I’m clueless. Someone fill me in?
Iron
Wing Tsun proponent and love interest of former KFO member, Kungar. He is known the the numerous brawls he’s been in, and it I remember right, at one point in time, had some beef with they gracies.
Is he good, or does he suck? I think I saw a video of his for sale somewhere once.
Dude, do you have awesome chi yet? hehehe 
Iron
Emin Boztepe is world famous Tae Bo instructor.
Billy Blanks students hate him because there’s some controversy about Tae Bo lineages and Emin teaches modified Tae Bo.
sevenstar is basically correct. Ask on the wing chun forum, you’ll get more answers.
Reima, that avatar is giving me seizures.
Ryu
I’d be interested in hearing anything about him too. About all I know involves him and Willie Cheung, and the more I hear about it the less I know. The only thing I can think of that distinguishes him from the rest (aside from his little feud with the Leung Ting/K, Kernspecht group) is that he’s the only WT (or WC, or whatever) practitioner who regularly fights or has fought that I’ve heard of. If there are any others, please enlighten me.
I’ve read some of his stuff & his theories on fighting seem pretty sound, but there is much debate whether it is his or if he flogged it from Keith Kernspecht.
Sigh…
Wing Chun.
Great Art.
Crap politics 
Haha, captivating avatar isn’t it Ryu?
OOOOOOOOH AAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!
Mesmerised by pretty colors from RK. Nah but for real that looks trippy
whatever happened to old matey kungar anyways?
emin claims to have been in about 300 fights, not having lost a single one. i’m not sure as to the validity of this, but no one’s stepping up to argue with him or prove him wrong, so i don’t question it all that much. i’ve felt his elbows in my back several times and he’s turned me into a pretzel occasionally, so i know better than to question him. 
originally, emin was just a skilled and hard-working fighter within gm kernspecht’s ewto clan. he fought william cheung (if you want to call it a fight - it was pretty pathetic) and claimed victory that day (cheung’s camp does, too, which helps clear EVERYTHING up nicely :rolleyes: ). anyhoo, after the cheung thing, emin got popular very quickly, and the ewto took advantage of it. emin continued to train hard, and eventually, gm kernspecht authorized him to take over WT in north america. eventually, emin began to get popular here, while enjoying huge amounts of notoriety and great success back in europe (he also ran the scandinavian chunk of the ewto).
anyhoo, flash forward to recent history. emin’s relationship to his sifu, gm kernspecht, has been getting worse over the past few years. he had owed large amounts of dues to his sifu and sigung leung ting, and those debts got larger and larger. eventually, emin stopped paying them altogether. also, against iwta (the parent organization that all wt orgs were under) rules, he continuted to teach seminars in areas that other sifus in the organization had rights to. no sifu in the iwta is allowed to teach in another sifu’s region without permission from that sifu. it’s bad for the organization and it can cause a lot of problems between sifus. emin was told not to by his sifu, yet continued. eventually, he was reprimanded, but he didn’t follow the restrictions set down on him. he was then told he could not each in europe at all for a while, and he began pulling away. he had also began marketing videos to be sold internationally without sigung leung ting’s permission, some of these were direct copies of gm kernspecht’s blitzdefence, and some were instructional videos on the advanced sections of chi sau. again, he was told to cease, and he didn’t. he was too dependent on his income from seminars in europe and his videos to welcome such a reprimand, so he began forming his own organization (EBMAS). he was further restricted for additional acts that were contrary to iwta rules and his sifu and sigung’s wishes, and eventually he announced his separation from the ewto, iwta and his instructors altogether.
now i must say that this is what i have gleaned from several different sources within both emin’s camp (including emin’s own announcements) and gm kernspecht’s camp (including gm kernspecht’s responses and responses of his senior students). if i’m wrong on any of this, i apologize. i’m not perfect.
for information on both sides:
emin’s camp: EBMAS at http://www.wingtsun.net
and gm kernspecht’s response: http://www.ewto.com/emin/index_e.htm
on the ewto site, there is a 28-page acrobat file that offers quite a bit of detail, has scanned documents from emin (they’re his – i recognize his handwriting) and many other students, and other such stuff. one of the best summaries of the whole thing can be found by clicking on “STATEMENTS” at the top of the page, and reading sifu mike adams’ response.
