A Path of Mastery: Lessons On Wing Chun and Life from Sifu Francis Fong

Also by Jim Brault:

Lessons from the Masters: Seven Keys to Peak Performance and Inner Peace

The Winning Mind Set with co-author Kevin Seaman

© 2016 by Jim Brault

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, digital mechanical, recording, or any future technologies, developed or otherwise (except for reviews in the public press) without prior written permission of the publisher and author.

The information in this book is meant to supplement, not replace, proper martial arts training. Like any activity involving speed, balance and physical contact, the practice of martial arts poses some inherent risk. The authors and publisher advise readers to take full responsibility for their safety and know their limits. Before undertaking any activity described in this book, you are advised to consult with your medical doctor, and do not take risks beyond your level of experience, aptitude, training, and comfort level.

Printed in the United States of America.

Center Line Press

249 Totem Trail

Suite 30

Rochester, NY 14617

To order additional copies of A Path of Mastery or to find out more about our other products and services visit:  www.APathOfMastery.com

Editor: Abbie Saunders

First Edition

ISBN 978-0-9663482-2-4

Cover Illustration: Kevin Lee

Front and back cover design: Kevin Lee and Anna Fasolyak

To my wife, Jessie,

who lets me train as much as I want.

CONTENTS

Foreword by Guro Dan Inosanto

When the Student is Ready

part one – the lessons

Lesson 1       The Only Real Fight

Lesson 2       Be Your Best

Lesson 3       No One Can Give You What You Don’t Have

Lesson 4       Master Yourself

Lesson 5       Relax, Be Like A Kid

Lesson 6       Sink

Lesson 7       Don’t Resist, Redirect

Lesson 8       The Harder You Try, The Worse You Do

Lesson 9       Let Yourself Make Mistakes

Lesson 10      Learn From Anyone

Lesson 11      Constantly Evolve

Lesson 12      Buy Them A Present

Lesson 13      Use Your Imagination

Lesson 14      Don’t Chase, Don’t Be Greedy — Keep To Your Center

Lesson 15      Stay With What Comes

Lesson 16      Let Your Heart And Mind Open

Lesson 17      Accept

Lesson 18      Teach From The Heart

Lesson 19      Plant Seeds

Lesson 20      Look But Don’t See

Lesson 21      Cooperate, Don’t Compete

Lesson 22      Little By Little, Almost There

Lesson 23      You Are Your Best Teacher

Lesson 24      Visualize Where You Want To Go

Lesson 25      Control Your Mind, Control Your Body

Lesson 26      And 1 And 2 And 3

Lesson 27      Work On Your Foundation

Lesson 28      Left Side, Right Side

Lesson 29      Let Energy Flow Through You

The Wander Years

Look Who’s Here

Lesson 30      Repetition

Lesson 31      Be A Survivor

Lesson 32      Train Hard But Not Too Hard

Lesson 33      Question Everything

Lesson 34      Connect, Don’t Control

Lesson 35      Yin and Yang

Lesson 36      Be Humble

Lesson 37      Let Go

Lesson 38      Let Your Spirit Guide You

Lesson 39      Find Your Own Way

part two – the lessons revisited

About Sifu Francis Fong

About the Francis Fong Instructor Association (FFIA)

About the Author

Acknowledgements

Bibliography

FOREWORD

Sifu Francis Fong is without a doubt one of the most talented and multi-dimensional martial artists teaching today.

I have known Sifu Francis for over 35 years. He is constantly researching and growing in skill and knowledge. His creativity and ability to adapt his teaching to suit the needs of his students is a rare gift.

His accomplishments and achievements are many, and I stand in awe of his martial art and healing skills. But equally, or perhaps more importantly, Sifu Francis Fong is a great human being. His humility, kindness and loyalty to his students, friends and all who have a genuine interest in the arts is boundless. I consider myself very lucky to be his friend.

Dan Inosanto

Founder / Head Instructor

Inosanto Academy of Martial Arts

Marina Del Rey, California, USA

http://www.inosanto.com/

Sifu Francis Fong and Guro Dan Inosanto

WHEN THE STUDENT IS READY

Relax. Take your time.

