FCVT
22-12-2011, 08:22
http://www.clivepotterthetruth.blog.com/
The true facts concerning the behaviour and character of Clive Potter!
The moment that Clive Potter knew that Sifu David Peterson was invited, by Sifu Alan Gibson and Sifu Ged Kennerk, to travel to the UK for the first time in 2003, he tried desperately to prevent it from happening, stating that as he was the “only one authorised to teach WSLVT in the UK”, and that Peterson required his expressed permission to go there.
When Peterson politely refuted his claims, ignoring this outrageous nonsense, and continued with his plans to go there, Potter then set about trying to control the trip, “taking over” from Sifu Alan Gibson regarding his leg of the tour, and demanding to know about and limit Peterson’s movements elsewhere in the UK.
Once Peterson was actually there, Potter set about restricting what Peterson could teach to Gibson’s students in Southampton, limiting Peterson to an extremely short list of possible seminar topics, and also determining what Peterson could present to Potter’s students in St Albans. The entire time that Peterson was in his company, he contradicted what Peterson said in the company of others, or found it necessary to add that “Wong told me….” on every aspect discussed, clearly trying to declare his perceived “special knowledge” of WSLVT as being greater than that of Peterson’s. Thankfully, in the North, Peterson was hosted by others and out of Potter’s direct control, hence freely conducted lessons as he chose to, thus revealing to a host of former Potter students just how much they had been led astray by his instruction up to that point. To Peterson’s amazement, the more he showed these people, the more he began to realise how much difference there was between Potter’s knowledge and his own, something that he had simply not anticipated. Peterson found himself as shocked and frustrated his hosts and their students were!
Both during and immediately after Peterson’s first time in the UK, Potter publically made statements behind his back, in public and behind closed doors, to the effect that Peterson’s WSLVT knowledge was incorrect, that his basic skills were flawed, that his forms were wrong, and that his experience with Sifu superseded everything that Peterson had experienced. At every opportunity, he told his students and/or wrote on the Net, that Peterson had changed everything that he was taught and his interpretation of WSLVT is incorrect. This behaviour continued as Peterson made successive visits to the UK after that.
Potter also made blatantly disgusting statements about Peterson and his (then) wife, attacking their sexuality, their hygiene and personal habits, and their general credibility and intelligence. In both writing and the spoken word, he described them as having had rampant sex all over his house and leaving the “evidence of their escapades” for others to discover and have to clean up. Peterson’s (then) wife was referred to as “looking and behaving like a cheap Hong Kong hooker” and she was treated by Potter’s wife as if she was a second class human being without education or value. His comments stunned those who later reported to hearing or reading them (he actually spread these claims via e-mail too!), and Peterson expressed his disgust and dismay when made aware of what Potter was saying via conversations with Kevin Bell and Nedret Kilic, who were two of the many who had both witnessed and been sickened by such outrageous remarks. Copies of the offending correspondence remain in our possession.
On more than one occasion when Potter called Peterson on the phone, he put his phone on speaker without their knowledge, allowing groups of people to overhear what they presumed was a private conversations, making fun of them with gestures and comments during and after the conversation, in the presence of his students. He also did the same to several other decent people in our group, most notably to Kevin Bell, whom he ridiculed in pantomime fashion in front of an entire room full of students, pretending to place his fingers down his throat and vomit whilst listening to Bell speak. Again, this is verifiable due to several credible witnesses to these childish antics.
Potter “set up” Peterson on his first visit to Potter’s school in St Albans, following his and his (then) wife’s long train journey from Manchester (Potter had taken them from the station to his ex-wife’s home and had them wait there, un-rested, un-showered, and un-fed until his ex-wife returned from her full-time job hours later to feed them, apparently to save money, rather than taking them out for a meal or to his own home for a much-needed rest), arranging for one of his then students, Nick Forrer, to try to assault Peterson in what he had been led to believe was to be a “friendly exchange”—it turned into a full-on assault in which Peterson ended up having to leave Forrer bloodied in order to survive the aggressive onslaught. Sensibly, some years later, Forrer eventually saw through Potter’s nonsense and left the school, but not before he was embroiled in a slanderous series of “attacks” on Peterson over the Net lasting many months.
