Grandmaster Tse’s Wing Chun Note 427

Studying with Sīfú 師父 – Part 14

One day Sīfú 師父 told seven or eight of us that we would be having a special night, though he had already told me before. Most of us came and we learnt that the special night was going to watch an 8mm film of our Sīgōng Ip Man 葉問師公 doing forms and the Wooden Dummy! We were all excited because we had not seen it! Remember in the 80’s there was not internet, no smart phones, and ordinary people did not have mobile phones.

On the arranged night we all gathered at Sīfú’s home. He had prepared an 8mm projector, though I believe someone else set it up for him as I know he is not good at things like that. He is a scholar and he likes poetry, history, music and reading. He does not even like Kung Fu and he tells everyone that it is because he is the son of Ip Man that he chose teaching Wing Chun as his career, so he needed to be good.

He turned the lights off and turned on the projector. We were so excited when the film started! I had never seen my Sīgōng’s movements and demonstration. In the film, Sīgōng was very skinny and we knew he was very ill, but even so, underneath we could see that he had power. He actually passed away a week after filming himself.