Update: March 16, 2020
This is "Steve Crider Wing Chun"...that is to say, I am teaching "WING CHUN" as I have come to understand it after 33 years of both formal and informal study of the art. I have had other brief encounters not named, which have influenced my ideas on the art including Seminars and personal private encounters. During my years of formal study, there was a 4 year period in which:
I trained 6 to 8 hours a day, every day, 5 to 6 days a week for 3 of those 4 years, with 4 hours a day 5 days a week (for 2 years) under supervised formal instruction, 2 hours each morning, and 2 hours each evening. For the first year of those 4 years, I trained 6 days a week under formal instruction. Then for all 4 years in that timeframe, I trained an additional 2 to 4 hours a day on my own, and the only reason I did not train 6 to 8 hours a day for all 4 years, was due the 2nd year, I was down for 9 months due a broken leg and following after... a knee surgery. Even in that second year, I trained 2 to 4 hours a day, with a broken leg, privately on my own. I threw over 1 million punches that year and counted each and every one, I have them logged on a daily basis into my personal notes and recorded so that I can tell you the exact number of punches I threw on any given day in that timeframe. When my instructor offered to let me come and watch classes while my leg was in recovery, for 6 months, I was there, EVERY CLASS...2 hours each morning, 2 hours each evening, 5 days a week...and I didn't bu****it. I took notes, I paid attention to every single thing that was taught, and everything that took place on the floor. I am one tough son of a B*tch, and I did not start out that way, I was made that way by my first instructor in the art who instilled into me a SPIRIT OF TENACITY that simply does not quit. I strive to learn at least one thing of value from everyone I come in contact with, and I have carried with me at least one thing of value from all my instructors in the art, and in some cases, MANY THINGS of Value. My wife, a public school teacher of over 20 years, with a Masters Degree in Secondary Education, has taught me that the goal of any good teacher, is two fold, firstly...not to give the student "ALL THE ANSWERS" but rather to give the student the tools to find "THE ANSWERS" for themselves, and in such, by empowering the student in this fashion, the ultimate goal of any good teacher is to create in their students, LIFE LONG LEARNERS! Long ago, I decided to commit my path in life to be a life long student in the art of Wing Chun Kung Fu. My goal in teaching, is also two fold, to instill the same love and passion for this great art I have, into the lives of others, and to illustrate that passion by example...noting I have been personally empowered by the ART OF WING CHUN KUNG FU, and by my many teachers, peers and the practitioners I have met in the same over the years. I have heard numerous meanings as to the actual definition of the name "WING CHUN"...my favorite by far, remains that which I was first taught to be the meaning of the name, and that thing by very definition which the art has always meant to me, the very thing I long to most accomplish by teaching, is to impart to others...
"HOPE FOR THE FUTURE".
-Sifu Steve Crider Benjamin
