Master William Ho's Blog

 Mas­ter William Ho’s 55  years of mar­tial arts prac­tice, he encoun­tered many real life dra­mas where he used his mar­tial arts skills as the last resort to pro­tect him­self. Luck­ily he did not sus­tain any injuries dur­ing the attacks but iron­i­cally had injured him­self many times dur­ing prac­tice. Injuries dur­ing prac­tice had pre­pared him to avoid seri­ous injuries dur­ing real life sit­u­a­tions. The fol­low­ing are some of the encoun­ters by Mas­ter Ho.

In 1967, before the Chi­nese Cul­tural Rev­o­lu­tion, the soci­ety was in total dis­ar­ray, the red guard sup­port­ing the idea of non-social class finds peo­ple who are teach­ing Tai Chi to be unlaw­ful and must be re-educated in a remote land. Mas­ter Ho’s fam­ily was involved in such con­flict. In order to make a liv­ing and sur­vive, Mas­ter Ho’s fam­ily must con­tinue to teach in the city and can­not go to the remote land. There­fore, the red guard tried to catch Mas­ter Ho, but using his soft­ness skills from Tai Chi, the red guard was unable to catch him. The red guard later used weapons and Mas­ter Ho was able to defend using Ba Gua steps and broad sword, the Ba Gua broad sword form is one of the most effect tech­niques in broad sword. Later, Mas­ter Ho incor­po­rated the Ba Gua broad sword skills into the Tai Chi broad sword form.

In July 1967, after fail­ing to catch Mas­ter Ho,who’s using weapons, they decide to used guns. Mas­ter Ho heard the news from the neigh­bors and decided to leave to Hong Kong in Sep­tem­ber. Mas­ter Ho was caught on the way to Hong Kong and was to be sent back to Can­ton. In the mean while, he was placed in a house along with other peo­ple to be sent back. The house had a four meters high wall and glass chip­pings on top. Mas­ter Ho decided to escape, so after din­ner, he used the mat­tress as a rope and threw one end to the top of the wall with glass chip­pings. Using the rebound energy, he flung him­self up just like that in the movies. He landed on the other side of the wall and ran into the sugar cane farm, sol­diers started fir­ing, but it was too late. Hav­ing such light move­ments is one of the results prac­tic­ing Wu Dang mar­tial arts.

In Sep­tem­ber 1968 dusk, after fin­ish­ing work in a wig fac­tory in Hong Kong, and catch­ing a bus to have din­ner with friends. When get­ting off the fully loaded bus, Mas­ter Ho instructed peo­ple who want to get on the bus must wait for the peo­ple to get off first. But one of the man get­ting on the bus refused, so Mas­ter Ho have to force his way out, in doing so, bumped into the man. The man was very unhappy and kicked Mas­ter Ho as he was get­ting off, Mas­ter Ho luck­ily had on hand grab­bing by the door and as he swung back, he grabbed the man by the shirt and did not let go. Mas­ter Ho wanted him to get off the bus and set­tle the dis­pute out­side. But the man wanted to get on. So the bus drive had to get both of them out of the bus as it is delay­ing the rest of the pas­sen­ger. Even­tu­ally, both of them got off the bus and the man was very angry. The man straight way threw punches and kicks which show that the man have pre­vi­ously prac­ticed Karate. Mas­ter Ho per­suaded him to stop many times but he refused. Mas­ter Ho was wear­ing a suit, leather shoes and his newly bought expen­sive watch. He first used Ba Gua steps to avoid the fierce attack and had time to take off his new watch and unbut­ton his jacket. The man was very strong, pow­er­ful and react­ing like a mad per­son. Sud­denly the man punched with a right hand, Mas­ter Ho then used his left hand to thread through the punch, the man then fol­lowed with a kick, Mas­ter Ho slide side ways and punched his lower abdomen with his right hand. The man cov­ered his lower abdomen and tries to catch his breath. Mas­ter Ho asked him whether he wants to con­tinue to fight or talk, the man ran off know­ing that he sus­tained a direct hit after Mas­ter Ho’s first attack.

In March 1969, Mas­ter Ho was vis­it­ing friends on a Sat­ur­day night. As he was leav­ing his friends place around 11pm, turn­ing around the street for the bus stop, he dis­cov­ered whom fol­lowed by two peo­ple with the knifes. They threat­ened with their knifes and ask for per­sonal valu­ables from Mas­ter Ho. Mas­ter Ho fol­lowed their instruc­tions and gave away his wal­let and watch. One of the thieves con­tin­ues to body search Mas­ter Ho for pro­ces­sions by giv­ing his knife to his other accom­plice. As they start to leave, Mas­ter Ho kicked the thief with his sharp headed shoe, and the thief laid on the ground moan­ing. The other thief leaped for­ward and Mas­ter Ho dodge side ways and get­ting ready to kick the thief again, Mas­ter Ho threaten that police will arrive very soon as the neigh­bors would have alerted the police by now. So the other thief stopped and ran way in panic. Mas­ter Ho told the injured thief to quickly seek med­ical atten­tion for the wound.

