Bamboo Forest Wing Chun

Everyone here is friendly and teaches you the traditional way of wing chun. I was horrible at first and am still not the best but there's been a significant improvement in both my skills and overall life.

Authentic in every sense of the word. To learn from Sifu Pham is a tremendous honour. Thank you for having me as a student in your school and wing chun family.

I've been attending this school for over a year and a half now and I've seen steady and continuous improvement learning from Master Pham. Master Pham has a lot of passion, knowledge, and skill in wing chun. If you want to learn authentic wing chun, I highly recommend coming to this school.

I have been living in Toronto for 14 years. I am now preparing the leave the city permanently. There are many things I will miss. But as I prepare to leave, I have only one real regret. That regret is that I did not spend more time learning Wing-Chun from my Master at the Bamboo Forest Wing-Chun Academy. For the last 2 years or so, I have been learning the art of Wing-Chun in the lineage of Grand Masters Ip Man and Ho Kam Ming. My Sifu is a man named Kiet Pham. He is, to my mind, a fully-realized master of Chinese wushu. The subtlety, sophistication, and beauty of the Wing-Chun I have learned from him has created a feeling of deep awe and respect in me for both this man and the art he teaches. It has been a singular privilege. I strongly strongly suggest that if any of you have even the slightest interest in learning a martial art, that you go and learn from this man. There is a lot of superficial martial arts out there. Finding a master who understands the inner art of timing and control, who has full comprehension of touching hands and energy is very rare indeed. Master Kiet Pham is such a person. It has been an honour to learn from this man and I am saddened that I did not have the time to learn more from him.

When I first came to Bamboo Forest Wing Chun, I found Master Pham amazingly proficient at authentic Wing Chun fighting, using mysteriously effective springy soft agility and manipulating special vulnerable points (for example, certain joints) of the human body to surprisingly disable the brute force stronger opponent – useful as a deescalating tool because it is not every time that it is suitable to kill (or seriously permanently injure) an opponent and in observance of many East Asian martial arts ethics standards etiquette. That said, he had been very strict with the traditional Asian martial arts etiquette and discipline. And in a beautiful transformative way, he improved his demeanor to become gentler, more patient, calmer and a bit more sensitive mindful of people's sense of self-worth + distress, such that he now have quite a bit more social gracefulness to people which exquisitely match the graceful fluid motions of the Wing Chun fighting skills he has. The delusion of the strongest wins the fight or overcomes the problem / struggle is dispel in Master Pham's school. Useful knowledge, flexibility, speed, awareness can be develop with dedicated+intelligent training, such that body ability, whether for combat to overcome / outmaneuver the stronger or for life's daily activities, can be developed into a body of any age. Even the weak can be empower to hold out incrementally better versus the muscled human by changing the course of battle away from being a a self-fulfilling outcome determine by contest of strongness only. A weak person does have strengths that are disappreciated. The equating of muscle strongness to strengths lends to the confusion and this depowering delusion. In Master Pham’s Wing Chun school, the students (of which I am one) are to over time (expect many years devotion to evolve) develop their endurance, fighting spirit (adrenaline attentiveness and fury perseverance), proprioception (perception or awareness of the position and movement of the body), balance, posture, stances, coordination, deep feeling inner-awareness and control of the body+mind, flexibility, moves that are both defence and attack, timing, angle attacks, attacking the opponent’s balance and centre of gravity (not only body parts), exquisite agility, fluid snakelike graceful motions, cat light-foot nimbleness, peacefulness + gentleness to the innocent and truly good beings while courage to stand up + fierceness to beings enacting unjustness yet reserve / withholding from killing moves and instead emphasize disabling strikes, and [ respect and value for well-being+kindness+grace+true beauty over worship of status and over unconditional worship of the most powerful (ironic and paradoxical for a martial arts) ]. When I tried out Master Pham’s classes, I was hoping I will be inspire by beautiful body kinetics, develop+grow+evolve inner qualities and body power qualities, expand limits and explore unknowns and push for greater potential, and discover the synergistic catalytic fusion of movement physics and human kinetics+anatomy with Chi application. It is my deep wish to master these aspects of Wing Chun not only for martial arts, but to apply in my real life as well so that I may move more easily and gracefully in life, to have not only balance in my postures, but balance and honesty truthfulness in my perspectives of what is truly valuable in lifetimes, to grow flexibility in creativity & solving problems in nontoxic ways, to have a fury courage perseverance psychological mind in life’s problems+goals+battles. Who knows how far one’s potential can grow when it is water like a plant.