Once Peterson had finally left the UK, Potter went about attacking him on the Net on a number of forums, not only under his own name, but also under several aliases, proclaiming how great Clive Potter’s Ving Tsun was and how pathetic and wrong Peterson’s was. Basically, he went on a campaign to slander and discredit Peterson which lasted for months, if not years. By tracing the IP address of many posts, it was established beyond doubt that Potter was behind these posts, with every one of them emanating from the very same computer—Potter’s!
When confronted with this information by Kevin Bell, et al, Potter then immediately claimed that it must have been his son, Mark Potter, who had done this, and he denied having any knowledge of these attacks. Interestingly, there were multiple examples of “Clive-speak” to be found in ALL such posts, clearly indicating his personal involvement. Copies of many of these posts, and the proof of their origin, is in our hands.
He then took his campaign of lies and personal defamation to Hong Kong, seeking the support of various Sihing there to substantiate his claims that Peterson’s interpretation of WSLVT was incorrect (evidence of some of these attempts to defame Peterson in front of his peers exists on film and is in our hands). Problem was that what he presented as Peterson’s skills/drills/knowledge was in fact NOT as Peterson had presented it at all, but people in Hong Kong were led to believe that Peterson was teaching an inferior version of the system. Now, prominent Sihing-dai such as Wan Kam Leung, Gary Lam Man Hok, Chan Kim Man, Cliff Au Yeung, Chiu Hok Yin, Jerry Yeung, Mark Wong, Phillip Ng, et al, are fully aware of Potter’s deception and agree wholeheartedly that Peterson’s interpretation of WSLVT is sound, and that his credentials in the system are authentic.
Potter also put together a collection of articles on Wing Chun/Ving Tsun, including several written by Peterson, and sold them to the public without Peterson’s (or any of the other author’s) knowledge or consent. This was in addition to also illegally pirating other movies/DVDs and training materials, including movies such as Ong Bak, the DVDs of Geoff Thompson, and the video, Wing Chun: the Science of In-fighting, featuring the late Sifu Wong Shun Leung, and selling them to his students and the public for personal gain. He actually gave out full-cover flyers advertising what he had on offer to his students!
He also obtained copies of Peterson’s book, Look Beyond the Pointing Finger: the Combat Philosophy of Wong Shun Leung at a reduced price, then on-sold them for well over the market price, while claiming that he did NOT make a profit—as Sifu Ged Kennerk was quoted as saying, you could buy a personally signed copy of the book from Peterson directly in Australia and have it sent by Airmail to the UK for less than Potter was selling it via his UK website!
Over the ensuing years, Potter has continued to lie about his own training and qualifications in WSLVT and attempt to control the teaching of WSLVT in the UK, falsely claiming that he is the ONLY authorised person to teach and regulate it. He even expected people to complete a written test of HIS invention in order to have the right to teach the system, claiming that he was authorised by Simo (Sifu Wong’s widow) in Hong Kong to do so—there is NO SUCH TEST set in Hong Kong (and never has been!) and no such authorisation was ever given—it is merely his own maniacal attempt to maintain some kind of stranglehold on WSLVT in the UK. He also expects that anyone that he authorises to run classes must pay yearly fees, must host his seminar visits several times per year at their personal expense (all expenses paid!), and that they are not permitted to do anything without his permission.
He has constantly lied about his position in the so-called WSL Ving Tsun Association UK, stating that he was authorised, along with Sifu Anthony Kan Chi Keung, to set up the organisation and control the system in that country. The truth of the matter is that he “inherited” the title by default when Sifu Nino Bernardo, whom Sifu Wong HAD authorised to set up the association, decided that he didn’t want to do so any longer (and couldn’t work with Potter in any case!), and as Anthony Kan, who IS fully qualified and IS a long-time direct student of Sifu Wong, also did not wish to do so either, Potter greedily grabbed it with both hands and tried to create an empire for his own personal gain and ego gratification.
