Before Grand Master Su (GMS) came to South Africa, most of the martial arts school here were either Karate or Judo based (I belonged to the latter fraternity).
However, there was a “visionary” who was the first to “introduce” Chinese Martial Arts to SA. His name was Leo Sebregts. He apparently was trained by Chinese chefs in Belgium in a style that he called Lin Wan Kun (which is generally the name of various TaoLu in many styles) and then later in the Wing Chun style. He brought this knowledge to SA where he married a Chinese woman, and together with her brother, opened the first Kung Fu school. There was no authority or quality control regarding Chinese Martial Arts so the market was completely his and what he taught/said was taken as the truth. He eventually opened the Shaolin Martial Arts Centres as franchised chains of Kung Fu schools. A few of these schools were headed by;
Charles and Eric Gouws
Malcolm Hansen
Dieter Gottert
Ave Vink
These were all senior instructors in Leo Sebregts schools and that would eventually leave to join Shun Wu Tang.
When GMS came to SA he went to the Chinese Cultural centres to inspect and further their knowledge in Chinese Martial Arts (this was exclusively Chinese people). He then heard about Leo’s Kung Fu schools and decided to go investigate. He met with and chatted to Leo Sebregts and after observing what was being taught, explained to him and all his students that what he was doing was NOT legit. This deeply offended Leo and his senior students. GMS was tasked to creating a SA Kuoshu branch for full contact fighting and this would be the first organisation that would be regulated. GMS invited many masters from around the world and many local clubs that practiced full contact fighting (in SA, the Kickboxing schools from Kyokushin Kai Karate and regular boxing schools) to enter the first multi style tournaments.
At the tournament, each “master” would get a chance to demonstrate their style and then enter their students in full contact Lei Tai. Leo Sebregts and his seniors with their schools, also entered in an attempt to join Kuoushu. When asked to demonstrate their style, Leo demonstrated a form and then did the corresponding application however he ended up slapping his own student in a a completely different way to the application he was trying to demonstrate. This was really frowned upon by all the visiting masters especially the guest of honour Bredan Lai of the infamous Preying Mantis style from San Francisco (story for another day). They questioned the authenticity of Leo Sebregts, who’s students were now also questioning things because of what they saw, as well as the reactions from the other masters.
GMS was praised for his efforts in establishing the SA Kuoshu Authority and was asked to do a demonstration of the Luohan Style. This style was not seen for a long time except by some of the senior masters who exclaimed it to be oldest of Kung Fu styles. GMS’s movements were unlike anything that other masters were used to and especially the South Africans who were now seeing the drastic difference in what they were doing vs what GMS was doing. GMS then demonstrated the fighting applications and that impressed those seniors enough to defect. They all left Leo Sebregts’ school and went to beg for GMS to take them as students. He refused.
After many attempts at trying to convince GMS, he agreed under one condition: they would train with him every day, no exceptions, no excuses, and would obey his every instruction. They agreed but this would prove to be a commitment that would cost them much more than time (marriages, careers, blood sweat and tears). GMS was relentless in his methodology. If you did not listen to him or you quit (on yourself during training) he would ask you to leave! Example, during a black sash grading, Ave Vink stood up to stretch his legs during the dreaded Buddha Sit test…..he was failed immediately and told to leave.
On many occasions, GMS would tell these new students to leave and never to come back, but they would come back to his home and sit outside until Mrs Su would come out and ask GMS to show mercy on them. He would punish them drastically (let’s just leave it at that) and allow them back eventually. Eventually GMS would grow to become fond of these new foreign students as they were also relentless in their thirst/quest for knowledge. He enjoyed their discipline and respect and so he would grade them to instructors and task them to continue his traditions.
While they had defected with their schools, their students were now in a transition period as they were initially training in Leo Sebregt’s style and now they were told to train in GMS’ style. To the new students who didn’t know any better it was easy. To the senior students it was a big change in mind-set and some could not grasp it. They would eventually leave to open up their own schools with no alignment to any authorities.
Two particular names that are important to note are Paul Sims and Marco Kavalier, who go on to create their own brands of Kung Fu schools.
These two were also senior students and Marco in particular had also just opened up his own school under the Leo Sebregts banner at the time. He would continue on his own for a while until he too decided to seek out an authentic teacher, and would eventually also go to Taiwan to look for a teacher. He would eventually find a teacher and had to change his focus and mind-set to his new teacher’s stlye.
Paul Sims as a senior student (sihing/shixiong) under Ave Vink. When Sifu Ave left Leo’s school and took his whole school with him, Paul as a senior who was devoted to what he was taught, found it extremely difficult to change. However, he stayed with Sifu Ave during the initial stages as GMS was grooming demo teams and fighting for Shun Wu Tang. GMS was looking for students that already had some fight experience so it would easier to train and coach for Kuoshu Lei Tai, so he took anyone that had some sort of natural skills and trained them. This made training very interesting in SWTDBN because it was a hive of various styles that would come together with the common goal: compete in Full Contact Lei Tai. The demo team were learning the Su family Qigong skills like breaking things, bending things, chopping things, etc….almost circus like feats of impressive skills/tricks. Paul Sims learned a bit of this internal training and then broke away to create his own school in Durban.
It is important to note that these people were all training in the same place at one stage and that they remained friends with respect for each other. When GMS left SA he left his authority and the responsibility of the Kuoshu Federation with the seniors of Shun Wu Tang (his school). These seniors would then go enlist many other schools and clubs and induct them into the Kuoshu Federation so that there would be a platform for their students to compete. This, irrespective of style or “authentic” ties to a teacher. So the South African Kuoshu Federation (SAKF) was one f the only platforms for all schools and styles to compete in full contact fighting during the 80’s and 90’s.
When SA broke ties with the Republic of China (Taiwan) and the new government started to make alliances with the People’s Republic of China (PROC), SASCOC pulled away from the SA Kuoshu Authority and a new organisation was now favoured to govern Chinese Martial Arts. This was the PROC’s Wushu Federation (IWF) and they wanted THEIR federation to take over South Africa’s Martial Arts regulation. The new SAWF was then formed and many of the independent schools joined this new federation…..but that is a story for another day.