Ronnie Ricketts and Watch Fever

These are some of the Pictures we took today in Alabang.
HK Snob

Gerber Limited Edition Knife for Snake year 2001

This is a Limited Knife for Snake year, released in 2001 under a number of 1,000 pieces.
Hand made with ATS-34 steel. It can be compared to the more familiar 154cm nicely. It's not very corrosion resistant for a stainless or necessarily a "beater steel, but it has good wear resistance that most appreciate. Should be good for most knife. It is a high grade stainless steel after all.
The S/N is 163 which is very good as it means "Never Die!"
I remember I bought it at Victoronix Shop at Ocean Centre, with HKD$1,500!
HK Snob

The Fighting Chefs, a Kung Fu movie directed by Ronnie Ricketts

This is the poster Ronnie gave me as gift, he is really the good sample of how a Movie Star can be so much down to earth working with other people, his fans and his admirers as he described " PR".
Well, this picture drives me to exercise again and stop eating favourite icecream. I have to be reform myself back to my 8 packs!!
HK Snob

This is the place Ip Man was teaching Wing Chun in HK

Today, I purposely came to see where Ip Man Stayed when he was in HK. And the place he started teaching Wing Chun, This is Exactly where his building was. In Tai Nam Street near Sham Shui Po.
Of course the original building was demolished and this is new building built after 70's. I had a wonderful talks with some of the local residents about this Grand Master of Kung Fu!!
Sham Shui Po Tai Nam Kung Fu Man
HK Snob

Meeting Ronnie Ricketts

Ronald Naldo Ricketts in real life, known as Ronnie Ricketts (born May 26, 1965) is a Filipino actor for 69 Movie including the 2013’s “The Fighting Chefs”, scriptwriter, film director, martial art leader for movie, producer and chairman of Optical Media Board (OMB) in the Philippines. He is one of the top action stars in Philippine movies. He is famous for his martial arts expertise. No one does not know him in the Philippines, Today I had the luck to meet him in Alabang for lunch. A great opportunity to meet and talk to him. I think he is the Philippines Steven Seagal.
HK Snob

Hit The Villain "打小人"

5 March is the day for doing this "Hit the villain"   This is my way to Hit the Villain! Instead of going to Or Keng Kiu to pay for the professionl to hit by a pair of slippers!

Turn On the Volume High!

HK Snob

My Broken Fist

I had been hiting all kinds of metal plates, concrete walls, wooden Boxes for fun and practice when I was young. And Sometimes the force was too high that broke the bonds especially the one at middle finger.
I find that my hand could be harder and flatter if that has been broken, and sometimes it causes infections of warts due to some bateria. I had some minor surgery of warts removal on the 4th finger joints. Anyway, I am getting old, I have to stop breaking my hands!
HK Snob

Wong Kar Wai's " Grandmaster"

The movie “Grandmaster” describes the life of Ip Man with more elaboration on the time he had a imaginary romance with Gong Er; the daughter of a powerful martial-arts master from northern China.


Ip Man, as a master Wing Chun style of kung fu, who was born in Foshan in 1893 and died in Hong Kong in 1972. He started learning Wing Chun from his master Leung Wah Shing when he was 7.

Tony Leung Chiu-Wai plays Ip Man; Zhang Ziyi stars as Gong Er, a Kung Fu lady, and Chang Chen appears as a mysterious character named Razor.

All three actors joined Mr. Wong at a press conference in a crowded Hong Kong shopping mall on 8 Jan night for the Hong Kong local premiere.

Wong took nearer a decade of studies on Ip man and Detail information preparation and three years of filming, Tong Leung had been trained on Kung Fu for almost 4 years becasue of this film and he broke his arm during the filming and took 5 months to recover.

The story takes place mainly from the late 1930s to the mid-1950s —focuses on Ip Man’s tentative friendship with Gong Er and his rivalry with other kung-fu masters. The story also explores the deep patience, obedience and discipline that kung fu demands on its teachers and students.

It teaches us what is the timing is key point to be successful, by introducing way how to stew good Snakes Soup with right amount of burning wood.


Some Data

Ip man’ Wife, Cheung Wing Shing dies in 1960

Gong Er died in 1953 due to internal organ damages as a result after she fought and kill father’s senior student.

Ip man Died in 1972 of natural disease and his great student did not come to his funeral as probably he was busy in filming, he died also in 1973, one year after his master. He is Bruce Lee.

Ip Chun, Ip Man's son is now 87 years old living in HK.

I rate this movie 95 out of 100 points!

I learnt one thing which is true in the real world…

It teaches us what is the timing is key point to be successful, by introducing way how to stew good Snakes Soup with right amount of burning wood.

Ip Man said “In martial art, there is no right or Wrong, only the last man standing!”… this tells us that there is no mercy in a competition ,no matter fighting, a business deal, an examination, Olympic games, there is no second trial, only once, you either to be the winner or loser!

Ps, The poster shows the fist of Tony Leung Chiu Wai is like a Pianoist's hand, does not like a Kung Fu man's hand at all.

The Movie Confirms that Ip man was actually 5 feet 6 inch tall, which matches with my data I had!!

HK Snob

Bruce Lee's movie

Bruce Lee was so fast that they actually was to S-L-O-W film down. So you could see his moves. That is Opposite of the Norm.
HK Snob

Bruce Lee's One inch Punch

The Science
Previous studies have shown that the forces generated in a karate punch is not determined by muscular strength but by the brain & nervous system.
In this recent study, researchers looked for differences in brain structure between 12 karate practitioners with a black belt rank and an average of 13.8 years’ karate experience, and 12 control subjects of similar age who exercised regularly but did not have any martial arts experience.
In the first part of the study, the researchers measure the short range (5 cm) punching power of all 24 test subjects by means of infrared markers on their arms & torsos. As expected, the karate masters punched harder than the control subjects.
Analysis of punch biomechanics and brain function revealed the reasons for the difference in punching power.

• The researchers found that punching power depends on timing.
• Specifically, punching force correlated with how well the movement of the wrists and shoulders were synchronized.
• In short, technique + muscular power = Bruce Lee kicking your butt.

• To test brain function, they used diffusion tensor imaging to scan the grey matter (main body of nerve cells) and white matter (bundles of fibres that carry signals from one region of the brain to another) of the test subjects’ brains.

And what they found is that there were major structural differences in the white matter of the cerebellums and primary motor cortex of the karate masters.
It was these differences in the cerebellum that correlated with the synchronicity of the subjects’ wrist and shoulder movements that produced the larger punching forces.

Ref, Cerebral Cortex