Thirteen years ago, Jack Leung decided to close down his graphic design business to escape the long mundane hours of office work and dedicate his life to Wing Chun.
With a lineage that can trace its roots back to legendary Chinese martial arts grandmaster Ip Man, Sifu Jack started his journey into Wing Chun after meeting and being defeated by his Sifu, Wong Kam Leung.
Sifu Wong was an expert martial artist who worked in the Hong Kong VIP Protection group, and was a disciple of Wong Shun Leung, the famous “King of Talking Hands” who learnt Wing Chun from Ip Man himself.
Now, Sifu Jack heads Practical Wing Chun Australia, with more than 300 practitioners across his schools.
The school has set roots in Underwood, routinely donating to community charities and programs such as Brisbane Nathan Road Community.
It runs a community street library and offers free self-defence classes for women.
However, what’s most important for Sifu Jack is how Wing Chun moulds students into better people.
He says respect, self-discipline, and the willingness to care for one another are important tenets at his school.
Explaining more about the philosophy of Wing Chun, Sifu Jack says Wing Chun focuses on the “centreline” of people, which is an allegory for people’s goals and how to reach them.
“Wing Chun is also about looking after yourself, diverting energy,” he says.
“Anything else is noise. Follow your goal, follow your center line. To be able to look after myself doesn’t mean I have to win against you. It means I don’t get hurt and I go home safe.”
With a curriculum that has been adapted to modern times and situations and an emphasis on values, Practical Wing Chun welcomes anyone as long as they can commit to trainings and are willing to learn.
Through repetition and structured forms to train their mind and body, Sifu Jack has taught kids as young as four, right through to older adults and people with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
When I asked Sifu Jack what was the most important thing for his students to learn, he said he just hopes that they are able to take care of themselves.
“I’ve met a lot of locals that I train and a lot of young kids. Some of them, when they first started, they’re maybe four and a half, and now a lot of them are going to university. We moulded them into a good person and that’s very important for modern day community.
“We want the next generation to be better than us. I’m really happy that, that a lot of my students have become great people,” he said.
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