“Searching for Kung Fu “ , my Beijing experience Pt. 1

I landed in Beijing , China on November 1, 2019. The person who invited me to Beijing was Laurence Brahm, a modern day renaissance man. Laurence is a lawyer and economist by profession ,who served as advisor to the Governments of China,Laos,Vietnam and other Asian Countries.  The Author of over 20 books, ranging from economics to books on Tibet, Laurence is diverse in his writing as he is in his everyday life. He is a fantastic martial artist who has been practicing Karate for over 30 years. I befriended Laurence when he was in Hawaii  , while doing lectures at the University of Hawaii. I was contacted by Laurence, who had found my website, although he lived in Asia for 30 years and practicing Karate, he said he always wanted to learn Wing Chun. After leaving Hawaii after a month, we remained in contact. I would send videos to help him supplement and continue his training In Wing Chun.

A few months ago Laurence called me and said that he wanted to invite me to Beijing to take part in a Documentary. I have been following Laurence after meeting him and was surprised that he had taken on a new interest, that of film maker. Laurence recent documentary , “Searching for the Lotus-Born Master”,had recently become the biggest winner in the documentary category at the Canada Golden Maple Film Festival in Vancouver on Sept.24. I have never taken part in such a big project, but couldn’t refuse the opportunity. Not knowing what to expect I began training for the film to clean up areas that I expected would be interesting on Film.

On November 2 , we started filming at the Great Wall , on and below, they shot me doing the Wing Chun forms, Mook Jong and Baat Jam Do. In the days that followed, the many experiences of film making, combined with the incredibly diverse group of individuals involved in martial arts and other disciplines was almost overwhelming .