In August 1969, one Sat­ur­day night, one of Mas­ter Ho’s student/friend was going out with his girl­friend and was tak­ing a walk in a quiet park. Then at around 10 o’clock, three peo­ple sud­denly appeared out of the shadow under a tree and demanded money. The girl­friend was very scared and started cry­ing. The boy had to fol­low the thieves demand and handed over hun­dreds of dol­lars of valu­ables to the thieves. Later after Mas­ter Ho and his group of stu­dents found out, they decided to catch the thieves that Sat­ur­day night. They man­aged to find the three thieves respon­si­ble and demanded them to return back they took over the valu­ables. The thieves retal­i­ated with knife, so Mas­ter Ho instructed the stu­dents to stay back and sur­rounded them to avoid they escap­ing. Mas­ter Ho later used Ba Gua to catch the weapon and injured one of the attack­ers arm, the rest of the thieve decided to give up and hand over the remain­ing valu­able that they have, as they have already sold most to the valu­able. Mas­ter Ho and his stu­dents decided this is all they can do, so did not carry the mat­ter further.

In March 1983, Mas­ter Ho was work­ing as a rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Chi­nese in an indus­trial com­pany. That day, he was in a hurry and  hun­gry, so he decided to have a quick lunch in a restau­rant, while he was eat­ing his food, he noticed his brief case was mov­ing. When he moved his head up, he real­ized a young man is try­ing to snatch his brief case, so Mas­ter Ho jumped from his chair and slide across the floor using his metal plated under sole of his leather shoes. As his slide, his shoe reached the young man’s ankle and made him off bal­ance and fell over. Mas­ter Ho got back his brief case and fin­ished off his lunch. The restau­rant waiter told Mas­ter Ho that there were a lot of thieves in Can­ton, you should be care­ful. Mas­ter Ho then replied, the thief was unlucky that he encoun­tered some­one who knows mar­tial arts.

In Jan­u­ary 1988, Mas­ter Ho was in Tai­wan for no more than a month. One day, he was in a park and saw some peo­ple was doing Tai Chi push hands. Mas­ter Ho wanted to try  push hand in Tai­wan, so they intro­duced to one another. A man in his thir­ties was doing push hands with Mas­ter Ho. Dur­ing the push hand, this man sud­denly moved for­ward one step and gave a big push, Mas­ter Ho was push back for a few meters. Then next time, as the man uses the same move, Mas­ter Ho leaned back and kicked his lower body. The man said it is not fair to use kicks, so Mas­ter Ho  used another move to off bal­ance his knees as he move for­ward. The man had to retrieve as he can­not push when he is off balance.

In Jan­u­ary 1990, Mas­ter Ho was work­ing as a night club man­ager in Tai­wan. On the first open­ing day of the night club, all the secu­rity guards were car­ry­ing base­ball bats in case of emer­gency. Mas­ter Ho said weapons are not allowed and he would teach them self defense skills. On the sec­ond day, a drunken man was caus­ing trou­ble and he was punch­ing any­one who comes closer. Mas­ter Ho saw this on the secu­rity cam­era and come out to resolve the prob­lem. This drunken man is very strong and seems to know mar­tial arts. As Mas­ter Ho got close to the man, the man threw sev­eral punches towards Mas­ter Ho’s face. Mas­ter Ho climbed into the punches and close into the man. With one hand grab­bing the man’s shirt and the other push­ing into the throat, the man sud­denly relax and fall down. Mas­ter Ho asked the secu­rity guards to laid him down on a couch and give him some­thing to drink to sub­due the alco­hol. Later, the secu­rity guard was puz­zled as  how the man was sub­due as every­thing hap­pened very quickly. Mas­ter Ho  explained  about what he did and how to use it for self defense.

In Feb­ru­ary 1990, the newly opened night club was very busy and had a lot of cus­tomers. The major­ity of the cus­tomers are very pop­u­lar or from under­world gangs. One night at around 11pm, two of the gangs were hav­ing a quar­rel and even­tu­ally turned more phys­i­cal. There were about eight to ten peo­ple in each gang and each gang had a leader. Mas­ter Ho real­ized this and quickly car­ried a bot­tle of brandy to set­tle the dis­pute. Mas­ter Ho was ask­ing the lead­ers to relax and take a drink and have fun. Sud­denly, one of the gang mem­bers tried to strike Mas­ter Ho in the head from behind with an old style mobile phone. Mas­ter Ho real­ized a dark shadow as strik­ing towards his head, and there is no time to move, he had only man­aged to move his head a lit­tle side ways. The mobile phone man­aged to scratch his head and was bleed­ing fast. Peo­ple urge to call the ambu­lance, but Mas­ter Ho said it’s not nec­es­sary, it just a minor cut. This mobile was made of metal and would have caused seri­ous injury or even death if hit directly on the head. The man strik­ing Mas­ter Ho later real­ized he have hit an inno­cent per­son, he was a lit­tle drunk and thought Mas­ter Ho was threat­en­ing his leader so the struck.  Later on he apol­o­gized  Mas­ter Ho for­gave him and asked every­one to relax and have fun. The gang leader real­ized Mas­ter Ho was a very good mar­tial artist, so invite him to teach his fol­low­ers. Mas­ter Ho was reluc­tant to agree and dis­agree. To dis­agree would make the leader unhappy and to agree will make the other gang unhappy. So Mas­ter Ho later decide to quit the night club busi­ness alto­gether and fol­low his mother’s advice to migrate to Aus­tralia to have a sim­ple life.

