How do you prefer to be addressed? "Grandmaster", "Dai-Sifu", "Professor", "Dr. Kernspecht"? If you were my student it would be appropriate to address me as "Si-Fu", which indicates that you wish to learn from me and recognise me as your teacher. If you are not my WT student or are merely attending a seminar to try WT out, "Mr. Kernspecht" is perfectly adequate. Whether you add a title or not changes nothing, as I am still the same person with the same strengths and weaknesses.

Kernspecht:

Does this mean that titles are meaningless? Titles have their meaning and function, otherwise they would not exist. They can indicate a qualification, recognise achievements or represent a status symbol.
Mortal man needs them as a "horizontal" extension to his ego, in order to bask in the illusion that he is something important and special. In fact I am no more important or better than any of my students and should devote myself more to my "vertical" (spiritual) development.
When I present a student with a grading certificate I break the traditional rule by bowing to the student myself, thereby honouring a potential future master.

Kernspecht:

Could you explain this in more detail? Gladly. I have assumed the "role" of a WingTsun teacher and head of the world's largest professional self-defence association within the IWTA. I fill this role and "play" it with the necessary seriousness and sense of responsibility and duty. I want to protect and preserve this association which I have created from nothing because this is the role of my present life. My students and my team of instructors, masters and national instructors have decided to play their role with a similar degree of inner commitment, as they also know that they are helping to spread a teaching which can greatly assist them - and others who come to them – with not only purely physical but also mental problems.
I have no less respect for my students, even beginners, than they have for me. I only see myself as the figure of authority in the field of WT. For myself the final authority in matters of WingTsun techniques is without any doubt my only Si-Fu, Great Grandmaster Leung Ting, to whose skill and judgement I defer.

Kernspecht:

You have been awarded the 10th Level (Europe) in WingTsun (WT) by your Si-Fu, Grandmaster Leung Ting. Many expected that after receiving this highest WingTsun grade you would turn your back on your Si-Fu and make yourself independent. I know that many would have done this in my position, and most of them would probably not have waited until they received the 10th Level. But these people have never understood me. I do not represent myself, and I have long since ceased to be on an ego-trip. WingTsun, this ingenious teaching, is not my property – to date I have only furthered, maintained and administered it, and lived (well) from its fruits. This teaching is the birthright of all people who make efforts to achieve (more) consciousness or awareness. I do not have the right to cut these people off from the living source of this teaching, who for me is my own Si-Fu. This is why I give each of my more advanced students above approx. the 9th SG an opportunity I myself had, namely to learn from my master in private tutorials like a private student.

Kernspecht:

Some see your own creation, your "BlitzDefence" style, as proof that you wanted to further your own reputation and take your leave from classical WingTsun. "BlitzDefence" is not a style. Perhaps I should not have given it a name at all, but in fact it is merely the title of the associated book. BlitzDefence is heavily simplified WingTsun, it is only a name for a small, specialised application area of the greater WingTsun, namely self-defence in ritualised (pseudo) combat. The word "defence" indicates that both legally and morally we are talking about protecting oneself, i.e. about DEFENCE AGAINST the historically infamous strategy of a lightning attack – "Blitzkrieg" – on an unsuspecting victim who does not even know that he is already at war.
In order to allow students to prevail against the dirty tricks of thugs in this (degenerated) ritualised combat I called on the findings of doormen such as Geoff Thompson, professionals such as Karl Koch and the instructors of elite police and military units, lawyers, brain and consciousness researchers, specialists in body language, psychologists, fear researchers, my own research and ancient sources which I do not yet want to reveal to develop a simple method which is based on role-playing and derives its physical techniques from our WT (mainly from the wooden dummy form).

Kernspecht:

What is so different from WingTsun in so-called "Blitzdefence"? I mean just in technical terms. The distance from the opponent, for example. In classical WT we use the ingenious "magnetic zone theory" of GGM Leung Ting. We see ourselves as a magnet at the centre of an imaginary circle. If somebody crosses this safety distance (with evil intent!) represented by the circle, the classically trained WT fighter advances, takes the space the opponent needs to develop his attack and puts him out of action with salvos of chain-punches combined with chasing and penetrating steps.

Kernspecht:

Surely it is legally hard to justify knocking somebody out just because he has come too close? Precisely. The law relating to legitimate self-defence makes it necessary to adapt the techniques if one really wants to prepare students for the specific dangers of a ritualised combat situation. In this case the "fight" does not begin at some distance from the opponent, but rather suddenly at a short, conversational distance. This means that the usual IRAS familiar from the Siu-Nim-Tau cannot be the pre-fight stance appropriate for ritualised combat.

Kernspecht:

I can understand that, otherwise the thug could kick or knee me in the groin immediately. Are there other differences? Yes, at close (conversation) range you have one leg forward for protection and can defend against knee-strikes and kicks with Yap or Bong-Gerk without lowering the arms, while in the duel situation envisaged by classical WT it is better not to defend against kicks using your legs so that you remain mobile and are able to change direction. This means that the usual aggressive WT fighting posture with Man-Sao/Wu-Sao had to be slightly modified and disguised with gestures so that we are not mistakenly seen as the attacker by any witnesses.