It’s like he’s in my corner instead of my head. I hear his coaching as plain as day. Cantonese intonation flavors his delivery; his words are uttered in a combination of staccato bursts and elongated syllables.  Musical, on the cusp of hypnotic.

I exhale, allowing my shoulders drop. I sink my body down. Sensation guides my movements.

Are you sinking? Are you sure?

I picture the raised eyebrows and contagious grin that come right before he pushes me over to show I wasn’t as rooted as I thought.

Then the deep belly laugh.

I smile and laugh too. Then I really sink. 

Listen. Are you really listening?

It’s not only when I’m training. I’ll often hear his voice when I’m with someone and my mind is drifting to my to-do list, a pressing problem, or extraneous circumstance.  I remind myself to be present.

There’s an old saying: when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

On a muggy summer day in 1991, my teacher appeared. Most who meet him quickly realize that he does not simply teach martial arts. Rather, he teaches through martial arts masterfully guided lessons of far greater worth. Like finding gold amongst ordinary river stones, his students discover valuable lessons on perseverance, focus, patience, sensitivity and compassion. While teaching students to harness the staggering power of their body and mind, he shows them the even greater power of love.

Primarily his course of study was instruction in a lethal street survival system — Wing Chun Kung Fu.  Interwoven throughout was something I longed for, but hadn’t expected, especially coming from a person who fought in the streets of Hong Kong and New York and who trains Fort Benning Army Rangers and SWAT Teams to take care of business.

It was a series of principles for a way to live that would take years to learn, decades to fully grasp, and a lifetime to master. 

An art is different than a physical workout. Art is never done.

When will you be done? When you are in your coffin; then you’ll be done. 

That’s why not many people really want to learn the art.

Mastering an art is about mastering yourself.

It was a path of mastery.

A path richly populated with lessons.

Lessons on how to live more honestly and openly, how to honor the greatness in others and ourselves, and how to be patient with our weaknesses. 

Lessons on how to be in harmony with nature’s song, a melody that is easy to perceive but even easier to overlook. 

Lessons on acceptance, on the importance of remaining humble, and of the importance of giving generously with no expectation of anything in return. 

Lessons on how to live a life based on your true nature and priorities, the criticality of finding your own path, how to harness the incredible power of your mind and body, stressing all the while that real power comes from your heart. 

You want to be powerful?  The real power comes from love.

At times, his teaching was delivered with explosive and forceful impact, knowing that the only way for me to understand was through unmediated experience. 

At times, it came through relentless repetition, knowing that until I could stop thinking and analyzing, I would never respond naturally.

At times, it came through a nod or word of encouragement, the timing of which boosted my confidence and fueled my desire to persevere. 

At times, it came through penetrating observations: always accurate and volunteered with complete clarity. 

At times, it came through honest and heartfelt conversation lasting late into the night. 

If I can train your body, I can open your mind.

If I can open your mind, I can open your heart. 

Everybody wants results right away. 

But until you work on your heart and soul, it is nothing. 

It’s only surface.

This man, this teacher, is Francis Fong, but everyone calls him Sifu. 

Sifu means both father and teacher. 

You have to love your student like you would your own son or daughter.

From the beginning of my training with Sifu, I took copious notes. At first they consisted mostly of drawings and points about techniques and training approaches for Wing Chun. But over time, I began capturing principles that expanded beyond specific techniques — lessons which could be applied beyond martial arts to both personal and professional realms. 

Use your training to improve your life.

Here, I share my stories and experiences with you as context for the lessons. You won’t learn from my shining examples of consistently applying his wisdom; more often than not I have struggled in my attempts to implement Sifu’s sage advice.

For a time, I stopped my martial arts training altogether, substituting it with workouts that did wonders for my physique, but little else. For longer than I care to admit, I wasn’t ready to work on my heart and spirit and because of that my results were, as he predicted, only on the surface. Even though I had achieved much in many areas of my life, my accomplishments rang hollow. 

