During a joint trip to Hong Kong with Jim Uglow (an English master and owner of a martial arts school) in April 2002, I was fortunate enough to meet Mark Haughton. Mark has lived in Hong Kong for 13 years; his name and reputation are well known in the film and martial arts industry.
He became the first European to be licensed by the Hong Kong Stunt Association and has been involved in more than sixty kung fu films. Mark speaks fluent Cantonese and probably knows the world of Hong Kong martial arts like no one else. Therefore, I could not miss this rare opportunity and asked Mark for permission to do an interview, which he does not often do. Luckily, as we were returning to London, Mark joined us for a two-week workshop at Jim Uglow's school in Woodford Green. So I had the fortunate opportunity to talk with Mark – not only about cinema, but also the “real” world of martial arts in Hong Kong, as well as some interesting aspects of Mark’s life.
Welcome back to England. It seems you haven't been here for a long time.
I came here on personal business six years ago. With seminars and training – about ten...
A new generation has grown up, people who know you not as a martial arts teacher, but as an action actor. Tell us what brought you to Jim Uglow School.
Jim and I met about twelve years ago through mutual friends. We studied the same style of kung fu, but only in different schools. We met and became friends. He had already invited me to his school to conduct seminars, and also helped organize training at other martial arts schools in England. And we met during each of his visits to Hong Kong. We have become very good friends over the years.
Your students are definitely enjoying their learning. I must say, you give a lot literally at once - and they receive a lot.
Well, I'm only here for two weeks. I think it is extremely difficult to study three forms in two weeks. So I choose three of Jim's older students to teach each one only one specific form of kung fu. In two weeks you can get enough experience in one form, and then when I leave they can train each other. Basically it's all the same style, it's not that difficult to master the correct movements. Moreover, these are all variations of the same movements. This is the same style of Hungg Gar, only older, so the movements are familiar to students.
What is the difference between your teaching methods and Jim's?
Almost none. The same style and teaching methods are almost the same. I studied the old style of Hungg Gar first in Malaysia, then came to Hong Kong where I met Lau Kar Liang, who was a famous director and film actor. From him I learned the modern style of Hungg Gar. In truth, there was not much difference in training - the same style, the same forms. Each teacher only adapts the movements to suit himself, and then teaches this to his students.
Do you have any intention of returning to England for good or are you quite happy with the way you live now?
After all, I wouldn't mind going back, buying a piece of land and building a temple where I could train students - just like in the real Shaolin. There would be rooms for forty or fifty people who would live and study in the temple continuously for six months or even a year. It takes time to implement my plans, but I’m in no hurry.
When and why did you start teaching martial arts?
I started teaching when I was 21 years old. Back then I thought I already knew everything, but over time, the more I trained, the more I learned about martial arts, the more I realized that at that time I knew nothing! This was just the tip of the iceberg and I still had a lot to learn.
I was faced with a choice: stay in England and continue to train newcomers, or go live in Hong Kong to work in the film industry there. And I thought, there is only one life, and people are more respectful of old teachers who have wisdom. I thought that people would prefer me, who had some experience, rather than just a young guy who showed good techniques but was not mature enough to be a true leader. And I decided that I would go there and try to achieve everything I could and gain all the knowledge I could get. If it works out, great, but if it doesn’t, well, I can always go back to training people, it’s like a safety net just in case.
And what were your impressions of the film industry and the martial arts world in Hong Kong at that time?
I arrived in Hong Kong at the end of 1988 and settled there in 1989. Then I thought that the Chinese train martial arts exactly as I am used to - they train every day. I came to the park at half past five in the morning to practice with and without weapons - and discovered that no one except old pensioners does anything like that there! After talking with the locals more, I realized that they prefer to have fun at parties and drink until the morning. I was just at a loss - I came to the park with all these weapons to practice, and people around me were laughing and pointing fingers - “look at the crazy European!”
In Hong Kong, few people are interested in martial arts these days. Masters, good and even world famous, cannot make money teaching martial arts. For locals, the fee for a month of training is from three hundred to five hundred Hong Kong dollars, which is from thirty to fifty pounds, and you can train at least seven days a week. Nobody respects masters anymore. Masters live in the past, like in the old days. They can only make money by teaching foreigners who specifically come to Hong Kong for this purpose. Foreigners pay more; you can earn more from them in one week than from locals in six months.
The whole Hong Kong martial arts world has changed a lot. People are not interested in this and do not want to spend time training. If you go and look at the best teachers, you will see that they only have one or two students training. And they might have half a dozen or even a dozen students in total, but they haven't trained for five or six years. They may be invited to lunch or dinner to create the impression that the master is in a great class. But to me it looks fake and I almost lost interest in the Hong Kong martial arts world. I have my own martial arts world, my joy, my treasure.
What are you doing now?
For a long time now I have preferred to work in cinema, as a coordinator for the staging of action scenes. I have been in the film industry for thirteen years and have taken part in the filming of more than sixty films. I don’t take on the first roles because I never studied acting. But I consider myself an actor, although I didn’t study it professionally. I just have certain abilities. My roles haven't gotten great reviews, but I'm realistic about things - I came to the movies for the physical action, to do stunts and fight. I guess I've mastered the trade, I'm on par with every other Hong Kong stunt coordinator, I've got my own ideas and everything. I became the first European to receive a license from the Hong Kong Stunt Association. Now these doors are open to others; five or six more foreigners were admitted to the Association after me.
