Self-defence in the News - No. 78

Young female nurse fights off attacker with a punch to the groin

http://www.odt.co.nz/news/world/australia/337557/dashcam-appeal-sydney-nurse-attack

Fri, 27 Mar 2015

AAP

An unsuspecting motorist with a dashboard camera might provide detectives with a vital clue as they investigate an attempted abduction in Sydney's north.

A nurse, 27, was walking home along Falcon Street at Crows Nest on Wednesday night when a man grabbed her.

The North Shore Private Hospital nurse told police the man put his hand over her mouth and tried to put her in the boot of his grey or silver sedan.

She punched the man in the groin before he drove away up Sophia Street.

She sought help from the nearby Caltex service station and was treated in hospital for bruises, grazes and swelling.

Detectives are hoping motorists with dashcams that were in the area between 10-11pm may be able to help with the investigation.

"These days many drivers, including motorcycle riders, have dashcams on their vehicles," Harbourside police Detective Inspector Michael Birley said on Friday.

"An unsuspecting motorist who was in the vicinity of the Pacific Highway or Sophia Street on Wednesday night may have captured footage of interest to our investigation."

Det Insp Birley said the nurse was still emotionally traumatised from the terrifying attack.

Investigators are after a man described as of Middle Eastern or Indian appearance, aged in his 30s, about 175cm tall with a stocky build and short dark hair.

kung-fu brothers

Left to right: Raph, Dave, Anthony

Left to right: Dave, Brent, Anthony

Brent and Anthony

Photos by Ange (Jan. 2015)

Monday 9th of March

I'm away on Monday.

Hadrian is in charge on that day, and he will run the class -- so be good and I'll see you on the Wednesday.

Anthony

Ving Chun Kuen kung-fu brothers - Saturday training

Anthony (far left) with: Sohail, Chris, Hadrian, Rodney (top row), 

and Brendan, Pete, Brent (bottom row).

21-02-2015

Self-defence in the News - No. 77

WOMAN FIGHTS OFF ATTACKER


http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/66211245/teen-fights-off-abduction

PHILLIPA YALDEN

February 15 2015

A Hamilton teen managed to fight off a man attempting to abduct her by scratching his eyes during what police say was a cowardly attack witnessed by two men.

The 19-year-old was waiting to be picked up after finishing work at a restaurant at the Hilcrest shops around 10.30pm yesterday when she was attacked.

Acting Detective Senior Sergeant Matt Cranshaw, of Hamilton CIB, said the woman was by the roundabout at the intersection of SH1 and SH26 when a car heading north from Cambridge approached.

The car drove past the woman before turning around, when three men in the car began whistling and shouting at her. "The car has pulled up and the driver has got out of the car and approached the woman before attempting to drag her into his car," said Cranshaw.

The woman began screaming for help, hitting her attacker and scratching him in the eyes, said Cranshaw. "The attacker has then begun screaming before getting back into his car and driving off with his two rear seat companions, south along SH1 towards Cambridge."

Cranshaw said the victim put up a valiant effort.

"The understandably shaken victim has gone back to a pizza store where police were subsequently called."

A duty manager at Homestead Bar and Eatery said the young woman had been left too distressed to talk about the incident and was recovering at home with family.

The manager understood the teen, who had been working part-time at the restaurant for the last year, was waiting outside the shops, near the Kiwibank, when she was attacked.

"I am presuming she had finished and left. Our managers never leave them here by themselves.
 
There had been a number of incidents including a burglary at the restaurant and issues with drunken people at the nearby Burger King in the last few months, she said.

"It is a really big worry," she said.

CCTV survallience camers were installed around the eatery, but the manager did not believe they captured the road area.

Police are looking to identify the man, who is described as having dark skin, aged in his mid to late 20s, with an Indian accent, wearing blue, short-sleeved collared shirt and black shorts. He was also wearing sunglasses and had his black, chin length hair with blonde tips, tied up. "His car was described as a late model dark or black sedan with tinted rear windows."

"Police have no description of the two men in the back seat but police would like to speak to them in relation to their role in this cowardly attack and why they did not intervene?"

Anyone with any information either on the incident or who may be able to identify the attacker is asked to contact Detective Sergeant Nick O'Brien at the Hamilton Central Police Station on 07 858 6200.

Alternatively, information can be left anonymously with the independent Crimestoppers on 0800 555111.

 - Waikato Times

Self-defence in the News - No. 76

Chinese contractors use karate 

to overpower gunmen

http://www.odt.co.nz/news/world/331909/contractors-use-karate-overpower-gunmen 

 Tue, 3 Feb 2015

 

One of the Chinese contractors re-enacts the martial arts moves they used to scare off the armed robbers, in this screengrab from Albania's Ora News. 

Three Albanian gunmen met their match when they held up three Chinese contractors only to be outwitted and overpowered by the karate skills of their would-be victims.

