My Background

Hi, my name is Ray Van Raamsdonk. Since 1976 1 have had the opportunity to meet and study Wing Chun from a variety of teachers. For me this was invaluable for seeing and appreciating the various facets of the Wing Chun art. Through this experience, I have come to believe that Yip Man's Wing Chun art is distributed among his various students and they all deserve some respect. I would like to share some of my experiences with the readers of this website. Hopefully this will help us to appreciate one another as one Wing Chun family. I will try to give a glimpse into positive aspects of the many people I have met. I feel that it is important to try to document the art of the seniors before us.  Click here for my family tree.

Karate

As a reference to my viewpoint, my martial arts career started in 1967 when I studied Karate under master Olaf Simon in Calgary during my university days. What I learned was the idea of control, technique, speed, power, distance and timing while sparring. Olaf Simon was probably 5 feet 5 and capable of smashing through 1000 pounds of ice or 11 cement patio blocks. In demonstrations he handily defeated 4 to 5 black belts at a time. He figured he could give Joe Lewis a run for his money. During this period most of us, except him, were impressed with Bruce Lee's Kung Fu in the Green Hornet show. This popularity probably inspired Olaf Simon to teach what he said was a Northern style of martial arts called Mo style Kung Fu. This forever hooked me on Chinese Kung Fu arts.

Hung Style

In 1969 1 studied Hung style under masters Jim Lore and Jack Chin while doing a graduate degree in Computer Science at the University of Toronto. Without a good stance there is no good Kung Fu. The first six months was spent standing in a low stationary horse stance with the feet pointed straight ahead. At one of our many Hung style Lion dance demonstrations I first saw a demonstration of what was called Bruce Lees art. In comparison to Hung style, it was not very impressive. We stole the show by far.

Ray Studying Hung style in the 1970's

Tai Chi

 In 1975 I moved to Vancouver and started the study of Yang style Tai Chi under master Raymond Chung. I learned the idea of softness to overcome hardness and that my very good Hung style stance was vulnerable to the tactics of the Tai Chi stylist. But again the importance of being rooted was emphasized. I progressed quite quickly in these arts and was ready to learn Tai Chi’s 88 movement application set in 1976. At the same time I continued to teach Hung style to a small group of people.