The transcript below is from the video “GM William Cheung talks Bruce Lee and Wing Chun with Dom Békés” by Traditional Wing Chun Kung Fu.

Traditional Wing Chun Kung Fu (Dom Bekes, YouTube Channel, roots in Traditional Kung Fu and it’s from those experiences):

Bruce Lee spent four and a half years training in Wing Chun Kung Fu under the watchful eye of Grandmaster Yip Man and seniors William Cheung and Wong Shun Leung. His only formal period of study that gave him the necessary foundation for his co ordination, sensitivity, reflexes and timing, to which he could further develop his speed, power non telegraphic movement and agility.

Sifu Dom Bekes (Studying & practicing the Traditional Wing Chun Kung Fu system since the end of 1986): 

How much of the Wing Chun syllabus did Bruce Lee learn?

GM William Cheung (Chinese Wing Chun Kung Fu practitioner and currently the Grandmaster of his lineage of Wing Chun entitled Traditional Wing Chun (TWC)): 

Bruce Lee, four and a half years he would turn.  He’s not for one to want to learn a lot but everything he learned, he become a master of it.  Yeah, it’s like…  Yeah, Bruce Lee would stay on one technique for a whole week and each night, he would be doing like a thousand times.  Right, he doesn’t want to learn techniques that he cannot use.  He’d rather take one technique and stay on it until he become a master of that technique, and then he’d move on to another.

So, it’s hard to say what level he was but it’s easy to point out that Bruce Lee learned up to Chum Kiu in Wing Chun and he hasn’t even touched Biu Ji.  Also, he only had 50 wooden dummy techniques.  So, what most of the thing that he learned, he just go over and practice hours and hours.  He became master of what he know.

Sifu Dom Bekes (Studying & practicing the Traditional Wing Chun Kung Fu system since the end of 1986):

What would you concentrate on?  What would you train together in Wing Chun?  What would the sessions comprise of?

GM William Cheung (Chinese Wing Chun Kung Fu practitioner and currently the Grandmaster of his lineage of Wing Chun entitled Traditional Wing Chun (TWC)):

Basically, say we were training a technique.  We would take a technique to break it down to minute sections to test all the different variations and also try to understand how the technique works, and what is the main principle was the timing and was the…  Because movement is dynamic.  You cannot say, “Ah, I do this.”  But you do this, take time to do this, right.  Even think a split-second, a .11 of a second or a .12 of a second.  It still takes time to do this, right.

During those 1.11 of a second, something else will happen, right and how do you react to that?  How do you get your response to changing the dynamic changes of the environment?  So, a lot of it just by repetition and trial and error, and so on.  So, we go in through a lot of drills and things.  So sharpening up the sensitivity, right.  Also, when we were training form, we would do the forms many, many ways.

GM William Cheung (Chinese Wing Chun Kung Fu practitioner and currently the Grandmaster of his lineage of Wing Chun entitled Traditional Wing Chun (TWC)):

We would do it very hard and we would do it very soft with your medium-hard and medium-soft.  So yeah, trying to sense the difference you know.  How does the practitioner feel if he did it this way and what’s the result of it?  Trying to study all that, you know.  So it’s not just say one way and that’s the only way.  There’s many ways of doing things you know but you better understand if you do it this way, is probably benefit.  It’s better than the other side you know.

Sifu Dom Bekes (Studying & practicing the Traditional Wing Chun Kung Fu system since the end of 1986):

This way of exploring that you just mentioned, do you think that had a bearing on Bruce Lee when he went to America and he went on to develop these other things that he appeared was doing, Gung Fu and Jeet Kune Do.

GM William Cheung (Chinese Wing Chun Kung Fu practitioner and currently the Grandmaster of his lineage of Wing Chun entitled Traditional Wing Chun (TWC)):

Oh yeah, definitely.  See, Bruce was…  Bruce wasn’t tough yeah but Bruce was very coordinated, very good balance.  So, make him of the very, very coordinated martial artist and Bruce is so hungry.  When he trains a hundred percent always, you know.  So when he went through the intensive four and a half years and he trained like there’s no tomorrow.  Yeah and that take him from one level to another level, right.  In fact, when he was less than one year, he was with the Wing Chun School in Hong Kong.  He was already over passed, overtaken most, probably 99% of his seniors in the school.

Sifu Dom Bekes (Studying & practicing the Traditional Wing Chun Kung Fu system since the end of 1986):

Right.

GM William Cheung (Chinese Wing Chun Kung Fu practitioner and currently the Grandmaster of his lineage of Wing Chun entitled Traditional Wing Chun (TWC)):

Right because he was so intensive and also because he’s got so much balance and timing, but in a lot of the martial artists just hasn’t got.  When he went to America and he could more or less express Wing Chun with poetry with the song.  All the other martial artists that met him, he’ll become so inferior.  Even world champions like Chuck Norris or Joe Lewis and so on, Bruce was playing with them.

You know all these other guys were just sort of a punching bag for him and for his own training.  Also because he did that, he realized that Wing Chun has given him the special element that all the other martial artists don’t have.  You take a lot of his students at that time were very good athletes, but because they probably moved faster than Bruce or stronger than Bruce.  But they weren’t as balanced as Bruce and they weren’t intuitively.  They weren’t as well-tuned as Bruce.

GM William Cheung (Chinese Wing Chun Kung Fu practitioner and currently the Grandmaster of his lineage of Wing Chun entitled Traditional Wing Chun (TWC)):

So, Bruce saw that when Wing Chun has given him that. Yeah, Bruce always remained as one of my best friends.  Bruce always the charmer.  He can read if you are a bit depressed and he would cheer you up and you know.  He always did a very good job of cheering people up.  The fondest memory was the biggest movie was The Wild One with Marlon Brando and there was all these people that start to wear their collar upward, and these downwards.  I didn’t know what it was you know and Bruce was always filled me in.  You know, I think we had a relationship that is very fond and very involved.