Potter did NOT train for any particular length of time under Wong Sifu (as opposed to Sifu Kan who was trained in Hong Kong over an extended period), and during the time that Wong Sifu was alive, Potter only visited Hong Kong ONCE, and that was for ONE WEEK (and Sifu only ran the class for four afternoons/evenings in a week!), hence the fact that all photos of Potter and Sifu together in Hong Kong (and there are not that many!) show them both wearing the very same clothes, clearly indicating that they were ALL shot on the ONE DAY!!!
On that same visit, Potter coerced Sifu to write him a certificate (the one that he so enthusiastically uses to “prove” his claims) following the fact that Sifu had REPEATEDLY REFUSED to issue him one on previous visits to the UK. Potter, on being told by Sifu that he had no ink to prepare the certificate, then went out to buy both brushes and ink himself, then put them in front of Sifu and insisted he write the certificate, telling Sifu that he HAD to have the certificate, not only in order to run the class in the UK, but also “to ensure” that Sifu would be invited back there in the future. Being put on the spot in front of his students in that manner, to “save face” as it were, Sifu had no choice but to complete and sign the document. This was an extremely disrespectful act and one that has led to most of those who have legitimately hard-earned certificates from Wong Sifu no longer displaying them because Potter’s actions have cheapened their worth.
Every time that Sifu visited the UK, he would stay and train with Sifu Anthony Kan. Potter would tag along at every opportunity, attempting to gain access to Sifu’s knowledge. Not being a speaker of Chinese, he relied solely on Anthony’s translation of the conversations, and with respect, Anthony is “economical” with his translations to say the least, so when Potter constantly says, “Wong Told me…” or “Wong said…”, he is speaking with incomplete second-hand knowledge at best. When it came to actual classes and seminars, Potter would stand off to the side looking important, refusing to touch hands with anyone for more than brief seconds, so that it was Sifu Kan who did ALL of the hands-on training with Wong Sifu and translation of proceedings. Potter’s physical training at these events was minimal, to say the least, as evidenced with available footage of these occasions where he appears to remain seated, cross-armed and looking important, at the rear or side of the room, occasionally standing to stretch his legs or make a phone call.
Potter gets great mileage out of some brief footage (belonging to Sifu Kan) of Wong Sifu teaching him the Baat Jaam Do in Sifu Kan’s backyard. He and his supporters state that this “proves” that he was considered senior in his skill level and accepted by Sifu Wong as ready to learn this set of advanced training skills. The truth of the matter is that Potter told Sifu that if he did not teach him the Baat Jaam Do form, that Potter would NOT invite him back to the UK for further seminar tours!!! He blatantly blackmailed Wong Sifu into learning the form, but it clearly amounted to nothing as on the film footage it is clear that he was NOT ready or capable of learning it—you can hear the exasperated comments off-camera by Sifu Kan and see the frustration on Sifu Wong’s face and through his body language as Potter repeatedly gets the movements wrong! …and he still, to this day, does NOT play the form correctly and what he teaches is a mish-mash that vaguely resembles the actual form!
The same applies to his knowledge and performance of the basic forms, Siu Nim Tau, Cham Kiu, Biu Ji and Muk Yan Jong—he has changed the movements such that his forms are NOT the same in sequence OR interpretation with those of Sifu Wong Shun Leung. When explaining many sections of the forms, or describing key concepts, Potter’s interpretation and explanations are way off the mark, oftentimes totally contradicting what Sifu taught.
On one of his DVDs, when demonstrating the Cham Kiu form, Potter initially described and performed the Bong Sau action at odds with the actual way that Wong Sifu taught it. After receiving a barrage of criticism on the Net from other members of the WSLVT family who rightly pointed out his erroneous presentation, Potter dressed in the same clothes as those he wore during the original shooting of the footage and re-shot those sections, changing the way he did the action so as to adhere to the correct method, then inserted this new footage into the DVD content without telling anyone of his deceit. This alone speaks volumes about his lack of honesty and integrity—he attacks everyone on the Net stating that he is right and they are wrong, then changes the footage to match what he stated was wrong!!!