I was also the first foreigner to be an assistant stunt coordinator in a Hong Kong film. And it was a Jackie Chan movie, Legend of the Drunken Master. My teacher, Lau Kar Leung, was the film's director, his nephew was the stunt coordinator, and I worked with him. Unfortunately, during filming, my teacher had a disagreement with Jackie Chan, they argued a lot, and my teacher left the project. I, as befits a faithful student, left with the teacher. Jackie Chan was upset by this. In the end credits of the film, he left the name of the director - Lau Kar Leung, the name of the stunt coordinator - Lau Kar Yun, and only Jackie Chan's stunt team was mentioned as the assistant director. So I didn't get my share of fame from this work.
What happened to your knee?
I had a serious injury three years ago. I was doing a fourth-story fall stunt and fell on the edge of the mat and broke my knee on the concrete floor. I had three surgeries; There is now no cartilage in the knee at all, and only part of the meniscus remains. So there are still problems with the knee, due to which I have not worked in films for the last three years - until I recover from the injury. I have already begun to recover my muscles, and I was told that I will soon have a joint replacement operation. I have worked as a diving instructor for the past two years - in Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and the Philippines; taught tourists to scuba dive. It was great to spend a few months of the year at sea; Swimming and diving are good physical therapy, and I just enjoy diving. For the first year and a half after the injury, I couldn’t even run without risking reinjuring my knee, so swimming and diving were the only possible workouts. But now I can go back to teaching martial arts again. Due to an injury I had to take a break for two years, but I'm ready to start again.
What do you think about the so-called mixed martial arts and martial arts?
Each style has something different. The main thing is not the style, the main thing is the person. Many people think, yeah, Bruce Lee studied Wing Chun, which means this is the best style. Or let's say Gracie won the UFC championship because he knows jujutsu. In fact, it all depends on the person. Take a good fighter, teach him karate, kung fu, boxing, wrestling - whatever you like, it doesn’t matter. A good fighter in any style will be a good fighter.
Don't you think there was something special about the old teaching techniques that is lost today?
Yes, you need to have a foundation, you need to have roots. Without basic knowledge, it is impossible to develop, it is impossible to achieve anything. In any style, development is necessary, so if you teach me everything you know yourself, I can add something of my own to this knowledge - this is how development occurs.
As I already said, style is not the main thing. Teach Mike Tyson kung fu, and even if he doesn't show off any fancy moves, he'll win any fight. But does this mean that the style you taught him is the best? No, that doesn't mean it. It's all about the person you trained. Most people who practice martial arts try to adapt their physical capabilities to the demands of a particular style. They spend years developing flexibility, doing stretches - and this is not always suitable for their physique and physical capabilities. You can spend ten years trying to learn how to do the splits or perform a high kick - and still learn how to do it for show. But once you find yourself on the street, in a real collision, your body will react in the most appropriate way for it, no unnatural movements, and neither the splits nor the high kicks, on which ten years of training have been spent, will be useful.
I won't object...
So it turns out that ten years spent studying some special style are wasted. This time could have been better spent doing something else and achieving more. Therefore, the main thing you need to understand is: you should not adjust your physical capabilities to the requirements of a certain style, you need to adapt the style to your physical capabilities. This is the best and most natural way to achieve success. The body will perform natural movements on its own, whenever you want; for a style that is not based on natural movements, mental control is necessary. Assess your capabilities, choose the most suitable style - and then you can achieve success. Or choose any style you like, but in this case you will never achieve the best results.
Do you think there is some prejudice or fear due to which traditional methods are not widely used, but are often only conservatively inherited?
Yes. And the reason is that the people of the East are too selfish. They like the idea that there is a spiritual aspect to martial arts, a secret knowledge that makes them better practitioners than Westerners. And we are trying to find out this “secret” of theirs, which is, in fact, simple common sense. You just need to know your own body and master the necessary movements - that’s the whole secret. But the Chinese tend to stage ceremonies around this notorious secret. This is not racism, the point is not at all that secret knowledge cannot be revealed to foreigners, they treat each other in the same way. A master who masters ten forms of martial art teaches students only seven forms - simply out of fear that someday in the future, a student who has mastered all the forms will defeat his teacher, and he will lose respect. So he gives only part of his knowledge to his students, and when that teacher dies, part of his knowledge dies with him, and three of the ten forms of style are lost forever. Subsequently, the students of this master begin to teach only five forms out of the seven that they know. And this continues until the style completely degrades. Unfortunately, this is the way things are in the world of Chinese martial arts. That is why, unlike Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Thai martial arts are becoming more popular and are increasingly being developed!
How do you feel about the modern martial arts marketing methods that have flourished in the West today?
The life of a martial arts teacher is tough. In former times, students lived with their teachers, helped them, and provided them with a livelihood. Now it has turned into a business. Martial arts have become a kind of physical education: people come to the gym, pay money, and want to get some tangible result for them. They don’t even want to hear about the fact that it takes time to master the technique - no, here’s the money, show me your product, or I’ll go to another instructor. And we have to walk this fine line, we have to find a balance to give them something to enjoy, to justify their investment, and at the same time teach the basics, get them interested in learning the basics. It's not that difficult: one day you learn a technique, the next you learn variations of movements based on that same technique. The fact is that in a fight, each fighter moves differently; even a simple jab will be performed by three different fighters in three different ways. There is a basic technique, you must teach how to adapt it to your own capabilities, students must learn to understand how this is done. They will feel like they are constantly learning something new, even though you are teaching the same technique all the time. When they understand this, they have learned.
Mark, it was nice talking with you. I wish you a happy return to Hong Kong.
Thank you.
Author: Steve Rowe
Source: shikon.com
Translation: strom specifically for figure-films.info
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