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Posted by Provakateur on 2/18/2003, 4:08 pm, in reply to "Re: even crappy Wing Chun is better than most everything else you will find" You are not going to get a serious answer out of Edward. See my posts in this forum a few months ago. I've looked into his wing chun experience and and Edward has had only a few seminars with Fong. If I have the information right he has had three one-week seminars in Arizona with Fong and four 2-3 day seminars there in Chicago. He spent most of his wing chun learning under a sifu named Antonio Kariotis outside of Chicago. Maybe about 7 years. Don't know why he doesn't like talking about his first sifu but there it is. I also found out something new since the last time I wrote. About a month ago I was corresponding with one of his classmates who attended with him a few years ago and come to find out that his First Windy City Seminar was done while he was at the Kariotis school and the seminar wasn't labelled Windy City seminar until about a few months after he left Sifu Kariotis sometime in 2000. Apparently, Edward took several students with him and since Sifu Kariotis had a small school anyway it hurt his business. He took his sifu's rice bowl away and then renamed the Fong seminar with his new school. Edward will rarely give you a straight answer. I had a friend who had a business meeting in Chicago and stop by and take a look at his "chi sao" sessions at his school. My friend said things were pretty bad. No contact is allowed. Chi sao is the only thing they do - nothing else. Edward many times loves showing off his skill with his students but when taking on a stranger with wing chun he doesn't do as well. They don't spar and Fong is practically a cult-like figure there. My friend got the distinct feeling that Edward thought his wing chun was the best and nobody outside of Fong and Master Ho really know about Wing Chun. In fact, according to him, nobdoby has the whole system but Fong and Master Ho and Edward believes that he is Fong's faithful student. Through others I found out he occassionally makes fun out of other martial arts. He's never fought with wing chun and he doesn't intend to prove himself. I don't think he takes challenge matches. He doesn't have the experience of using wing chun unders pressure. He mocks and belittles anyone that challenges him. Maybe somebody will take up the challenge? Your Friendly Provakateur
172.134.156.225
Mif and others,
