Si-Fu Alfredo Del-Brocco: Real Wing Chun
(Uncut version)
By Jeremy Ta’Kody (published Blitz December 2000)
Street fights in Sydney, comparisons to Jeet Kune Do and the ongoing development of Wing Chun with Rick Spain; it’s all here in this noholds barred exclusive interview as Jeremy Ta’kody (Blitz) talks to Queensland renowned Wing Chun, boxing and Kickboxing instructor.
Blitz: Alfredo, thank you for your time. Could you please tell us about your background?
Alfredo: Irish / Scottish / Italian background. I grew up in Melbourne, the eldest of three. I went to school in Box Hill.
Blitz: When did you begin training?
Alfredo: That was in 1980, when I was about 13. I began training then with Yong Dai Cho.
Blitz: Taekwondo?
Alfredo: Yes.
Blitz: And how far did you take that?
Alfredo: Up to Black Belt, but I was always sort of looking for something else. Taekwondo was pretty good with the feet, but I was not very happy with the hands. It was a very traditional system and the handwork was…How do I put it? Not too good. So I began Kyokushin Karate, but I did not feel they had what I was looking for. So from there I went into boxing with Mick Canavan in Ringwood, just to get my hands up. Then I was impressed with an article about William Cheung. I think it was an old Blitz article. I began training with William in Melbourne at the tail end of ’82, beginning of ’83.
Blitz: What impressed you (about William)?
Alfredo: What I saw with William was that he had a good pedigree. He had inherited a complete system and his background was one of fighting in Hong Kong. Not just choreography. The Wing Chun that he was teaching in the late ‘80’s was a lot more comprehensive than what I had been exposed to up till then. It wasn’t a flashy system, but it was a lot more effective for the street. More like one deflection and three punches / knock them out sort of thing. It had close-in fighting and grappling, but it also had the kicking range and everything else in-between. It got straight to the point. No fancy stuff. From my street experience it made a lot more sense.
Blitz: With the early years of training, were there any obstacles that you had to overcome?
Alfredo: (laughing) My Parents! They didn’t approve of me doing martial arts. I had to travel from the eastern suburbs (Melbourne) every night and it made it even more difficult because I had to borrow my parent’s car. I used to top the petrol up, but it was hard to explain the kilometers. I think the reason why they didn’t approve was because at that time they didn’t really understand what it was all about.
Blitz: After training with William Cheung, where did you go from there?
Alfredo: William had begun to branch out overseas and it was becoming increasingly difficult to get his tuition. I don’t want to bag anyone, but at the time some of the instructors running his School were just choreographers, textbook martial artists. They didn’t have William’s experience or touch, let alone any experience of their own. But I had heard stories about one of William’s best students, Rick Spain, who was based in Sydney. I had the opportunity to go to Sydney for a week’s holiday. That was in ’86. What was meant to be a week’s holiday became about 6 years. I ended up living at the School and became a full-time student.
Blitz: How did training with Rick compare to your previous training?
Alfredo: It was a lot harder. I had to re-learn almost everything. Basically Rick told me that what I had learned in Melbourne had been watered down, so I had to re-evaluate everything and work a lot harder to get myself back on track. Rick had been a full-time, live-in student under William Cheung, along with five others. He was privy to William’s early teaching from the beginning. It was a time when William wanted to show the whole world how good his brand of Wing Chun was, and why it worked. There was none of the holding back or watering down of later years. With Rick you could ask him a question and he could give you a very technical answer, or put it in layman’s terms, or explain how it applied to reality from a street and multiple opponent point of view. He could back it up from having used it on the street or in the ring. He would examine techniques from all angles. What actually works on the street may be a lot different from what actually appears to work on the classroom floor. Look at the Olympic Taekwondo for example. In their own environment under their own rules they looked great. But take them out of their environment and put them on the street and they would get their arses flogged by guys who have had no formal martial arts training but heaps of the real thing: street experience. It’s the same with all martial arts training that doesn’t address the 20th century street animal. It’s the same with Ju Jitsu. On the dojo floor it is excellent to watch. On the street, the guy will end up with ten pairs of shoes in the back of his head. The same with boxing. In the ring in his own environment, he is king, but put him on the mat with a JuJitsu guy and he will be smothered, choked out or have his arms and legs snapped. What I am trying to say is that all martial arts styles look great in their own environment. but what I was looking for was something that was more complete, not just from a technical point of view, but from a realistic point of view. Initially I found that sort of training under William, but when that was hard to find, I re-discovered it under Rick. Although I have my own direction in Queensland, Rick is still my teacher. I owe him a lot. We have a good relationship both in and outside the school.