Accomplishments are good.

But if you aren’t at peace with yourself,

what does it really matter?

I hadn’t come close to mastering either the art or myself.

At one point, though, I finally grasped the value of the path he first revealed to me on that summer day in 1991. Little by little, over time, I began to apply these lessons more consistently to both my martial arts practice and to my life. With that practice and application, I experienced progress and a sense of inner peace in both realms. 

With practice and application, you will too.

Through this book, it is my hope that you become familiar with these ideas, embodying what makes sense for you in your own practice and life. While they are often simple, enormous depth lies beneath the surface. Take your time with each lesson, especially those that seem to speak to you more vibrantly. In Part 1 — The Lessons, I share each lesson as it was taught to me. In Part 2 – The Lessons Revisited, I return to the lessons and offer you further ways to embody them in your art and life.

The full essence of a person can never be fully captured in the pages of a book, much more so for a teacher and martial artist as multi-faceted and gifted as Sifu Francis Fong. Nevertheless, I trust that the pages that follow will provide you with a solid foundation from which to build a strong Wing Chun practice, and perhaps more importantly a more successful and happier life. Although we may all be on different paths, I believe we are all striving for the same destination. 

Jim Brault

Rochester, NY USA / Cambridge UK / August 2016

Yao Ying Yao Yi Gi Si Ga

Mo Fat Mo Sum Fong Wy Jun

Forms and preconceptions create a world of illusion.

Release the methods, respond naturally and spontaneously.

This is the only way to touch genuine reality.

part one – the lessons

LESSON 1

THE ONLY REAL FIGHT

Why bother spending years and years training in martial arts?

The answer is that even though you may never get into a fight,

you are always fighting yourself.

That’s the only real fight.

Self-defense is good. Being healthy is good, too.

But if you aren’t at peace with yourself, what does it really matter?

Use your training to help your life.

Take a right up there, Matt said, pointing to a black and white sign 100 yards in the distance. I navigated the turn and followed a two-lane road overlooking the 40 mile length of Cayuga Lake, one of the seven Finger Lakes in upstate New York’s wine region. The rolling hills, sandy soil and temperate climate were ideal for growing grapes. The shimmering mirage from the heat rising off the pavement ahead, however, made me wonder how the year’s crop would fare with the way the summer of 1991 had been shaping up. It was only mid-June, but by noon the temperature was expected to climb to over 90 degrees, which, with the humidity, felt even hotter.  Sweat trickled down my chest. I turned the fan to full blast. It had all the cooling effect of a blow dryer.

When I bought my car a year earlier I didn’t want to waste money on air conditioning. Actually, I didn’t want to waste money on a car at all, which is why I bought a Geo Metro. My wife, Jessie, couldn’t believe what I had done when I pulled into the driveway.

There are five people in this family, but you bought a car with four seat belts, two doors, no air conditioning, and an AM radio, she said, framed more as a statement than a question.

I don’t remember my reply, but that was the last time I bought a car without her.

In my defense, it wasn’t our only car. We also had a minivan. Besides, I think part of what influenced my purchase was genetic. Growing up I was the second of five kids, and until I was 17, we only had one car — a brown, Ford station wagon decked out with wood side-paneling (because no car is complete without wood on the exterior). My Dad made plenty of money as an executive at a Fortune 500 company, but being born at the tail end of the Great Depression in 1937, I guess he didn’t feel he could justify spending money on cars.

He finally relented and bought a used school-bus orange, two-door Vega. 

In fact, for a while, it was only a one-door vehicle. The driver’s side door hinges didn’t function fully or consistently (something you tend to expect from a hinge). They had rusted out and the door had a bad habit of falling off when opened. Instead of getting it repaired right away, my Dad tied a rope through the door and over the roof and back to secure it, rolling up the window to cinch it as tight as possible.  Since he couldn’t open his door, he had to climb over the stick shift, over the passenger seat, and get out of the passenger side door.

Mind you, he had a reserved parking spot with his name on the sign. 