and now for david’s personal opinion. read on if you wish. ignore if you don’t.
first off, emin is a tremendous martial artist. no one can argue that effectively, because the only way to do so would be with your hands and feet, and i don’t know if anyone out there who would argue has a chance against emin. he’s downright amazing. period. he’s also a good teacher. i’ve learned a lot from him at his thrice-yearly seminars he gave in this part of the country. his organization and following here and in europe would not be as big had he been a crappy instructor.
however, emin has his faults. he grew up using his muscles to defend himself (a turkish kid in germany? yeah, lotsa rumbles), and that doesn’t seem to have changed. when things get nasty, he begins to think with his muscles. when static grew with his sifu, he didn’t take the humble way out and instead let their relationship grow distant. this only compounded as the problems grew worse, and eventually it seems that no longer regarded his sifu as his sifu. to make matters worse, emin was (still is) living a hollywood lifestyle, and headquartered his organization in hollywood. bills got huge and his ability to pay back his sifu (he still owes him tens of thousands of dollars) lessened every year.
it also seems that emin had the split somewhat planned well before it happened. long before many of the sanctions against him, he began telling the north american instructors to begin using his EBMAS logos on all their letterhead, websites, etc. eventually, when he announced his separation, he already had much of his EBMAS system in place.
one more thing, and this is about finances. often i hear about the WT family being greedy, and i have a few responses to that. emin charged individual students $150 per year to be members of the awto. what did i get out of it? a fancy passport and that’s about it. when emin split with the iwta and gm leung ting took over north america personally, he dropped the rate down to $60, $10 of which goes back to the school you study at (my school waived this fee and only charges $50). i’m not saying emin’s greedy, i’m just saying he had bills to pay and we paid for them. my main point is that gm leung ting is nowhere near greedy. to further illustrate this point, i had paid through for almost one more year with the awto when the split happened. many other students were in a similar situation, and gm leung ting honored that previous contract, even though he never saw any of the money.
in summation, i have a lot of respect for emin as a fighter and a teacher. he can do amazing things and he can teach you how to do them as well. he’s also a very nice guy (personal chats with him were pretty low-brow, but he didn’t care about rank with his students; he and i would just bull**** every now and then before seminars, and that made me feel good). however, i don’t feel he ran a good organization and i don’t feel he acted appropriately to his sifu or sigung.
that said, i’m now two cents poorer again, but i hope it’s worth it. props to all you WT folks, regardless of iwta or awto affiliation. heck, props to you WC folks, too. and the rest of you MAs – you’re all good.
There was a great deal of negative stuff floating around the web as the UFC got up and running in the early to mid 90s. He publicly took up the Gracieson their standing challenge but never went to a Gracie gym to back it up. They attempted to to schedule it in other forums/locales and he started backpedalling badly. This was primarily through private correspondence which the Gracies and the UFC promoters later published. Can’t blame them for bringing it out though because Boztepe was calling them cowards all over the internet and elsewherewhile ducking them. And his story for why he wouldn’t fight changed each time they responded.
Plus the whole deal with William Cheung and the way that challenge came about seemed sort of scuzzy to me. Sort of an ambush that Boztepe prepared for and Cheung did not. Plus Boztepe has 20years on Cheung. Which is sort of ironic because he accused the Gracies of deliberately challenging people past their prime physically.
I have seen his students and some of his tapes and while I am not a WT stylist it seems pretty solid. I don’t doubt his abilities as either a teacher or martial artist. But he clearly has an attitude and a big mouth. and that’s why people hate him.
I hear he is a good instructor in wing chun arts also. And yes…he did challenge ROYCE GRACIE and ROYCE said sure…but EMIN did not want to fight in the UFC saying no honor in ppv. So ROYCE said do it at an LAPD station where GENE LEBELL and BENNY THE JET sometime teaches…but EMIN rebuked and said no worrying about legal implications…ROYCE in BB magazine…called EMIN a CLOWN and said if EMIN wants to fight then come to TORRANCE where they have been accepting challenge matches since the beginning or at a ROYCE GRACIE seminar.