Blitz: With the direction that you are taking now, are you supplementing the system from anywhere else?
Alfredo: Definitely. To bury your head in a bucket of sand and say what you are doing is the be all and end all is grossly naïve to your students. We have supplemented with Brazillian JuJitsu along with boxing and Kickboxing and Muay Thai. I still teach boxing and Kickboxing today. There is a misconception that Wing Chun guys just roll punch, but in our brand of Wing Chun if it’s appropriate to use an uppercut or right cross or whatever, then we will use it. Boxing and Kickboxing compliment the Wing Chun perfectly as if it was always already there.
Blitz: How do you feel that the art you are teaching now compares to say Bruce Lee’s Jeet Kune Do, in that his concept was trying to incorporate whatever would work for the person?
Alfredo: Probably a parallel. I think that if Bruce Lee were alive today, even though his lineage of Wing Chun was different, we would still be following a similar direction.
Blitz: So you feel that Wing Chun is in a phase of natural progression?
Alfredo: Our lineage of Wing Chun is an evolution. There are far too many Wing Chun Schools and lineage's that have their heads stuck in a bucket of sand and are oblivious to what’s happening at the cutting edge of martial arts development both here and overseas. Rick and I were talking recently about this. Wing Chun has become convoluted over the last 40 to 50 years. We discussed the reasons why Wing Chun had been developed from the current information available out there and also what we had used in street fights, and we both feel there is a lot of stuff in the system that is part of the curriculum that is outdated and could be discarded safely without any detriment to the system or to anyone who trains it. We are playing with a hypothetical at the moment where if the original masters came back and had a look at what we were doing, or if they had to develop the system now like they did 300 to 400 years ago; what would they take from our system, and what would they throw away? What would they take from someone else’s system and what would they leave out? This is why we are always looking at everything else that is out there. If it looks usable, it is put under the microscope and tested and dissected and played with until it’s strengths and weaknesses are thoroughly examined and understood. Then if it is viable, it can be added to the curriculum as part of the non-traditional component. There is a workshop being done by Rick called “The System within the System” which is the real Wing Chun as used on the street with varying degrees of supplementation and refinement. The sort of stuff that you can use in the back alley and not get your head punched in.
Blitz: Any memorable incidents?
Alfredo: Apart from all the brawls etc. in night clubs and car parks, and the present day challenges inside my School, I got jumped one night by a number of guys in Central Railway, Sydney, and knocked 3 of them out. I ended up in jail but was released because the security camera footage showed me being attacked by about 12 guys. Some of them were armed with bottles and poles and I did get cut up and bruised. Any martial arts instructor that tells his students that if you do this technique or that technique you will walk away unscathed from a situation be it multiple opponent or one on one has either never been in an altercation and is just bullshitting. The police rounded up the other fleeing assailants and eventually (2 years later) it ended up in court but was thrown out because the judge couldn’t believe that only one guy could defend himself from so many attackers and survive. I personally feel that if I hadn’t done some hard core street Wing Chun as taught to me by Rick, that I would have been a fatal statistic that night. One of the guys that worked at the Daily Telegraph behind the 342 Elizabeth St Kwoon trained at lunchtime and curiously questioned my injuries. Without elaborating on the details, he wrote a small piece for the paper. Ironically, about a month later, I saw the piece on another Wing Chun School’s brochure, making out that it was one of their students. I had to laugh, because I know the truth.
Blitz: And you teach weapons?
Alfredo: Yes. The weapon training and fighting is an extension of our open hand syllabus. Our curriculum could best be broken up into hand, stick, knife, and gun. Although we allow students to pick up weapons from day one, we don’t grade them on weapons until they have completed and been tested on their open hand syllabus, which is roughly a minimum of 4 ½ to 5 years quality training. In weapons fighting if you make a mistake it could be fatal, whereas in open hand fighting you make a mistake you get punched in the head you keep going. You can't keep going after being stabbed with a knife. Weapons training also helps develop and improve eye hand coordination and it teaches you to think and react a lot quicker. Open hand Defence against a weapon also emphasizes not to muck around and get the job done quickly and efficiently.