Kernspecht:

I understand. You don't just want to win against an attacker on the street, but also in court. And our tried and trusted salvos of chain-punches too easily leave us open to accusations of excessive force in a self-defence situation. In fact as I understand it, and because it uses the attacker's strength, WT can be the most reasonable self-defence of them all, a loving and respectful self-defence which values the life of the attacker.

Kernspecht:

What does GGM Leung Ting think of "BlitzDefence"? Everything fundamentally comes from him, for he is my inexhaustible source. But like myself he is rightly concerned lest this specific, modern application should become mixed with classical WingTsun and change it. Accordingly he often becomes annoyed in his classical WT seminars when particularly beginners innocently adopt the "disguised" BlitzDefence modification of the Man-Sao and Wu-Sao position which they have practiced in role-playing exercises. Such a mixture and therefore dilution is not in my interests either. For this reason instructors must enlighten their students and ensure that a minor but for legal reasons necessary modification does not visually (!) change an entire system. For naturally I always want my Si-Fu to feel at home when he conducts his seminars.
I know what a strange feeling I get myself during seminars when I see students performing techniques or expounding theories which I have never seen or heard, and which are a more or less successful product of the imagination or creativity of the local WT instructor or master. When I am then asked questions about these by students attending the seminar, I am often unable to answer without the danger of undiplomatically criticising the new creation of my representative.
The same problem confronts GGM Leung Ting at his own seminars, when he is asked questions about aspects which represent MY further developments of theories which he has imparted to me at some time over the last 28 years, not pursued any further and left me to think about for myself.

Kernspecht:

It seems that you are deliberately unwilling to accept any accolade for the worldwide success of WingTsun. At the same time the EWTO accounts for most of the instructors and students in the IWTA headed by Grandmaster Leung Ting. With all due respect, what would Grandmaster Leung Ting have achieved without your efforts as his main representative and loyal student? What would a teacher be without students? And to reverse the questions: what would a student be without his teacher? I owe ALL my knowledge of WT to GGM Leung Ting. What could I have shown or taught if he had not shown and entrusted it to me himself? GGM is the creator of WT, I am only his representative and pioneer. If I have done a good, successful job despite all the mistakes, then I am pleased.
I am more than content with my role as a herald, administrator and interpreter.
And I would also like to serve as an example of the fact that a man of my age can also control his own ego to such an extent that despite my own sometimes rather different views and attitude to life, he is able to be obedient to another man if he accepts his authority in a certain field.
I can only ask for what I am myself prepared to give. For example, how can I expect gratitude if I am not grateful to my own master and consider my own achievements to be the most important. We humans already overestimate ourselves enough, as we invent an image of ourselves and then lose ourselves in it.

Kernspecht:

During the last few years even those who criticise and envy you most have noticed a fundamental change in your thinking and behaviour. You attach great value to the consciousness and philosophy that lie behind WingTsun. What led to this rethink? First of all a favourable predisposition without which no seed can fall on fertile ground, then the right situation which makes one receptive and finally corresponding influences and information which reached me when I was ready for them. WingTsun is a higher, inner Kung Fu system like Tai Chi Chuan, Pakua or Hsing-I, which it shares many conceptions. Ignoring the physical aspect which concerns itself purely with self-defence, WT fulfils two further important functions which are based on the same laws or principles as the physical, outer WingTsun. WingTsun as a practical (survival) strategy which helps us to prevail and "expand horizontally". However this stage is only an intermediate step, like the larva for the butterfly, which feeds on the larva to find its full beauty and destiny. This process of finding oneself is the real goal of the higher schools of self-defence – freeing ourselves from everything that is wrong, robs us of our energy and prevents us from recognising truth. The physical stage is only the superficial level that is recognisable to all. As ingenious as the WT fighting system is, it is ultimately only the vehicle that carries a higher and much more important teaching.

Kernspecht:

Why are martial arts such as Kendo, Karate and Aikido often a means of achieving a higher consciousness? This question is among the subjects of a major book on which I have been working with great personal benefit for some years.
Let me limit my response to saying that danger and the associated emotion of "fear", in combination with two further factors, more rapidly creates the conditions for a certain development which one might call consciousness.

Kernspecht:

Must every reader or WT student understand this? No, it meant nothing to me even as a forty year-old. At that time, on reading about such experiences in the works of people like Musashi or Uyeshiba, I considered this to be the resigned babbling of old men who no longer possessed the strength of youth and were trying to make the best of the new situation. And now, together with my friend Bill, I find that a process of rethinking has taken place within me, and that I am no longer the same person.

Kernspecht:

Mr. Kernspecht, thank you for this instructive interview.