In early 1995, Mas­ter migrated to Aus­tralia and lives in Par­ram­matta. One day, as he was going to cen­tral by train and was walk­ing across Bel­more Park, he saw a group of peo­ple prac­tic­ing Tai Chi. Mas­ter Ho stopped and had a look and saw an old teacher teach­ing a group of stu­dents. Mas­ter Ho was very inter­ested so decided to prac­tice his Tai Chi in another area. When the group of peo­ple fin­ished their Tai Chi exer­cise, they came greeted Mas­ter Ho and dis­cuss about Tai Chi. One of the man ask whether he can teach him Tai Chi, he was will­ing to pay for a les­son. Another lady also wanted to learn. Mas­ter Ho was not sure because his work is still not set­tled and can only teach in his spared time. But he finally agreed, because he always prac­tices Tai Chi in the morn­ing any­way. Mas­ter Ho later estab­lished the Tai Chi Ba Gua Asso­ci­a­tion. The news of Mas­ter Ho liv­ing in Syd­ney had trav­eled fast. One of the Tai Chi prac­ti­tioner from Mel­bourne was very inter­ested and came all the way from Mel­bourne just to do some push hand with Mas­ter Ho. Mas­ter Ho one day meet his per­son and agreed to do some push hands with him. After five min­utes of push hands, this prac­ti­tioner admit that he is unable to push Mas­ter Ho over, because he is unable find the point to push. Mas­ter Ho explained to him that he was in the state of non-action and his Chi was con­tin­u­ously mov­ing in his body, so he was unable to find the point to push. At least twenty years of prac­tice is required to get to this stage. Later that day, they went for a Yum Cha lunch together and agreed that the prac­ti­tioner could start his own class in Mel­bourne bar­ring the name of the Tai Chi Ba Gua Asso­ci­a­tion. Mas­ter Ho also gave him a video to learn about non-action. After a few years, his stu­dents par­tic­i­pated in push hands and spar­ring com­pe­ti­tion and was award third place.

In June 1996, Mas­ter Ho extended his classes and teaches in a park in Par­ram­matta, at the time, there were a few Tai Chi Ba Gua enthu­si­asts who already had more than ten years expe­ri­ence. One day, there was a Tai Chi Mas­ter who had just migrated to Aus­tralia, he also wanted to have some stu­dents in the park. He saw Mas­ter Ho teach­ing push hands, so he wanted to try out his skills. After a few rounds of push hands, Mas­ter Ho moved to tan­gle his front leg, the other Mas­ter then try to resist and sud­denly sink down and kick with his front leg. Mas­ter then jumped back a few meters to avoid injury. Mas­ter Ho real­ized that he using a Shoal­ing move because it is action by force. In Tai Chi, one must be pas­sive in gen­er­at­ing the energy and use soft­ness to redi­rect the opponent’s power. Accord­ing to Mas­ter Ho, the other Mas­ter didn’t have to use such move, he should wait for the oppo­nent and not panic in attack. One could have turned the waist and use the knee or hand to coun­ter­act when Mas­ter Ho was try­ing to tan­gle his front leg. At the same time, when the other Mas­ter sink down, Mas­ter Ho could have moved front and push toward his chest to make him off bal­ance. But such move would have caused injury espe­cially when he was older than Mas­ter Ho at the time.

In a morn­ing of July 1996, as Mas­ter Ho was teach­ing Tai Chi in Bel­more park, sud­denly, a woman was yelling. Mas­ter Ho dis­cov­ered that a young man had just snatched the woman’s hand bag and run­ning toward to Surry Hills. Mas­ter Ho asked his stu­dents to call the police and he chased after the thief, about 200 meters of run­ning, the thief was exhausted and Mas­ter Ho had just caught up with him. The thief try­ing to push Mas­ter Ho away and was deflected by Mas­ter Ho. The sec­ond time he pushed again and Mas­ter Ho used his Tai Chi skills to flung him onto the ground. The thief got up again and tried to throw a punch but Mas­ter Ho using Ba Gua and block and twist his arm, the thief landed on the ground again. Even­tu­ally  around ten min­utes, the police arrived and took the thief away to the police station.