Blitz: What do you think of the proposed changes to the Weapons Act?
Alfredo: Ridiculous. The modern street mongrel doesn’t use butterfly swords or samurai swords in the street. They are going to use syringes, knifes, broken bottles literally anything that you can pick up or conceal. They should probably ban beer glasses, bottles, bar stools, billiard cues and ashtrays instead. History is just repeating itself like in China when the Manchu’s invaded and repressed the Hon’s. It didn’t stop the rebel’s; it just forced legitimate practitioners to go ‘underground’. These laws are being made by ignorant people out of fear. They need to sit down with martial arts instructors from around Australia and actually understand the training and the reasons associated with. Maybe they could then decide something more sensible and reasonable.
Blitz: How do you think the average person can achieve their goals?
Alfredo: The main thing is that you have to believe in yourself first. Once you believe in yourself the rest will follow.
Blitz: And how are your Schools in Queensland doing?
Alfredo: We have the largest martial arts establishment in Brisbane now, with 5 full time training centers. (Blitz: Alfredo won the 1997 Health, Sport & Fitness, Small Business Achievers Award). The State Headquarters has around 350 to 400 active members, with the others upwards of 100 active students. Although I have looked at a lot of marketing and companies that were offering marketing; at the end of the day the most important thing to do is too not bullshit to your students. Provide your students with a professional, well-equipped training environment with all of the necessary equipment to help them reach their training goals. You have to be up front and say this is who we are, this is what we do and if you can’t handle our curriculum or commit yourself to a minimum 12 months training then there’s the door. There are a few who think we are too commercial. But these idiots do not understand what being commercial means. Being commercial is about chasing the dollar. It also means accepting everyone and anyone into your school that can afford it. We provide excellent facilities. All our Schools are full-time and not community halls where you are here one day, gone the next. We instill the correct values and spirit of the martial arts. If you don’t look like you are going to fit, you cannot join. If you cannot afford to train at our academy, we can barter. If all the Schools were to close down I would still teach in my backyard. Also there are too many instructors out there just teaching choreography. There are individuals who claim they have had 30 or 40 years experience, but I have met them and know they have had only the one experience 30 or 40 times. What we do offer is hard training in excellent facilities with classes run by qualified, experienced and dedicated instructors.
Blitz: How long does it take the average person to learn real Wing Chun fighting skills?
Alfredo: (Laughing) that depends on the person. There is a saying in our system: “Keun Yao Sum Fut” when translated means: “The Fist Comes From the Heart”. If your training does not address reality, you may train for 10 or even 20 years and have a completely false sense of your abilities. Preparing for reality means you must train for street situations addressing weapons, multiple opponents etc. Even when working one on one you have to think outside the circle. Instructors like Gary Martin, John Will, Bob Jones (and I apologize if I have left anyone out) and Rick Spain prepare students by addressing reality and the topics associated with. I fear there are a lot of instructors possibly even as high as 90% that literally have no idea.
Blitz: What are your goals for the future and who motivates you?
Alfredo: Great question. I enjoy doing what I am doing and continue to be happy with my lot in life. My family, my students, my instructor all make me attack another day with enthusiasm. I intend to teach martial arts for the rest of my life. I motivate myself, but am also motivated by my instructor Rick Spain. He’s such a dynamic person. He has been training twice as long as I have. If I could be half as good as him I would be thrilled. He is a brilliant thinker and practitioner. What he thinks he can actually apply. Rick is one of those few individuals who is a great fighter and a great teacher. My students motivate me. Also my two children, Vincent and Riki. My wife Rachel has and still is a huge motivator. I met her in Sydney, and she has been inspirational since day one. Not only is she a mother, but she teaches just as hard and as many classes as I do, along with her own personal training. Rachel recently trained and obtained her first Masters level (graded by Rick Spain). A very high achievement in our system and the first female to do so. All this while looking after 2 children under 4 and running 2 Schools and being they’re for me to bounce stuff off. Everything that we have achieved here in Queensland has been a joint venture.
Blitz: Any last comments?
Alfredo: I would like to thank Rachel, and my mentor, coach, teacher, surrogate father, friend Si-Fu Rick Spain. I would also like to thank Blitz for their support and a special thanks to all my students currently training. Keep training hard!!! And Keep the Faith!!!
Blitz: You’re welcome. Thank you for your time Si-Fu.