I have followed Master Pham for a number of years. Some of the things I am about to tell you may differ from your notion about WC. I admit it has taken time to appreciate why Wing Chun (WC) is the Art of Interception, contact and Control. It is more correct to say Wing Chun is the Art of Contact and Control, than it is the Art of Chi Sao. Chi Sao implies contract and control. However Chi Sao is often misunderstood as rolling hands in a fixed pattern when beginning WC. This is not what chi sao and contact and control is ultimately about. Chi Sao must have contact and control, but contact control is a much deeper topic. Getting into a position of contact and control is where the fight happens in WC. There is no such term as trapping in traditional WC. Control is a foundational pillar of traditional WC. Trapping is a Jeet Kune Do term that denotes techniques based off the WC foundation principal of contact & control. The truth is WC control is a very deep topic and cannot be mastered after even 5 years of training. Not having control on the opponent, means the opponent will be able to strike. This fundamentally is where Ho Kam Ming WC, places a lot of focus. The truth of the matter, it is generally uncommon for a beginner to appreciate why control is needed. WC requires passion and patient learning to develop proper control. As a beginner it is impossible to tell differences of control between one WC practitioner vs another. Control is the most important skill developed in HKM Wing Chun. WC vs Boxing or WC in sparring is not really a good depiction of WC. Why? Because Authentic WC’s most effective tools are either banned or not effective with gloves on. There isn’t a YouTube video that depicts WC with it’s most effective tools applied. Only 1 out of 5 of the hand structures can be used in athletic competition. You never see chop, bil jee and open palm applied for real in a tournament. If the 4 hand structures don’t break the rules of a Tournament, then they can’t be applied effectively because of gloves. Traditional and Authentic WC doesn’t train boxing. It does however train intercepting incoming strikes. If there is no interception established in Ho Kam Ming WC, the fight hasn’t got into WC’s area of expertise. The real fight begins once interception is established. If I am not in interception & control range, then I am positioning and maintaining distance. I really want to be outside the range of a boxer until I intercept. This is necessary to avoid a boxing match which is Boxing’s and not WC’s expertise. Master Kiet Pham’s knowledge of WC is profound. He completed WC from 2 lineages. His deep knowledge in Prey Mantis Plum Flower and 6 Harmony, has manifested an understanding of WC that is deeply insightful. Why is this? WC is primarily based on linear forces, where as Plum Flower Preying Mantis uses circular forces. How linear forces deal with circular forces has been Master Pham’s focal point. He has not modified traditional WC. Instead taking two approaches: 1) adjusting the foundational elements of WC, thus adjusting timing & control as an example 2) created a bridge “so to speak” from his WC to deal with circular forces Frankly speaking, martial arts has evolved at a rapid pace since the 90s . So his Martial Arts knowledge has also evolved, while preserving the Art of Ho Kam Ming WC. The Late Grand Master Ho (closed door disciple of Ip Man) spent nearly half his WC life as a teacher in Canada. During this time he poured much of his efforts into teaching a small group of students in Toronto, while personally grooming Master Pham to carry on teaching the Art of WC in Canada. What this amounts to is the embodiment of the Art of WC, as passed down from Ip Man to Ho Kam Ming, then to Kiet Pham. Ip Man taught Ho Kam Ming the fine details of WC. Those details are evident in material taught by Master Pham, including developing a strong foundation. Master Pham is very much a believer that patiently developing a strong foundation will yield better WC.

My reasons for training at Bamboo Forest Wing Chun because the teacher has an exceptional eye for catching errors. He cares about what my progress. He has deep knowledge in Wing Chun. In his personal journey, he lives and breathes Martial Arts as a singular focus. He has a pragmatic view on WC during these modern times, and is able show me Wing Chun in it’s true colours. There is no question in my mind his Wing Chun is authentic. This is why I have sought out Master Pham’s school.

Real Kung Fu! You will not find another Master in Canada with the same knowledge as Sifu Kiet Pham. He dedicated his life to pass on the art and is the real deal. The lineage of the school comes from Ip Man -> Ho Kam Ming. Sifu Pham is one of the most respected closed-doors student from Sifu Ho Kam Ming. It is important to know a few things before you come to school: 1) You will need to go through an acceptance phase where the Sifu will conduct an interview and test if you are a good fit for the school. 2) Don’t get cocky about your “vast martial arts experience” because in the first demo you will learn very quickly how little you know about traditional martial arts. 3) Don’t get discouraged by having limited martial arts experience, that normally comes handy - humility and no bad stance habits to be fixed. 4) Training with a real and traditional Sifu requires discipline, patience, control, mindfulness and self-awareness. 5) The amount of caring, compassion and acceptance the Sifu and students show towards each other is absolutely amazing. It really feels like a tight-knit family. 6) The school’s purpose is absolutely NOT commercial. So, forget about belt tests, marketing, and any other money grabbing activity.