.   This was very rare privilege indeed! After all, not only was Bruce Lee's friend and training partner, Ted Wong in town- that would have been good enough. But also, as far as I’m aware this invitation made me the only person (post 2000) who has managed to get permission to go into the Tommy Carruthers martial arts club armed with a camera! So, needless to say I didn’t want to waste the opportunity and was delighted to head down. My top secret mission… to infiltrate the seminar disguised as a harmless web designer and  get as much info as I could about what was being taught… and then publish it on the web for the non-attending masses to consume!!!!

 

I have to stress, I’m no martial artist, but for the benefit of those who couldn’t make it along, I was determined to find out as much as I could and share my findings with the world. 

 

At the start of the seminar, the softly spoken Ted Wong admitted that he wasn’t as heavily into the philosophy side of things as Bruce Lee was. However, it also became clear early on that he had spent many decades of his life studying the mechanical and scientific principles behind Jeet Kune Do. He told the group that it had taken him 15 years to perfect the techniques of Jeet Kune Do and another 15 years to learn how to apply the techniques. He then said he was still learning and told us that he seems to learn something new from the students whenever he does a seminar. He also seemed to hint (I think) that too many Jeet Kune Do practitioners lacked a solid foundation and he likened that to trying to build a tall building without having a ground floor. He then talked about how the training of Jeet Kune Do should be cyclical in nature with the student focussing on the foundation at first then moving on to focus on more advanced techniques, then returning back to the foundation…and so on.

 

He then put a question to the group, “So, what is the foundation of Jeet Kune Do?” Interestingly, the very first student of Tommy’s to offer an answer turned out to be correct (surely an indication of how well trained the group were!). The answer, it turned out was “footwork, closely followed by stance”. Ted Wong then went on to explain the importance of good footwork in judging distance and closing the gap. He also explained to the group how Jeet Kune Do borrows many footwork principles from fencing and from western boxing. I recall him telling the group a story about how he once asked Bruce Lee’s daughter to have a look in her dad’s library to count how many books he had on the subjects of boxing and fencing. It turns out Bruce Lee had a whopping 67 books on fencing and 263 on the subject of western boxing (267 if you count second copies!). Interestingly, Bruce Lee had relatively few books on Karate of Kung Fu- so says Ted Wong.

 

Throughout his lecture Wong often returned to various fundamental laws of physics and mechanics to back up was he was saying. He went into the most precise details of what he believes makes for efficient footwork.  On more than one occasion I heard him talking about how force equals mass times acceleration and at one point he even quoted Newton’s Third Law of Physics to explain the benefits of punching with fists aligned vertically. This was truly a guy who was fanatical about scientific street fighting!

 

Now, those who weren’t at the seminar are going to hate me for this, but after about an hour and a half I sneaked out for a quick bite to eat thinking I probably wouldn’t miss much. I returned about 45 minutes later in time to hear Ted Wong saying, “So that’s the secret of how to generate massive power from a very short distance!” (ooops!)

 

I quickly turned my attention to my digital camera for a few moments- trying frantically to set it up- hoping the batteries wouldn’t run out on me! I didn’t want to blow this opportunity! Eventually, after I was set up I refocused my attention back on the seminar and what Ted Wong was saying. As I made my way through the crowd I got close enough to the action to catch Ted finishing off a sentence with, “…and that’s something you’ll never learn in any other martial art!” (D’oh!!!)

 

Anyway, that was pretty much how the first couple of hours of the seminar went and a very sneaky peak at the kind of things you would be likely learn (I think) if you ever managed to go check out a Ted Wong seminar for yourself.

 

Afterwards I tried to get some more inside info for you by asking Tommy Carruthers what was going to be taught on the Sunday. But unfortunately, Tommy’s answer proved to be as unrevealing as this report- “I haven’t got a clue. [points at Ted Wong] He’s the boss!”

 

MISSION: FAILED!

 

My thanks go to Ted Wong, Tommy Carruthers and indeed everyone at the seminar for allowing me to hang out with them on that very sunny and memorable Saturday afternoon!

-David