Steve Smith

My name is Steve Smith, I do not know Steve Gray well almost not at all. I do have one memory of him demonstrating his Chi Gung form at a demonstration at Andy Dales. Fook was there and knew him. I asked about the form and why it was different he said everyone learned differently. I trained with Mr. Yueng for years privately and with Sensei Harris for years privately and in group classes. I have traveled many times and had hundreds of hours of conversation with my friend Jesse Glover, Ed Hart. I traveled with Sonny several times to Europe and trained with him in his home and here in Washington State. I was given permission to teach by each of these people their methods. I am not a leading authority on the method of Sonny Umpad for that I would refer you to his home students http://www.visayaneskrima.com/ they are compiling hundreds of hours of his videos and his notes etc into a cohesive package. I am excited to see the results.

I am blown away by the tone of this thread, none of the people that I have listed above would sign on for being represented in this way. Steve Gray did study with Master Yueng over a period of years I have no Idea how much he was taught many things he says here I recognize but I do not recognize the tone or the argumentative nature of it. When Mr. Yueng met other teachers most times he ended up holding hands and talking with them as to a long lost friend. He is a skilled person in Hei Gung (sp?), Gung Fu but never, Never, NEVER put himself over anyone or said he was more skilled etc. He is private rarely referring to Bruce Lee etc. He was a friend of Bruce's Father and took care of Bruce when he came to the states. Bruce though of him as an Uncle Figure and learned many things from him from 1959 to the mid 60's but always presented Yip Man as his primary teacher.

Jesse and I took Fook to the Bruce Lee convention in Seattle, and I held his hand as he morned the loss of his friend.

Fook said that discussing chi kung on the internet is a waste of time. I can see that if not careful we can deteriorate into a push and pull instead of a sharing of an art that Fook said was for healing. I asked him which method was the best energy method and gung fu method his reply was "All Same Nothing". Goes to the same place.

Cheers and good practice. I will vouch for Steve Gray to say he trained with Fook and I encourage him to remember it is "all for healing". Fook Yueng told me to lift others up so they can see farther from being around us than they could have on their own.

I have very much enjoyed getting all the PMs from so many people asking about my practice. I don't really have the time to write a lot of letters. Since some have asked me to write about it on the forum I decided to split this reply off of another thread.

No problem, all the above references are about Yueng Chuan, the martial art. Mr. Yueng taught me Tien Shan Chi Kung, not the kung fu. Those lists are all referring to the Yueng Chuan side, which is being popularized in a way, the Tien Shan side has always been secret, at least until I and a couple others learned it from Mr. Yueng.

 

Also, and important for you to consider is that most of those people you listed did NOT learn it from Mr. Yueng, they are students of Dave or Steve.

 

Also, my instruction wasn't private, there were normally two or three others in my class. Sometimes we would be there for more than four hours in his garage exercising, meditating, and talking about stuff.

 

Tien Shan has only had a small handful of practitioners throughout the world at any given time. Mr. Yueng created Yueng Chuan but he didn't create Tien Shan, which is over 1500 years old, he was inspired by it though in his creation of Yueng Chuan.

 

It's kind of hard to explain why Tien Shan has always been so small, look at it this way: How many people want to study an extremely deep and involved practice for the sake of becoming powerful? One must first become super healthy befor they can become powerful. So many people dropped out when the going got tough. The going gets very tough, it's not supposed to be easy, we want the weak and unethical to drop out! I would have dropped out myself, like many did, but I persevered because I knew I would never find such an advanced master.

 

The path of the sorcerer is the fastest spiritual path in my opinion, and that Way is littered with dropouts for all kinds of reason. My teacher says that those under forty aren't mature enough to do it, and it is evident that many over forty aren't healthy enough to really reap the benefits of power. The one that goes far is the one who can start young and tough out the hard spots. Those with ego which says they can do it and want to do it probably can't. It's the ones that don't know what they are getting in to that normally do the best. I had no idea what I was getting in to, not a clue. I didn't figure a lot of it out until after Mr. Yueng retired.

 

Dave and Andy and Steve Smith know me quite well and they can verify that I'm one of Mr. Yueng's Tien Shan students. In fact Andy wanted me to teach Tai Chi and Dave wants me to continue learning Yueng Chuan from him and I will be returning to him next week. BTW. Dave's classes are not open. Steve Smith isn't exactly my buddy so much because sometimes I would burst out laughing when Dave would make him fall down =) but I think we see eye to eye on most of it

Hello my name is Steve Smith, I am new to forums and not much of a writer. I am a student of David Harris, Fook Yueng, Jesse Glover, and others. I am a continual student. I am looking forward to learning from all of you here.