In more recent times, he has made outlandish statements about people and events in the history of WSLVT, amongst them the most blatant lie being that HE advised Wong Sifu to change the spelling (in English) of Wing Chun/Ving Tsun from the “WC” version to the “VT” variation. Funny thing is that it was Wong Shun Leung and one of his WC/VT brothers in Hong Kong in 1968/9 who came up with the “VT” variation, some 15-20 years before Potter ever met him!!! An interesting side-note to this is the fact that Potter was chastised by Sifu in the late 80s for printing T-shirts and documents with the “WC” spelling, telling him that it was his preference to use the “VT” spelling, forcing Potter to go back and have everything re-printed.
When Sifu Wang Zhipeng visited the UK just a couple of years ago, Potter sent one of his overseas students around to “try out” Wang and his student Jai Harman, on the pretext of having a (free) private lesson. When the student tried to “ramp up” proceedings, he was unceremoniously sent crashing around Harman’s father’s garden, spending the remainder of his “visit” trying to find out why what he had been shown by Potter did not hold up under pressure. According to those concerned, the next day, Potter called to see how his student had gone, then went on to state that he was “the TOP STUDENT of Wong Shun Leung outside of Hong Kong”, and that he was highly regarded by all concerned AND was on great terms with Sifu’s widow—the fact of the matter is that she, along with most of the senior students in Hong Kong, cannot stand the man! Potter even claimed that he stayed with Simo in her home—he wouldn’t even know where she lived!!!
After causing so much pain, anguish and insult, Potter now expects everyone to just forget the past and carry on as if nothing ever happened. Easy to say when you are the one to gain the most from such an arrangement and in any case, why should any of us affected by his lies, deception, insult and personal character assassination simply say, “That’s all right, Clive!” and act as if nothing ever took place. Many people have now wisely left his organisation, most after attending Peterson’s seminars (and later those conducted by Sifu John Smith, Sifu Ernie Barrios, Sifu Gary Lam Man Hok, Sifu Cliff Au Yeung, et al) and realising how much that they had been mislead and mistaught. Many a time we have witnessed the groans of long-term practitioners who suddenly have the realisation that what they have been shown is not even remotely the same as what Wong Shun Leung taught to his genuine long-term personal students. Potter has been peddling mistruths and misinformation for far too long and it is sad that many are still being fooled by him, not to mention robbed of hard-earned money and irreplaceable time.
Everything stated above is true and verifiable – we even have footage of Potter declaring, in front of witnesses, that: Sifu Barry Lee has “Karate-fied” Ving Tsun; that Sifu Gary Lam does not do WSLVT; that Sifu Wan Kam Leung “does not do proper WSLVT”; that Sifu Philipp Bayer wants to be the “Kaiser of Ving Tsun and take over Europe” and that Philipp was a wife cheater; that Sifu Chiu Hok Yin is “that cross-eyed c**t “; and that David Peterson’s interpretation of WSLVT is completely wrong, despite the fact that Sifu Anthony Kan, his self-proclaimed friend and training partner, stated to Potter categorically that Peterson’s Ving Tsun is completely correct (in fact, according to Sifu Kan’s direct student, Doug Clark, Kan and Peterson perform their forms and basic skills EXACTLY the same way, unlike Potter whose techniques are totally different—so much for Potter’s claims of learning from and with Anthony Kan!) On visiting the class of Sifu Cliff Au Yeung just a few years ago, Potter was heard to say: “What is this, …a Karate class?” as the class was being taken through a warm-up. Such is the lack of respect he shows for a man whom he claims is his senior and personal friend. We are now making this statement because it is high time that Clive Potter is exposed publically to protect more innocent people becoming unknowingly caught up in his deceitful web of lies. We also do this in the hope of removing this stain from the honour of the late Sifu Wong Shun Leung once and for all.
To those who see this as one person’s personal attack on Potter, or to those who think that what has been stated is just “sour grapes” from only three or four individuals with a personal grudge, let us assure you that the numbers who have experienced and can verify what has been written, and whom can provide concrete evidence of what has been stated …and more, include the likes of Alan Gibson, Kevin Bell, Ged Kennerk, Adam Cope, Kevin McLaren, Graeme Handbury, Nedret Kilic, John Smith, Ernie Barrios, Chris Reilly, Doug Clark, Ashley Cooper, Pat Falvey, Rusper Patel, and a host of others who have witnessed Potter’s antics or heard his lies. In short, there are plenty of people for you to ask.