The Chinese contractors re-enacted for Albania's News24 TV on Monday what they said had happened on a mountain road in northern Albania on Sunday (local time) after they were held up at gunpoint.

"They were masked and armed and stopped us, putting the gun below the chin of our friend. They wanted our mobile phones, money and the sacks with our goods," said one of the Chinese men, whom News24 did not name.

Speaking in Chinese, the three agreed to fight their attackers, he said.

The man's demonstration of his techniques for the camera included powerful hand blows and frontal and back kicks.

Having overpowered the gunmen, the Chinese men called the police and had them arrested.

Albanian police confirmed that gunmen had tried to rob the Chinese nationals at gunpoint and said they had arrested two people, aged 21 and 23. The police also said they had seized old Soviet-era Model 54 guns, a mask and a bag.

Holdups, commonplace in Albania during the Balkan country's turbulent post-communist 1990s, are much rarer now.

Reuters

Self-defence in the News - No. 75

Boy fights off attacker with can of soft drink 

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/64928504/boy-fights-off-attacker-with-can-of-soft-drink 

January 14 2015

BRITTANY MANN

 

A 10-year-old boy who fought off an attacker with a can of soft drink feels it saved his life.

The boy got off a bus two doors from his house on Woodham Rd in Avonside, Christchurch, on Sunday about 9.30pm.

He and his 16-year-old brother were returning from dinner at the mall, his mother said. She has asked for her and her sons not to be identified by name.

The boy got off the bus alone, while his brother stayed on the bus to buy milk from a service station further up the road.

When the boy stepped off the bus, a "rough looking" man grabbed him by the wrists and tried to pull him away.

"Luckily my son has got a little bit of Judo experience," his mother, aged 29, said.

The boy managed to fight off the man by punching his wrists with a can of Lift soft drink, and throwing it into his face, his mother said.

"He feels that saved his life."

Her sons described the attacker as white, unshaven, aged between 40 and 50 years old, with a "hunched" appearance.

He was wearing long pants and a red and blue checkered hoodie, with the hood up.

He was wearing gloves.

The man did not say anything during the altercation.

The mother said no-one saw the incident.

The attacker ran off towards Stanmore Rd. Her son ran home.

"He was traumatised. I've never seen him hysterical like that."

Her other son had seen the man waiting at the bus stop and had a "gut feeling" he was dangerous.

He had seen the man in the area on a number of other occasions, his mother said.

Police took a statement from the family that night, but the woman said she had not been contacted by them since.

The woman said she was "super proud" of her younger son.

Police did not immediately respond to The Press' inquiry about whether an investigation was under way.

 - The Press

New Year visit

New Year visit from my sifu, Kevin Earle, along with Ving Chun Kuen instructors Rapheal Stowers and Dave Sutherland.

Kevin and Raph

Anthony and Kevin

Dave, Brent, Chris, Ange, Raph, and Kevin

Photos: 6 January 2015

New training space for Chris

Chris is the only kung-fu man I know with a kwoon made out of steel...

Here are three photographs I made this morning...

Chris 1

Chris 2

Chris 3

The Form

To the past, present, and future students of Southern Kung Fu.

The Form

by Anthony Revill

The single most important training habit I learned from my sifu, Kevin Earle, was to do my Form every morning. In fact, the Form (Sil Lum Tao) is essential for me in starting each day. It affects how I am in the world, and imbues my day with qualities that have become indispensable to me.

When Kevin became my sifu, I recognised that I was in the presence of an unusual kind of self-defence instructor. Kevin wasn’t the only guy around who could knock people down or throw them to the ground. However, early on, I felt there was something more to him. It was this recognition of a difference that helped me become receptive to what he was really teaching me. It’s true that I heartily embraced the business end of Ving Chun Kuen kung-fu: the intercepting, deflecting, entering, punching, striking, stomping, and other ways of engaging with the enemy. Nevertheless, this external manifestation of Ving Chun Kuen’s methodology, despite being fun and challenging to practice, is merely the flowering of a more fundamental essence.

So it is that when prospective students walk through my door, this is what they are looking for. They want to learn how to engage an enemy. And that’s all well and good; I can teach them that. Yet, by the very nature of their desire, they are focused on the external – and with the external they shall remain for some time. Because of this, the Form puzzles them. It’s an anomaly. It will begin to make some sort of sense as knowledge flows into it, as ongoing training informs it. However, to a beginner, I can accept that the Form is simple, slow, and tedious – something they copy in class because they’re told to. To them, it’s as external as any of their other training; and, considered externally, it makes little sense.

