True Information about Sifu Williams
Edward - You are confusing the way Randy met Fong with a very twisted version of how he met George Yau, which is featured in his first book series. Check your facts before posting insulting misinformation. Please quote which Inside Kung Fu you found that story in.
Rolling Hand - Randy Williams no longer states that he represents Sifu Augustine Fong in any public forum, and has not done since his termination from Fong’s organization in 1989. Why continue to perpetuate this untruth?
Rob Wolf - Please provide a photo of yourself to show how it is that you can refer to Randy Williams in 1987 as an “overweight blunderwonder”.
With whatever instruction Randy got from Fong in AZ, LA and Singapore, apparently Fong deemed him worthy of representing him. If any of you can read Chinese, check out the picture attached, and tell me if the billboard and shirts that Randy and his students are wearing do not say “Fong’s Wing Chun”, with Augustine Fong posing with the group in obvious approval of their wearing them. Randy also has a copy of a certificate given to him in 1988 from Sifu Augustine Fong claiming to be a high level student capable of teaching his system of WC authentically. The original document is on record with the MACU (Martial Arts Control Unit) of Singapore. Those of you who represent Fong - please check with him on that one. You may also ask him if he remembers the newspaper and television interviews he gave to the Straights Times and SBC news when he was staying at Randy’s home in Singapore. Randy has original copies of all those items on file for any of you who wish to visit him.
Randy is most definitely not in hiding. He lives and teaches out of his home in rural PA, where he also keeps horses in the barn, which upstairs has been converted into a WC training hall. He regularly teaches seminars open to the public at his many representative’s schools around the world. For example, he was in Siracusa, Sicily on October 27th, Termoli, Italy on October 29th, and will be in Archbald, PA this coming weekend at the school of Bob Earl, his longtime student and representative.
Any of you who wish to find Randy can do so quite easily, just as I did. You can contact me personally and I will put you in touch with Randy.
The books were written with Fong’s full permission and assistance. Besides personal training time, Randy called Sifu Fong from Singapore on a regular basis and spoke to Fong just after his evening classes were finished, sometimes for over an hour at a time. In these calls, Randy read portions of the text to Fong, and Fong made verbal changes and corrections. If pressed, Randy can provide phone records to show this to be true. Randy also has videotaped private instruction with Fong, in which the books in progress are discussed.
The idea of the books was to act as a prelude to re-publishing Fong’s original pamphlet-like series on Wing Chun. Thus the similarity. Fong himself agreed that it would be a better idea to let Randy, who had always wanted to chronicle the system he had spent many years learning, try first, in order to learn the book business and how to produce an A-1 quality book for Fong, who he worshipped as an instructor. It was only later events that prevented that final book from coming to fruition. The reason Randy would have been able to do it was his ability to use high-tech printing equipment in Singapore at cost. So he would have been able to give Fong a top quality book at low cost.
If you ever check through Randy’s books, you will find many photos of Randy and Fong together, and many direct quotes from Fong, which are not published in any of Fong’s books. Please check with Augustine Fong to see if that is not true.
All of this animosity seems to stem from the fact that some people say that Randy somehow claims to be one of Fong’s top students, but he does not. Please quote a verifiable source showing Randy making any such claim. All I can find is Randy claiming to be one of Fong’s students, and in his books, he even says he is not even close to being one of Fong’s best students. Please check the introduction to Randy’s books to verify that.
Finally, the rift which now exists between Randy and the Fong group is actually a result of Randy’s 1989 visit to Sifu Ho Kam Ming in Hong Kong. Prior to that visit, Randy was an instructor in good standing with Augustine Fong. But what transpired in that visit, and the subsequent conversations between Fong, his wife and Randy forever changed that relationship. To this day, Randy regrets ever having gone to visit Sifu Ho, and would love nothing better than to have had things work out differently, so that he could have continued his training and development under the guidance of Sifu Augustine Fong, who he still holds in the highest regard, despite the best efforts of some people to create animosity between them.