As a final point, recently Potter’s supporters have suggested that he would like to apologise for his actions in the past and, in his own words, “move on” into the future with the WSLVT family. If, as he has constantly claimed all along, he has done nothing wrong, why does he suddenly feel compelled to apologise? Apologise for what? You do the maths!
The true facts concerning the behaviour and character of Clive Potter!
The moment that Clive Potter knew that Sifu David Peterson was invited, by Sifu Alan Gibson and Sifu Ged Kennerk, to travel to the UK for the first time in 2003, he tried desperately to prevent it from happening, stating that as he was the “only one authorised to teach WSLVT in the UK”, and that Peterson required his expressed permission to go there.
When Peterson politely refuted his claims, ignoring this outrageous nonsense, and continued with his plans to go there, Potter then set about trying to control the trip, “taking over” from Sifu Alan Gibson regarding his leg of the tour, and demanding to know about and limit Peterson’s movements elsewhere in the UK.
Once Peterson was actually there, Potter set about restricting what Peterson could teach to Gibson’s students in Southampton, limiting Peterson to an extremely short list of possible seminar topics, and also determining what Peterson could present to Potter’s students in St Albans. The entire time that Peterson was in his company, he contradicted what Peterson said in the company of others, or found it necessary to add that “Wong told me….” on every aspect discussed, clearly trying to declare his perceived “special knowledge” of WSLVT as being greater than that of Peterson’s. Thankfully, in the North, Peterson was hosted by others and out of Potter’s direct control, hence freely conducted lessons as he chose to, thus revealing to a host of former Potter students just how much they had been led astray by his instruction up to that point. To Peterson’s amazement, the more he showed these people, the more he began to realise how much difference there was between Potter’s knowledge and his own, something that he had simply not anticipated. Peterson found himself as shocked and frustrated his hosts and their students were!
Both during and immediately after Peterson’s first time in the UK, Potter publically made statements behind his back, in public and behind closed doors, to the effect that Peterson’s WSLVT knowledge was incorrect, that his basic skills were flawed, that his forms were wrong, and that his experience with Sifu superseded everything that Peterson had experienced. At every opportunity, he told his students and/or wrote on the Net, that Peterson had changed everything that he was taught and his interpretation of WSLVT is incorrect. This behaviour continued as Peterson made successive visits to the UK after that.
Potter also made blatantly disgusting statements about Peterson and his (then) wife, attacking their sexuality, their hygiene and personal habits, and their general credibility and intelligence. In both writing and the spoken word, he described them as having had rampant sex all over his house and leaving the “evidence of their escapades” for others to discover and have to clean up. Peterson’s (then) wife was referred to as “looking and behaving like a cheap Hong Kong hooker” and she was treated by Potter’s wife as if she was a second class human being without education or value. His comments stunned those who later reported to hearing or reading them (he actually spread these claims via e-mail too!), and Peterson expressed his disgust and dismay when made aware of what Potter was saying via conversations with Kevin Bell and Nedret Kilic, who were two of the many who had both witnessed and been sickened by such outrageous remarks. Copies of the offending correspondence remain in our possession.
On more than one occasion when Potter called Peterson on the phone, he put his phone on speaker without their knowledge, allowing groups of people to overhear what they presumed was a private conversations, making fun of them with gestures and comments during and after the conversation, in the presence of his students. He also did the same to several other decent people in our group, most notably to Kevin Bell, whom he ridiculed in pantomime fashion in front of an entire room full of students, pretending to place his fingers down his throat and vomit whilst listening to Bell speak. Again, this is verifiable due to several credible witnesses to these childish antics.
Potter “set up” Peterson on his first visit to Potter’s school in St Albans, following his and his (then) wife’s long train journey from Manchester (Potter had taken them from the station to his ex-wife’s home and had them wait there, un-rested, un-showered, and un-fed until his ex-wife returned from her full-time job hours later to feed them, apparently to save money, rather than taking them out for a meal or to his own home for a much-needed rest), arranging for one of his then students, Nick Forrer, to try to assault Peterson in what he had been led to believe was to be a “friendly exchange”—it turned into a full-on assault in which Peterson ended up having to leave Forrer bloodied in order to survive the aggressive onslaught. Sensibly, some years later, Forrer eventually saw through Potter’s nonsense and left the school, but not before he was embroiled in a slanderous series of “attacks” on Peterson over the Net lasting many months.