Furthermore, the Form does not look combative. A student may wonder what place it has in a self-defence class. As some sort of solitary, contemplative exercise, it smacks of downtime – a mere indulgence on the part of the instructor. (In class I have said, “What does the Form have to do with fighting? Nothing… and everything.”) Accordingly, I have little doubt that some of my students cannot wait to skip through the Form in class, so they can get to the good stuff. Legion are they who do their Form in class because they have to, and at no other time. I had to learn to love the Form, and I persisted with it because my sifu valued it so highly. He reinforced its importance by his own example.

My challenge, then, is how to facilitate a student’s interest in the Form. Newer students underestimate its value, while I cannot overstate its value. One reason for this is the experience of depth. For beginners, Ving Chun Kuen kung-fu is broad, containing many disparate elements, like a wide but shallow lake; while for me the art is like a very small pond, with such depth that I can step into it and disappear. This is the quality of Ving Chun Kuen that holds my interest. Over time, as the student navigates the lake, gradually understanding that the elements are all qualitatively alike, the lake begins to shrink in diameter, and it starts to deepen.

Essentially, the Form is a felt experience. Possibly it can be understood and discussed intellectually, but in practice the student has to come out of the head and into the body, so to speak. Thoughts running continuously through the mind are formations in themselves, competing with the exercise for attention. Memories, imaginings, old conversations, possible new ones, ongoing issues and the problems of a busy life – they all vie for the top spot in the student’s awareness. Nevertheless, the student must come to realise that training while distracted in this way is counter-productive. I do have suggestions and strategies for my students regarding this, but none of them involve the suppression of thoughts. Rather, a shift in awareness can be useful, guiding the attention away from the unfettered activity of the mind. Once this is accomplished, the mind can be recruited effectively, with its powers of intentness and focus of force through the gaze of the eyes – but empty of words, pictures, the past, future, and other formations. In this way the Form is grounded in the present moment, with the mind and body inseparable in purpose. Put another way, cultivation and projection of force involves the awareness, engagement, and unification of body and mind.

Here I have chosen to write primarily of the formless, and the irony of using a form to develop the formless is not lost on me. Yet there is no better method I know of that can impart the real depth of Ving Chun Kuen except that the student consistently practice their Form. And this is the aspect of my training that has made all the difference for me, namely, my commitment to practicing every morning, as inspired by Kevin. The Form is far more than a set of positions and actions that the student learns by rote, performed exactly the same way thereafter, repeated in a mechanical, unvarying fashion. The Form is actually a process, continuously progressing day-by-day, much like the human being practicing it. Initially, the student may see the Form as something separate from themselves which they have to conform to, but, really, there is no Form until they enact it. It’s a matter of perception. At first, their method of positioning, breathing, moving, focusing, projecting, etc., is imposed upon them by me. I am giving them the seeds of an idea, an idea that is not tangible until it finds expression in the kung-fu practitioner. Moreover, this aspect of training is never brought to a conclusion, for the Form represents the continuing evolution of the student; it is not only a doing, but a becoming.

Nothing I have written is meant to imply that the Form is a closed system all of its own. It does not exist in a vacuum. Indeed, all of the other training within Ving Chun Kuen begins to inform the Sil Lum Tao and flesh it out. The Form begins as a small number of copied movements and positions, without any real internal substance. This has to change. Left to its own devices, it simply does not encompass enough experience on the part of the student to enrich it. Therefore, every other exercise in class is important, particularly partner work and the practice of the other forms. The student’s growing awareness, skill, and knowledge, developed from the ground up, is incorporated into the Form, there to be refined and improved – only to be returned to the training exercises in class once more. Effectively, this constitutes a cycle of enrichment, without which Sil Lum Tao would remain impoverished, its efficacy limited. Furthermore, like a sapling subjected to the elements, the idea must be put under all types of pressure to develop its resilience and vigour, as in the practice of sticking hands for example.

Having said that, there comes a time when the Form begins to give more than it gets. It remains the linchpin of Ving Chun Kuen’s combat practices, yet also moves beyond this, becoming a personal process towards self-mastery. More specifically, it is about switching on to internal definition, bringing the locus of control increasingly towards centre, away from the manipulations of external threat. In light of this, there is a stage of maturity to be reached in kung-fu training where the obsessive focus on dealing with perceived enemies gives way to more of a focus on dealing with ourselves. The Form’s cultivation of structure and posture, groundedness and stability, relaxation and expansion – along with awareness and intent – comes to signify assertiveness rather than aggression. And that is how I sometimes describe the Form, as an act of assertiveness; that is, a daily renewal of our attitude, confidence and determination.

To sum up, I have written about Ving Chun Kuen directly from my own experience, and touched on some of the ways in which the Form holds meaning for me. In doing so, I am aware that I am still going through the daily discipline of this training, and that my views may change – possibly as early as tomorrow morning. The day-by-day renewal through Sil Lum Tao is what keeps my kung-fu growing, much like an everlasting springtime.

© 2014 Anthony Revill