Sifu Sergio: The Wing Chun Formulae — The Martial Man

[marvin8]

THE MARTIAL MAN
Published on Aug 5, 2018

An exclusive video interview with Sifu Sergio Iadarola discussing the finer details of Wing Chun and internal martial arts. To learn more about Sifu Sergio and the IWKA system please visit his official website http://www.wingtjun.com:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0nmfds0b7s

[Bao]

Interesting interview... I like the guy's enthusiasm. Just like the earlier interviews it seems like he believes that the ground is taken out of equation when issuing force. He also seem to believe that using the ground is too slow... There are a few things more I could comment on but I don't think I want to say much more... So I'll just leave it there...

[GrahamB]

Basic physics. Let’s leave magic behind.

Just watch from 26.00 - his supposed ‘highest internal level’ involves pushing his hips forward, leaning forward and using his shoulder? Then he says it’s "sinking the chi" and invisible? I'm pretty sure it's quite obvious what he's doing.

[GrahamB]

Bao - when he says ‘the ground is too slow’ he bends his knees and pushes up like a weight lifter as a demonstration. He just doesn’t know what he doesn’t know.

[Bao]

Bao - when he says ‘the ground is too slow’ he bends his knees and pushes up like a weight lifter as a demonstration. He just doesn’t know what he doesn’t know.

Yeah....

26 minutes in the vid he says "I just sink inside" and what he does is that he leans his whole body forward.

Yes, he tries to make a case for what he believe he knows or what he think he does. And loudly so.

...In China they have an expression similar to "empty barrels": A full bottle of vinegar does not make any sound. A bottle filled up a quarter or to a third or makes a lot of sound.

I know nothing about WC, so I can't judge about what he claim about his WC.
... But...
...If I demonstrated Tai Chi, I wouldn't bring up a lot of WC stuff, or things from other styles, and claim that I know what they did and how we do things differently. As I haven't practiced WC and know next to nothing it would make no sense at all.

/David

[GrahamB]

Presumably, as head of a large organisation he has thousands of students, a healthy revenue stream, commands big fees, etc...

The problem is, once you are THAT GUY, you can never be wrong about anything, as it's a threat to your reputation and hence income stream. If you notice, other name teachers in similar positions never criticise each other. If one falls, they all fall. They stick together in a big club.

But with this video he completely gives himself away about what he knows/doesn't know.

But, there are lots of positives about him at the same time - he's clearly realised that if you stay in one system you can't see the whole of Chinese Martial Art. There are clearly connections between all the arts on a body method level. He's done research on his own system and other systems and realised that there's a bigger picture... and he's tried to introduce that into his teaching, but he's not got the basic understanding of jin right. But now how does he get it? He'd have to explain to his students how what he was teaching before isn't right... throw it all away... and how can he do that?

Being a 'teacher' really can become a trap. I have always made efforts to reject the pedestal as soon as I suspect somebody is trying to put me on it - lol. I am constantly discovering things I don't know, or I can't do, or thought I could do but can't. Let's just get the info out there and try our best not to mess it up for other people.

[Bao]

The problem is, once you are THAT GUY, you can never be wrong about anything, as it's a threat to your reputation and hence income stream. If you notice, other name teachers in similar positions never criticise each other. If one falls, they all fall. They stick together in a big club.

True...

I have nothing against that there are certain "clubs", but when everyone use the same jargongs and catch-words, there's something about the bonding that has gone wrong. IMO

But with this video he completely gives himself away about what he knows/doesn't know.

Yup.

There are clearly connections between all the arts on a body method level. He's done research on his own system and other systems and realised that there's a bigger picture... and he's tried to introduce that into his teaching, but he's not got the basic understanding of jin right. But now how does he get it? He'd have to explain to his students how what he was teaching before isn't right... throw it all away... and how can he do that?

I don't know, it seems confused IMO. Having a bigger picture is good I guess. But mostly, hw well you can do and understand things tend to come down to the details. If you cannot implement specific things properly and get the details clear, as well as to match them as pieces in the same puzzle, you will have a problem.

I saw a clip with him, WC sticky hands. In that clip he thought testing the other's centerline is ok by pushing and trapping the other person's balance. But they still stand in the front narrow WC stance. How can you learn to use and protect your own centerline like that, from that stance and when you can't turn your body around it? There's always a fine line between adapting something and to abandon something else. Sometimes you just can't have them both.

Let's just get the info out there and try our best not to mess it up for other people.

Amen to that.

