KEVIN CHAN
He might be called Kevin and he might not look like a man mountain but this is one hard bastard you wouldn’t want to mess with because – you’d be for the chop!
Kevin Chan is only 34 but he’s a world-famous kung fu instructor and practises something called Wing Chun Kung Fu. It’s the kung fu that’s been fought for years in the back alleys of Hong Kong and China and was brought to the UK in the Fifties by a man they call the Grand Master Yip Man. He, incidentally, taught the late Bruce Lee.
Kevin is modest – and controlled.
‘I like Wing Chun – you use someone’s force against them – that’s how it works,’ he told me.
Kevin is also a ju-jitsu Masters Champion – ju-jitsu is famous for dominating the Ultimate Fighting Championships and other no-holds-barred events.
As I say, you wouldn’t want to mess with Kevin. Kevin is suave. Sophisticated. A modern man. A millennium man. He drives a silver Masarati, has a flash London pad on Clapham Common and a riverside house in Portsmouth. He’s not a villain, a gangster, a hoodlum – and, no, he’s not a triad. He’s a straight, honourable guy, a man on a mission. He’s going places – big time! That was obvious when I met him. It was a refreshing change from the tough guys I usually meet.
On our second meeting I went to the Pineapple Studio to watch him in action. Cor blimey, is he fast! He may be wiry, and one of the smallest men in the book, but he is certainly one of the deadliest …
BACKGROUND
My family background is Hong Kong Chinese. My family came to the UK in the Sixties to work in Chinese restaurants and take-aways. I was born in Scotland while they worked there. We moved around as a family probably ten times before finally settling down in Portsmouth when I was about 14. I speak English as my main language but I also speak Cantonese Chinese.
I’ve got one brother and two sisters. Each new move meant going to new schools, and being Chinese meant that we usually stuck out like sore thumbs because there were rarely other Chinese kids there. When you get to a new school, the other kids muck about, they kind of test the waters. Kids being kids used to taunt us to establish their hierarchy in the playground pecking order. So, from a very young age, we learned diplomacy and, if we needed to, we fought.
My career teacher suggested I should work in Mum and Dad’s take-away when I left school because, supposedly, I wasn’t intelligent enough for anything else! But I got my O-levels and A-levels and went on to University to get a BA Honours in Humanities!
At the time, I was thinking about a career in the Army, so I spent three years in the University of London Officer Training Corps. In the end, I decided it wasn’t for me.
I first started kung fu training in Hong Kong when I was 12 and I continued with it when I was back in the UK, studying various styles.
Kung fu is tough but it’s so much more than that. It’s my job now but I enjoy it so much that, to this day, I feel I’ve never really worked in my life! More than anything else, the martial arts I do is an intelligence game. In competition, you’re not just using muscle and strength, the big guy doesn’t always have to win – that’s what people want to see and understand when they come to see me in exhibitions. That’s what sells.
Kung fu to me is my centre – everything directly or indirectly revolves around it. It is my career, a way of understanding myself, a way to get fit. One of the most important aspects of kung fu I have learned is that using force and aggression in itself can drain and be counter- productive. It is all about using intelligence and using force correctly in a way that’s efficient and effective.
LIFE OF CRIME
None. I’m a straight, honourable guy.
DO YOU THINK PRISON IS A DETERRENT?
It depends on the circumstances. I don’t think it does act as much of a deterrent. If I did a crime and I had to do time, as long as it wasn’t for too long, I would look upon it as a way of developing my own character. I’d read and write a few books, study. I’d use that time out. I wouldn’t think of it as a negative thing. There could be a positive side to it – it could be a cloud with a silver lining.
Prison is only a deterrent to some people. The majority of people in prison did not anticipate getting caught. People who are in prison – at least many of them – probably believe in the notion that crime is getting caught, not actually committing it.
HAVE YOU EVER BEEN STABBED/SHOT?
No, nothing like that. Somone has pulled a knife on me but I dealt with it adequately.
SCARIEST MOMENT?
The scariest moments for me are when I run away from myself on certain issues rather than address them directly. I know I’m cowering away and I hate that in myself.
