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Wing Chun Sifu Rick Spain
Author: Andrew Inwood
Sifu Rick Spain says he discovered Wing Chun Kung Fu "completely by accident" - at the back of a Chinese restaurant in Auckland - having previously trained in Kyokushin Karate with well-known New Zealand instructor, Sensei Andy Barber. "I was so impressed with the logic and economy of the Wing Chun style that I sought out the most credentialled teacher I couldfind." That led him to the Melbourne school of Master William Cheung.
IMAGINE THIS. You are 20 years old. You have just arrived in Hong Kong, where the air is like soup and you have to fight in the World Contact Kung Fu Championships in two days' time.
Three days later and you've cracked the big one. After a hectic day of fighting, you've made it into the grand final fight. The only thing that stands between you and the recognition, the satisfaction, the respect that comes with being the best in the Kung Fu tournament world is one man ...
But things haven't been that easy. The wet heat of Hong Kong and the fierce competition have drained your energy and, to make matters worse, in the previous fight you smashed the bones in your right hand. To go into a world championship fight in that sort of condition takes a lot of guts. And to be able to win a world championship fight in that sort of condition takes a lot more.
If you talk to Sifu Rick Spain (who runs the Wing Chun Academy in Sydney's Surrey Hills) about that day, he has surprisingly little to say. "My Sifu, William Cheung, took me to see a herbalist on Hong Kong Island after I broke my hand and he gave me a poultice made out of iron palm medicine for it. The poultice didn't cure me, but at least I could squeeze my hand into a glove".
Two rounds into the fight, Rick broke the toes of his left foot on his opponent's ribs - something that didn't make him feel any better, but wouldn't have helped his opponent either. "My mind just shut down then. My right hand was broken, my left foot was hurting. I concentrated on fighting off one side of my body. I fought on automatic", he said.
And fight on automatic he did, all the way to the Contact Kung Fu World Championship. Rick Spain became the 1982-'83 World Champion in the fight, in a competition that is unlikely to be held again. So many people were so seriously injured in the bouts, that it is thought to be impossible to find a sponsor for such an event.
It's a long journey for someone like Rick Spain, who was born in New Zealand, to a World Championship in Hong Kong. And it seems he got there almost by accident. He had a few years of instruction in Martial Arts (from an uncle) when he was eight years old, and then three more years from when he was 13 - training sporadically in Kyokushin Karate at the local Scout Hall in Motueka, New Zealand, under Sensei Andy Barber, who then ran the Kyokushin Headquarters in nearby Nelson.
It wasn't until Rick walked around the back of a Chinese restaurant in Auckland some years later, however, that his fighting career really began. "I discovered Wing Chun completely by accident", he says. "I was waiting for my girlfriend to finish work at a Chinese restaurant, and I saw two Chinese guys doing two-arm Chi-Sau (sticking hands) training. I was so impressed with the logic and economy of their style that I asked them about it, and sought out the most credentialled teacher I could find."
The most credentialled teacher turned out to be Grandmaster William Cheung, who had settled in Australia after years of training at the hands of Wing Chun legend, Yip Man. And so, a couple of months after seeing the two Chinese fighters practising in an alleyway, Rick was living in a dingy little apartment and training at the Wing Chun Academy of Victoria.
It wasn't easy at first. Rick was spending his days working as a welder, and his nights and weekends training as hard as he could. When he arrived at the Academy it was a well established school, full of talented fighters - not an easy place to grow up, but full of discipline and a place to learn about yourself.
"I tried to make my feelings known to Sifu, about how determined I was and that all I wanted was to be the best in the world", Rick says. "But I found it so hard. I held him in such high regard, and being so young," (he had lied about his age to get in) "I just kept training diligently, looking for an opportunity to show him how I felt. It's funny looking back", he says, "because eventually I became a respected member of the school. I had never realised that time is all a Sifu expects ... time spent training, time that he has invested in you. Nothing more; just time."
