May 12, 2009

Hope all is well with everyone.  Keep working out and learning all you can.

Barbara for Master Gatewood

Seminar DVD's Available

Master Gatewood has presented "Learn With Grand Master Woo" Seminars over the last few years in California.  He would select the best techniques and information from his video collection and focus on one area of study at each presentation.  If you couldn't attend these seminars he is now making the DVD's he used to share the information available to you!
During the seminar he would show the technique or information taught by Grand Master Woo and then the class would practice what they had just seen.  If you sat and watched the DVD it would take about twenty to thirty minutes.  We had a great time at each seminar - they lasted about three hours each - now you can enjoy what was shared.

If you purchase the Baton Seminar I will be sure to include the Baton Striking Chart at no charge.

       "San Soo Grappling - Is there  a difference?"

Short answer...Yes and No.

Let's start with "No".  Have you seen a leverage that we don't use in San Soo?  Not really because our Art uses a wide range of leverages that may vary slightly in angle or the use of a different fulcrum.

Example:  Our armbar may be over the shoulder, thigh, your side, under your thigh and pulling up, but an armbar is an armbar.  The grapplers often end a fight with an arm bar across the groin but again it is still an armbar.

Take a guillotine choke - they attempt to cut off the air supply while we usually take it to a throw.  We can take almost any move that they use and demonstrate an exact or similar move in San Soo.  

Now, the "Yes" part of our answer is much more complicated and we can learn many things from how they fight.  Don't get caught up in the rhetoric of "they are for sport only, not the street."  First, you must learn how to "sprawl", (it must be by feel) making yourself almost impossible to throw or take down.  When they shoot for your legs they can be neutralized and the fight will remain upright.

Our fight usually is one of two types: We react to an attack or we use a pre-emptive attack.  The grappler feeds in or manipulates movement which causes you to react in a manner which leads to the trap he has set.  They are masters at what I call "snaking" - they make slow, deliberate, and patient movements usually with their arms or legs to achieve their desired position which allows them to set the trap before their opponent knows what happened.  This also enables them to get out of and reverse holds.

They have developed a heightened sense of "feel" so they can reverse or neutralize an incoming threat.  They are highly conditioned with exercise and training routines that most would find difficult to maintain unless you are totally dedicated to sustaining the grueling workouts.  There may be a difference but it is not so much in the art, it is in how it is applied.

Many San Soo students tell how they would totally defeat a grappler in a life or death struggle.  I asked them if they had ever critically watched how and why grapplers do what they do.  They say, "No, I will gouge their eyes or break their neck, etc."  I think to myself, "What a fool, that is like landing on Normandy Beach on D-Day (World War II) without having any counter-intelligence or any understanding of the enemy's strengths or weaknesses.

We have a great Art with a very wide arsenal from which you can choose but there are other deadly arts out there.  You must understand the mouse trap before you try to take the cheese!

Have a great summer,
Ron Gatewood

   Welcome to our site!

A note from Master Gatewood...

I've been in Kung Fu San Soo for over 41 years - that's way more than half of my life (actually more than 2/3 of my life).  I know there are those of you who plan to keep this Art for the rest of your life, too.  I really take pride in being one of the "First Generation Masters" as I studied with Grandmaster Woo longer than most.

San Soo has never failed me.  It has saved me in many situations when I was in law enforcement.  I has kept me safe because of the fighting/life strategies I have learned.  The only disappointment I have had with San Soo is the difficulty of sharing what I've learned with others without having to justify or defend what I'm sharing.

This site is dedicated to giving back to the San Soo world what I learned and gathered.  The 28 years I studied with Grandmaster Woo were valuable and gave me the basis for becoming a skilled fighter.  While studying with him and for the years after his death I continued to enrich my martial arts education by researching and learning about other martial art skills.  San Soo still has a lot to offer and will always be the central base of my knowledge.