Allan Lawson's Fighting Arts, LLC
Kung Fu San Soo, Jeet Kune Do, Escrima, a Synopsis - Allan Lawson's Fighting Arts, LLC - Arizona
Kung Fu San Soo
originated through a blending
of five previously existing fighting systems and has evolved into the
most complete and devastating fighting art on earth. It includes
striking, leverage, throws and ground techniques. Changing times have
not made it the least bit obsolete.
Human anatomy and the laws of physics
remain unchanged.
While we have trained and
continue to train in more than
one style and
are always seeking insights to improve our understanding of this
particular art, we are not diluting it by combination with any other
arts or styles.
San Soo is taught in it's
pure form at this school, at it's own
class
time, exactly as it was taught to us. We follow a tradition beginning
some 4,000 years ago in China when Chuan Fa first began to be
devised and organized, and continuing through centuries of elaboration
and refinement. Kung Fu San Soo is a treasure, once guarded and
shielded from all but a few, now hidden in plain sight where most will
pass it by, failing to recognize it's true value as both a means of
protection and a vehicle for personal growth and understanding.
Master Al Rubin
demonstrating San Soo with Master Scott Leitch as assistant circa 1983.
San Soo In America: The Early Days
Jimmy H. Woo China Town Kung Fu San Soo: Part1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4
Real San Soo?
For many years now I have seen writings by first generation Kung Fu San Soo students of Jimmy H. Woo complaining that many of today's instructors are not teaching a pure form of Kung Fu San Soo. I couldn't understand their animosity towards studying other arts.
After all, should I pretend that I didn't learn anything in my 20 years in the arts before I first encountered Kung Fu San Soo? Is it not possible that an understanding of other arts could bring a greater understanding of San Soo also? Could it be that seeing things from another perspective or angle will reveal some more dimensions of the picture not previously visible from a single perspective? Will not an understanding of other arts aid during a confrontation with practitioners of those arts?
While I agreed that blending different arts together tends to dilute their strengths and diminishes the diversity of alternatives you have available to you, the whole thing was a mystery to me.
Jimmy H. Woo had once said that if anyone tells you that something you are doing is not Kung Fu San Soo, ask him, "How do you know"? He said that it would take 5 lifetimes to learn what was in the 2 books he possessed. There were originally 5 books.
The way I saw it, there was only one fighting art and all the styles knew and had their own greater or lesser understanding of a segment of the whole spectrum.
Over time, however, as I watched students with previous Kung Fu San Soo training coming to my school, not fitting in and leaving again, I came to understand what all the consternation was about. Learn what is in front of you before running off looking for something new or you will never be any good at anything!
It became apparent to me that while these students were busy studying Muay Thai, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Tai Chi they had no knowledge of half of the San Soo fundamentals that Jimmy had taught. They, or their teachers had integrated other techniques, in a disjointed sort of way, but had thrown away and lost something better, the essence of Kung Fu San Soo.
Many with advanced rank were totally ignorant of what Master Scott Leitch called "the hidden half of the art". Skills like reacting properly and spontaneously to your partner's strikes and manipulations and being able to breakfall without injury or fear are indispensable to the Kung Fu San Soo method of training. They are what makes San Soo different from the other arts. Without them you are not doing Kung Fu San Soo at all. They are what make realistic practice of the art without injury possible.
Some disliked doing form, some didn't want to learn and practice so many techniques. But free style practice without proper posture and position, or without the full compliment of techniques to draw from is short and lacking in variety and force. No amount of ferocity in your mental attitude will substitute for the development of these important skills.
If you have had previous Kung Fu San Soo training you are welcome at this school. I am sure we can learn something from your experience. We can always use more good training partners. But if your ego will not allow you to learn important skills you or your teacher may have neglected, you will not be comfortable here and will be disruptive to our progress.
Bringing out the best in the students I have is more satisfying to me than having a full school. I will not be content watching this art turn into just one more half baked art like all the other half baked arts have done.
I am thankful for the dumb luck, or was it something more?, that brought me to a good teacher and a good art all those years ago. Pass it on.
Escrima is a
very fast and deadly Filipino stick and blade art, equally effective as
an empty hand art. It is comprised of simple and efficient battle
tested techniques. While the basics of escrima are simple and fairly
quick to grasp on a superficial level, many years or drilling and
practice with partners are required to develop the precision and
angleing skills that make a skilled escrimador.
Integrative Functional Conditioning SM ALFATM
Bruce Lee's first martial art was Wing Chun Kung Fu, which he studied in Hong Kong from the age of 13 until 18 when he returned to America, his birth place, in 1959. He first taught Kung Fu in Seattle then moved to the San Francisco bay area to teach.
In 1964 Lee accepted a challenge there from one Wong Jack Man. At the end Lee was left surprised and frustrated by his inability to conclude the contest quickly and decisively. The experience highlighted some deficiencies in his previous training. As a result he began to reflect on the traditional styles, or what he came to call the "classical mess". He concluded that the rigid, formal techniques they taught were not practical in unpredictable street fighting conditions. He also noticed that each style seemed to practice and focus upon a different part of the whole of fighting to the exclusion of the other parts, which they then deemed unworthy of consideration.
Lee began developing a new system, which he later named Jeet Kune Do, based on Wing Chun but with more mobile footwork and other influences from western boxing and fencing. He also included any useful techniques he came across that could be borrowed from the many other arts which he investigated. He concluded that techniques needed to be both simple and adaptable to constantly changing conditions to be effective in an actual combat environment.
JKD is the original mixed martial art. Lee's philosophy was to take whatever is useful no matter the source and discard the rest. He said, " there is no such thing as style if you understand the roots of combat" and "true observation begins when one is devoid of set patterns".
He also strove to develop a decisive physical advantage over any opponent and thus placed a strong emphasis on nutrition and rigorous physical training methods like targeted weight training to develop powerful punches and kicks, repetitive drills to develop quickness, running for endurance and stretching for flexibility.