At least both of the doors in my Metro worked, and it was silver. Come to think of it, what kind of car was Matt driving that made taking mine the better choice?

Matt Dorsey and I struck up a friendship when he attended one of the Unlimited Power weekend seminars I conducted as part of the Anthony Robbins franchise I owned at the time. Sensei Matt owned two Karate dojos. I had trained in Tae Kwon Do for eight years and was looking for something different. Well, truth be told, the instructor at the Tae Kwon Do dojang had forbidden me from sparring. He said I was too rough, that some of the students had complained.

Having wrestled in high school and college before moving on to full contact sparring, I probably trained with a level of intensity that was more than what the typical student bargained for. Actually it was a little more than I bargained for at times too, having been on the receiving end of a broken cheekbone, a few cracked ribs, and busted up fingers and toes.

Whatever. Tape it up and walk it off.

Soon after meeting Matt at the Unlimited Power weekend, I began training with him in stick fighting and later Karate. 

Sensei Matt frequently sponsored and attended training camps with instructors from many different styles. He was planning to attend the Northeastern Martial Arts Conference at Wells College and invited me along. The camp was hosted by Kevin Seaman and featured four instructors: Muay Thai boxing instructor Ajarn Surachai Chai Sirisute, who had a 63–0 professional record when he fought in Thailand; Guro Larry Hartsell, a former student of Bruce Lee who was teaching grappling; martial arts legend Guro Dan Inosanto, who was teaching the Filipino martial art of Kali/Escrima; and Sifu Francis Fong, considered by many to be one of the finest Wing Chun instructors in the U.S.A. 

We reached Wells College and registered. The conference was four days, but we had signed up only for the first day due to our busy schedules and prior commitments. 

The first session of the day was Muay Thai. I considered myself to be in pretty good shape and figured I’d handle it no problem. 

I was wrong. 

I completely soaked through two T-shirts and after the session felt like I had been in a fight and lost. Badly. 

My back and hamstrings felt like rocks. Donning my last dry T-shirt, I prepared for the Wing Chun session by stretching on the hardwood gym floor. While managing a feeble imitation of a split, I looked around at the 50-or-so other participants. There were a few Karate-ka there — all in their canvas gis (which produced wonderful snapping sound effects when they kicked or punched but which were painfully hot to wear). These were cinched tightly by belts — a few black, the rest brown and purple. One of the black belts was a woman with grey hair and spectacles who looked to be in her sixties.

The rest of the group was unbelted, dressed in sweatpants (a choice they were certainly regretting) or shorts, and tank tops or T-shirts. There was an entire group all wearing black sweatpants and black T-shirts or tanks, with shaved heads, goatees, and at least one visible tattoo — a few tribal bands, a dragon, and one guy who had a snarling leopard in full color leaping off the width of his back. I wondered if having a shaved head, facial hair and ink was a prerequisite for joining their school. I guess that ruled out most women.

A few minutes later, Francis Fong entered the gym. His jet-black hair was longer than in the brochure picture, falling almost to his shoulders. He was a couple inches taller than my 5’5", and dressed all in black—wrestling shoes, sweatpants, and a tank top which revealed sinewy arms, ropey with muscle like steel cable. 

He moved his compact frame from his center, easily and lightly, gliding across the floor. He was quick to smile as he shook hands with each and every person. Judging by the way he greeted others so warmly, I assumed he knew them from previous camps, but when he came to me he smiled as if we were old friends. Francis Fong, he said, extending his hand.

I was accustomed to a military style of martial arts instruction, one mandating the student bow first from a position of strict attention. I wasn’t sure quite what to do. In my confusion I half stood at attention, half bowed, and uttered something that contained the word sir. 

Call me Sifu, he said, patting my shoulder.

I shook his hand. A feeling like a mild electrical current raced up my right arm and coursed through my body. I didn’t know anything about qi at the time, but as we shook, an energy and calmness suffused me, as real as if I’d slipped into a warm bath. I felt myself leaning in slightly, being drawn in by a magnetic force at once both gentle and powerful.

Sifu Fong finished greeting each student individually then moved to the center of the