In a situation of confrontation with someone else, I feel quite OK. Usually I walk away. I have done demonstrations when someone wants trouble. I’ll always try and deal with it diplomatically. I don’t want to get involved to be honest, what’s the point? It’s all rubbish. I lose either way. If I fight, it means I’ve lost control. If I don’t fight, it looks like I won’t fight.
And if the general public are there, I always say to the person, ‘Wait behind until I’ve finished my demonstration. I’ll talk to you and answer your questions then.’ Usually they don’t wait, they wanted to have a go in front of the public, not just me.
Only once has someone actually waited and stayed behind – but then they wouldn’t go for it anyway.
My scariest moment didn’t actually come from fighting but from surfing! I was in Bali and I ended up surfing one day that can only be described as potentially fatal. No one else was in the water except a handful of really top pros. I only ended up in the water that day because the day before I had cowered away from it. Then the waves had been smaller but I felt I had let myself down.
So I had to take control and face my demons and take ‘the drop’. It was a scary experience. The most frightening thing was that everything was totally unpredictable – anything could have happened.
SADDEST MOMENT?
You know what? I can’t really recall a specific moment that was so sad it sticks out in my mind. I can’t think of a time when any girl’s dumped me or whatever. I try to be really positive – difficult times make me stronger.
WHAT RATTLES YOUR CAGE?
When someone takes advantage of my nice nature and confuses being nice with being weak. The other is when I know something is being done half-heartedly. People make excuses or simply cannot be bothered to rectify the situation, hoping I will simply forget or give up.
Also squeaky floorboards – they drive me nuts!
HAVE YOU EVER REALLY LOVED ANYONE?
We’re a close family and I love all of them. Some of them I don’t see that often, but they know I will always be there for them. I love my parents. They have until recently struggled to make a living, working 14 hours a day, seven days a week. They went without holidays to put clothes on our backs and give us a better life. Now that they are in their autumn years, I hope I can give them as much love and support as they have given us.
DESCRIBE A HARD BASTARD
What makes a hard bastard? You’ve got to be adaptable, got to be flexible. Hard bastards, really hard bastards, are very low key. Fighting for fighting’s sake is pointless. What are you going to achieve from it? I don’t really admire people in that respect. I understand that some people who have no education have got to work in the black economy and I understand that and what goes with it. But these tin-pot gangs who go around shooting one another, they’re trying to make a reputation for themselves which I don’t admire. What’s the point of using force like that?
I like martial arts because it helps me to understand myself, my strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes people take up kung fu because they’ve been bullied at school or picked on so they learn some crazy moves because they think it will help. They haven’t got confidence in themselves so they think they will get it from something else.
But they’re going for it the long way round. They think, I’ll learn kung fu, that will really make me hard, I can knock him out, or whatever.
But you don’t learn kung fu for that. If you really want to take someone out, and that’s the reason you’re doing it, you do it by other means.
Kung fu makes you understand yourself. You’ve got to be dedicated. For me, it’s my life, my work, my business.
If you are too hard, you are brittle. I believe in being adaptable, flexible and being able to totally mould yourself around your opponent to limit his options. Successful hard bastards will only use the correct amount of pressure for the given situation. They can see that violence is not the only means to an end, it is only the extreme means in an uncompromising situation.
NAME A HARD BASTARD
When I was studying in London and I joined the officer training school I met a lot of people. During that time, I went on attachment and met the SAS and people like that. They are hard bastards but it’s very low key and I like that. They don’t go around being violent to prove a point. Those are the kind of people I admire.
Otherwise, my heroes are people like Alexander the Great, conquerors who fought not just for glory or for material gain. They led from the front, showed courage and compassion when needed and so earned the respect of their men.
WHERE DO YOU SEE YOURSELF IN FIVE YEARS?
My kung fu schools already have the largest membership around for such an organisation. I want to continue to work to build standards. I want to elevate the art of Kamon Wing Chun Kung Fu. I really enjoy teaching and helping people to achieve their goals through the martial arts, for self-defence or just to become physically fitter. It is important to me that the people on my courses succeed. I really believe in the win–win–win formula; if you do well, I do well and the organisation does well.
ANY REGRETS?
I regret not trying hard enough in the past when I’ve been attempting to achieve certain goals. But there’s a plus side to that, too – it makes me more aggressive in pursuit of my goals now.