Within three years, Rick was given a chance to live inside the school and training became his reason for existence. It's at this time, by Rick's own admission, that things got a little bit out of hand. "I became a little bit uncontrollable", he says. "I was getting into fights on a regular basis, challenging fighters from other
schools and, on one occasion, challenging the entire school with one of myoid training partners. We were so confident in our school, our style, and our teacher, we felt that nothing could stop us ... "
The latter incident, Rick explained, was when he and clubmate Phillip Fisher visited a Melbourne city school that taught Choy Lay Fut and Wing Chun. "It was a Friday night", Rick recalls. "We asked if we could spar some of their senior students. They refused. We insisted and they still refused. So we asked the Sifu if he could accommodate us. They they became very upset. We had to back out of the building with these guys following us down the stairs. The following night, I met up with one of their students and' finally got to fight. It was all very fair, with Phillip holding our personal items while we beat the crap out of each other in an alley behind the cinemas on Collins Street, Melbourne.
"That caused a very big ruckus between the two schools", he adds, "with my Sifu organising a big meeting between the two schools and chastising me, which I deserved. It's funny, because I would never tolerate one of my students doing that sort of thing today ... "
At about that time Rick started to compete and this calmed him down somewhat. In his first fight he was disqualified for consistently hammering the legs of his opponent with low roundhouse kicks. (Old Kyokushin habits, he claims, die hard). He made the finals in his first tournament and narrowly lost on points, due to a lack of contest experience.
Rick was just 18 years old, and from there it was all systems go. He fought anywhere and everywhere. Rules or no rules, it didn't matter; he was trying to establish a reputation.
"Sifu was a great inspiration. I guess I was jusr trying to follow in his footsteps. He made me a part-time instructor which, in concert with my live-in arrangement, allowed me to see a lot of him and to train for fights almost fulltime", Rick says. "I wasn't the only one at that time. There were others who had a similar opportunity, Phillip Fisher and Allan De Pau, my training brothers. We were as thick as thieves. Our thirst for knowledge was unquenchable. They had a great deal of influence on me, as I was younger than them. We felt like pioneers, gladiators. I remember them helping me out of sticky situations more than once. Nobody trained harder than we did. We did crazy things - swimming in subzero temperatures, running marathon distances, punching till our hands bled, kicking until we couldn't walk, sparring without protection till we were black-and-blue.
"All this time, Sifu would just watch and shake his head ... It was our version of the Shaolin Temple, Iron Palm. Constantly on the boil for repairs, we survived, although I often wonder how. I haven't heard from them for a long time. I miss them."
By this time it was 1982 and Rick had been selected for the Australian team to compete in the World Invitation Full Contact Kung Fu Championships in Hong Kong. The team, he says, "trained like maniacs". They were super fit and hungry for action. "The biggest shock was the climate. The humidity sucked the life right out of us. And the tension - imagine hundreds of fighters in the same hotel, checking each other out". -
The rest is history. Rick Spain overcame the odds and the pain threshold to win and become the world champion. This is when the going got good for Rick. Offers to fight poured in - from the USA and Asia All this ended in late 1983, when a freak car crash crushed his left ankle and it took years of dedicated training and many operations to get back to normal.
In that time Rick worked as a bodyguard for some of the world's more colourful characters. "With one bloke in particular, I was given the opportunity to work for him, if I could get through the bodyguard that he already had! I felt bad about the fact the guy didn't know about my previous experience, but the money was incredible".
Four years ago, when Rick was working out at a gym in Sydney, he was approached by a member who had been watching him stretching, kicking, and using the bag, and was asked if he taught. "At that time I decided to become a teacher", Rick said. "The next thing I know, I'm running classes and developing a reputation as an instructor."
During his years as a fighter, Rick says he never even thought about teaching, and that he was very jealous of the information and the experience he had gathered. "But this is really what I think I was meant to do", he says. "I have a fulltime Academy with some of the mosttalented Martial Artists in Australia working out there. Not just talented fighters, but individuals who respect the traditions of Kung Fu and all styles, who believe in Martial Arts like I do ..
"In the past couple of years I have emerged from a kind of self-imposed exile and in that time I've worked out with the greats, doing exhibition bouts with Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez - which was a real slugfest - and Bill 'Superfoot' Wallace, which was great fun. I respect and admire those men, and I think the more we see of them the more we realise what talent we have right here in Australia.
"These men bring out the best in people", Rick adds. "And that's what I'm trying to do now - teach my students what I've learned over the years and help them to avoid some of the mistakes I've made. To make them better than I have made myself ..."
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