IMO, for instruction speaking, it's better to completely leave out words like qi and jin, and be very honest about what you do and how. Doing, is what is important describing what you actually do and help people to understand how to do the same. The simpler the language a teacher can adapt, the easier for students to understand and do the same. IME.

[GrahamB]

I dunno - you could swap "jin" out for "ground force" and it would do just as well... but then, in this video Sergio shows what he thinks "force from the ground" means and it's not right, so it shows that even using English words doesn't guarantee anything.

Personally, having to put the work in to find out what is really meant by qi and jin I have found quite useful. I'm not sure I'd have put as much effort in to understand "ground force" because, in my ignorance, I would have assumed I knew what that meant.

[Bao]

"Ground force" still doesn't imply anything about "how." You can call what you do is "banana", it doesn't matter what you call something. But if you want to explain what you did as in a demonstration or in teaching then "jin", "ground force" or "banana" are equally bad. It won't help anyone to "do".

There are are a few different ways you can coordinate mechanics in order to bring strength from the ground. For teaching there are many ways to explain how to take strength from the ground depending on what mechanics you are focusing on. If you teach how to ground yourself and return incoming force, you can teach "ground force" by telling your student:

"open the gua to press down the feet in the ground" or
"feel the foot in the hand when you push" or
"sink into your legs and feet while you return the force" or
"coordinate the movement of the gua and legs, and angles of knee and foot together with the angle of the elbow and movement of the arm. " etc

It depends on what mechanics, what your student knows and what he needs to work on.

For demonstration, you don't need to go into details, you can just say what you do generally, "this is how I return incoming force" or just show and shut up. It's enough. Telling people that you use jin or qi is IMO mostly for vanity reasons. People just want to put up a show to look better than they are.

There are two kind of performers out there on the video tubes. Some of them just want to put on a show. In shows like magic, mind reading and similar put on, explanations and speech is usually only used for leading away attention and deception. The other type who feel the need to explain things wants confirmation because they actually lack confidence in their art and in their skill.

....

(...Damn, too much procrastination... Lunch time over, back to work... )

[C.J.W.]

Sifu Sergio is quite a character. He started out as a Leung Ting WC guy and, about 5 years ago, began advertising his version of "internal WC" while claiming it is how the art was originally practiced centuries ago. Oddly enough, the internal drills and applications he shows are pretty much identical to those found in Huang style Taiji as taught in Malaysia.

https://youtu.be/es13X4cIimI

[xian89]

Sergio studied with Wee-Kee Jin of the Huang system for a couple of years, hence the similarity C.J.W. noticed. He studied with Torben a couple of times before using him to get to Sam Tam who he studies with currently. Overall he seems to want to "claim" many teachers in order to sell his own product better, but I have doubts wheter he has really gone deep or actually been taught before moving on to the next thing.
Many of the things Sergio likes to say , "ground is too slow" for example, is just him parroting Sam Tam without having either the theoretical or, and more importantly, an embodied understanding of the words coming out of his mouth. So he easily seems foolish.

As others mention I think he has become trapped in "teacher"/guru mode, and does whatever he can to appear to be on top of things, know secret stuff etc afraid that he will lose students if he appears less than all-knowing and all-powerful. Not wanting himself to appear flawed in either character or skill, it looks even more silly when people with some skill (like here) can see that he is obviously lacking something in both. It probably holds him back from progressing further in his own development too - as Peter Ralston said: "I never learned something I already knew".

[Bao]

I've tried to find out exactly when the gent started practicing Tai Chi, but I cannot find an exact answer. It doesn't seem like many years ago. Maybe you xian89 know?

...I saw an interview with Ma Yueliang where he says "It took me ten years to discover my Qi, thirty years to be able to use it." Well... It gives you a bit perspective when you see more or less a beginner claiming that he knows how to "sink the qi" and use it...

[wiesiek]

haha,
I practice 30 years+, and still don`t use it .
I use my body to allow qi free flow, as much, as I can, instead.
So,
follow Ma - I need 10 years more, if I`m as dedicated as he was.

[xian89]

Bao: I believe he trained around 4 years with Wee-Kee Jin before switching to Sam Tam's system (through Torben), whom he has trained under for 3 years or so and visited around 4 times in that period.

Talk is cheap and unskilled students easily fooled. So when you have a big business to run, ain't nobody have time to appear to be a newbie. Fake it 'till you make it I guess.

[Bao]

Thanks, explains a lot. Wee-Kee Jin seems to be a friend to Sam Tam. Saw a vid with both of them together with Torben at Sam's place.