Emin in all regards is a very capable wing chun man…but once again…he has not been known to enter any well known events k-1…san shou…boxing…mma tourney for us to judge if he’s more than an INSTRUCTOR.
"long before many of the sanctions against him, he began telling the north american instructors to begin using his EBMAS logos on all their letterhead, websites, etc. "
rub the budha, most of what you say may be correct, I know some of the details & some of what you sa is true. But remember there is Emin’s side & there is Leung Ting & Kernshpects side of the story. This part is definitely not though. The EMBAS logo etc, came AFTER the split.
“So ROYCE said do it at an LAPD station where GENE LEBELL and BENNY THE JET sometime teaches…but EMIN rebuked and said no worrying about legal implications”
This part of it is false. It was Emin who suggested to do it in a parking lot of the LAPD…or any parking lot for that matter. The Gracies were only interested in doing it in the UFC. Emin wanted a “street” fight, Royce wanted a cage fight.
If I remember correctly, Royce wanted the fight to be in the gym at the LAPD, not the parking lot. It’s also incredibly stupid to have a “street fight” in the parking lot of a police station for obvious reasons.
You guys is both wrong . . .
Royce and Emin was goin to go at it in my living room. I was inviting some of you dawgs over for a beer to watch and maybe place some bets. Somehow that part of the story never made it to the press though.
KEN…this has already been confirmed…ROYCE suggested the police station for several reasons…RORION sometime teaches there along with Benny the Jet and Gene Lebell…Emin instead sent a lawyer saying there was a danger of some sort blah blah blah…Royce then gave up and PUBLIC put this out in BB mag…u can look it up in one of the issues years ago…I was curiious at the time cause I WAS a wing chun man. Royce was simple…look I don’t know where u want to fight me now…but if u want come to my dojo or one of my seminars…hell EMIN did to WILLIAM but why not a ROYCE???
Too busy with his 300 street fights, which by now you’d think he’d have done some jail time.
Never heard a bad word about Emins teaching ability though.
KWJ: i know there are bound to be errors in there, but emin’s order for the EBMAS name changes were announced to the instructors in a letter dated july 10, 2001
http://www.ewto.com/emin/index_e.htm page 3, bottom
the date for emin’s first letter of resignation is july 18. he edited it a few times; the first, shown at this same link, page 23 was his resignation from the ewto; later versions came out after GM leung ting ordered him to pull all his EBMAS stuff on july 19. emin later edited the letter to reflect GM leung ting’s order, and he pulled himself entirely out of the iwta. emin kept the same date of july 18 on the document.
one thing about this all that bugs me – in the july 10 letter, emin ordered instructors to pull down pictures of both GM kernspecht and GM bill newman, his instructors back in germany for WT and escrima, from the walls where students bow to images of the masters. to me, that just reeks of something obvious.
anyhoo, i know most of what i’m saying here is based on documents provided by gm kernspecht. but that’s all i the tangible evidence either side is offering. emin hasn’t done a thing to properly back himself. he’s put up his letter of resignation and a few letters from his fellow students who are unhappy with the whole thing, but that’s it. nothing remotely tangible, and that disappoints me. i honestly like emin. he’s a great guy and a phenomenal martial artist, but i think he screwed the pooch on this one and a lot of it is plain to see.
again, i’m not bashing. that’s my simple opinion on the recent events. i’m quite unhappy about the whole split and how it has negatively affected the WT family, but maybe the family needs to take a look at itself and see how things are happening. it is a family, and i’d love to see it be a big, healthy, supportive one. i’d like to see WT, WC and VT become familial again. can you imagine if leung ting, william cheung, yip chun, yip ching, WSL’s senior students (names escape me right now and i feel like an ass because of it) and a whole bunch of other students of GM yip mangot together and started talking shop, compared notes and refined their techniques together? maybe get them to work together for one month in hong kong, away from distractions and politics. just them. indeed, that’d be an awesome sight, and we’d probably learn some awesome shît.
rogue
you probably won’t hear a bad word about his teaching, either. he’s really **** good, and i’ve been lucky enough to have learned from him for a while before the split.
sad i am that i no longer have him as an instructor, but happy i am that GM leung ting is taken over north america and will be teaching seminars here A LOT.