WTW: Dr. Kernspecht, on behalf of the Spanish WingTsun organisation I would like to thank you for allowing me to ask you a few questions.

GM Kernspecht: Con mucho gusto.

WTW: I see you speak Spanish. Since when?

GM Kernspecht: Since I bought "Spanish in 30 days" at Tenerife airport and worked my way through it during the daily breaks. I am now on lesson 28 and have made it my aim to get to the end by the time we leave here.

WTW: How is it possible to learn a language so quickly?

GM Kernspecht: By already being fluent in it at one time, then remembering it. 40 years ago I already took a training course as an interpreter in Spanish (and two other languages), because my father was in contact with a number of Spanish performing magicians (illusionists) and I wanted to help him with his correspondence.

WTW: Right... now I remember reading somewhere that you even gave a radio interview in Spanish during the 80s.

GM Kernspecht: That was in Barcelona, and I even have the tape somewhere. But my Spanish was already a little rusty then. As in WT, what you don't practice regularly you lose. A dear cousin of mine lives in Tenerife; during many years as a prisoner of war he learned Russian perfectly in order to survive, but after being released and returning home, he found it so distasteful that he never spoke one word of Russian again. And now he regrets it, ever since I told him I was now taking Russian lessons.

WTW: But in your case there was no dislike of the Spanish language, was there?

GM Kernspecht: Quite the contrary, I am very fond of Spanish, and it pained me to place it on the back burner when I took up secondary residence in Italy at the end of the 80s, in order to support my master student Sifu Cuciuffo and make Italy the world's second-largest WT country after Germany. Spanish and Italian are so similar that you have to concentrate on one or the other to avoid confusing them. It is therefore only now, after speaking only Italian for the last ten years or so, that I summoned up the nerve to take a crash course in Spanish. But if we include Sifu Cuciuffo and Sifu Stellato (national instructor for Malta) there are four Italians taking part here in Tenerife, therefore I constantly have to switch between German, Italian and Spanish. I find that very enjoyable.

WTW: You say that Italy is the No. 2 country. Where does Spain come with its 5000 or so active members? In third place?

GM Kernspecht: That may be, but I am not up-to-date with the present figures.

WTW: Apparently there are not many WT-followers in China itself. Why is this?

GM Kernspecht: There is a saying that a prophet counts for nothing in his own country, and in China or Hong Kong too, the American sporting disciplines are more highly regarded than their own traditional arts.

WTW: I can well believe that. America is the trendsetter, and what is "in" there soon crosses over to Europe. Since when has there been WingTsun in America, I believe it is also since the end of the 70s, right? But is it true that the USA does not have even one tenth of the active WT followers that Spain has?

GM Kernspecht: I have no informations about it, but these numbers are only known to the head of the American association, Sifu Leung Ting. He probably quite rightly says that the USA is "a different country with its own circumstances, where one cannot apply European standards". Last year Sifu Leung Ting asked me if I would like to administer the USA on his behalf, which greatly flattered me, however I politely declined. I am fond of old Europe and do not want to spread myself too thinly, and I can only do good work if I am left to build and organise in the way I think best, which means without intervention.

WTW: How do you rate the performance of the national instructor for Spain, Victor Gutierrez?

GM Kernspecht: Victor is achieving a great deal here, which greatly pleases both me and my friend Bill Newman, who has become a true fan of Tenerife.

WTW: So will we see you both here again next January?

GM Kernspecht: We are thinking about offering our globetrotters from Germany, Austria, Switzerland and of course Italy a change of venue to Lanzarote in 2005. However, we have not made a final decision and will become untrue to Tenerife. In any event we shall come together again on one of the Canary Islands at the beginning of 2005.