Following conversations with Jason Gowan - Head Coach of Applied Body Mechanics Ving Tsun/London on Sunday 24th April 2016 a decision was made that we sever our ties for the foreseeable future with training the ABMVT method by mutual agreement.
This is mainly due to a personal circumstances change on my part with less weekends being available for me for travel to London for my own training and development with the ABMVT method as well as a lack of finances to attend Training Camps around the country and abroad to fully absorb the system to the best of my ability.
I especially feel, as does Jason, that to really get to grips with the details in the content and develop the skills to a high enough confident level to allow me to effectively coach them and do the system true justice would require very regular attendance which is not at this time logistically possible as it was when we as a club began our ABMVT training 6 months ago.
The split is made with no hard feelings and I honestly cannot fault the support and friendship offered by both Jason, his London crew and Ernie Barrios (via online conversations explaining why their method is different to most Wing Chun/Ving Tsun and offering advice sometimes on a daily basis to assist with our transition)
It has been clear to me that ABMVT has taken a Wong Shun Leung Ving Tsun/Gary Lam Wing Chun base or engine and developed a very effective set of training methods to pass the skills on and has certainly been a positive experience for us all as a club to at least get a taste of where we can improve our Wing Chun approach and training but I will state here and now that I am not about to copy or replicate their training as this is not possible without a one to one feeling and exchange of skills.
I also admit that I found it hard to truly let go of 20 years of training and development in Wing Chun and retrain my ageing brain to adapt to a totally new way of training and thinking and I know many students did also, some to the point of ceasing training altogether.
I'm not one for politics or dwelling on the past, what is done is done and I'm thankful to all for supporting me on my continued journey and I encourage all students to build on what we have for the present and to develop your own Wing Chun and the future of our club, Next Level Wing Chun Academy.