Once Peterson had finally left the UK, Potter went about attacking him on the Net on a number of forums, not only under his own name, but also under several aliases, proclaiming how great Clive Potter’s Ving Tsun was and how pathetic and wrong Peterson’s was. Basically, he went on a campaign to slander and discredit Peterson which lasted for months, if not years. By tracing the IP address of many posts, it was established beyond doubt that Potter was behind these posts, with every one of them emanating from the very same computer—Potter’s!
When confronted with this information by Kevin Bell, et al, Potter then immediately claimed that it must have been his son, Mark Potter, who had done this, and he denied having any knowledge of these attacks. Interestingly, there were multiple examples of “Clive-speak” to be found in ALL such posts, clearly indicating his personal involvement. Copies of many of these posts, and the proof of their origin, is in our hands.
He then took his campaign of lies and personal defamation to Hong Kong, seeking the support of various Sihing there to substantiate his claims that Peterson’s interpretation of WSLVT was incorrect (evidence of some of these attempts to defame Peterson in front of his peers exists on film and is in our hands). Problem was that what he presented as Peterson’s skills/drills/knowledge was in fact NOT as Peterson had presented it at all, but people in Hong Kong were led to believe that Peterson was teaching an inferior version of the system. Now, prominent Sihing-dai such as Wan Kam Leung, Gary Lam Man Hok, Chan Kim Man, Cliff Au Yeung, Chiu Hok Yin, Jerry Yeung, Mark Wong, Phillip Ng, et al, are fully aware of Potter’s deception and agree wholeheartedly that Peterson’s interpretation of WSLVT is sound, and that his credentials in the system are authentic.
Potter also put together a collection of articles on Wing Chun/Ving Tsun, including several written by Peterson, and sold them to the public without Peterson’s (or any of the other author’s) knowledge or consent. This was in addition to also illegally pirating other movies/DVDs and training materials, including movies such as Ong Bak, the DVDs of Geoff Thompson, and the video, Wing Chun: the Science of In-fighting, featuring the late Sifu Wong Shun Leung, and selling them to his students and the public for personal gain. He actually gave out full-cover flyers advertising what he had on offer to his students!
He also obtained copies of Peterson’s book, Look Beyond the Pointing Finger: the Combat Philosophy of Wong Shun Leung at a reduced price, then on-sold them for well over the market price, while claiming that he did NOT make a profit—as Sifu Ged Kennerk was quoted as saying, you could buy a personally signed copy of the book from Peterson directly in Australia and have it sent by Airmail to the UK for less than Potter was selling it via his UK website!
Over the ensuing years, Potter has continued to lie about his own training and qualifications in WSLVT and attempt to control the teaching of WSLVT in the UK, falsely claiming that he is the ONLY authorised person to teach and regulate it. He even expected people to complete a written test of HIS invention in order to have the right to teach the system, claiming that he was authorised by Simo (Sifu Wong’s widow) in Hong Kong to do so—there is NO SUCH TEST set in Hong Kong (and never has been!) and no such authorisation was ever given—it is merely his own maniacal attempt to maintain some kind of stranglehold on WSLVT in the UK. He also expects that anyone that he authorises to run classes must pay yearly fees, must host his seminar visits several times per year at their personal expense (all expenses paid!), and that they are not permitted to do anything without his permission.
He has constantly lied about his position in the so-called WSL Ving Tsun Association UK, stating that he was authorised, along with Sifu Anthony Kan Chi Keung, to set up the organisation and control the system in that country. The truth of the matter is that he “inherited” the title by default when Sifu Nino Bernardo, whom Sifu Wong HAD authorised to set up the association, decided that he didn’t want to do so any longer (and couldn’t work with Potter in any case!), and as Anthony Kan, who IS fully qualified and IS a long-time direct student of Sifu Wong, also did not wish to do so either, Potter greedily grabbed it with both hands and tried to create an empire for his own personal gain and ego gratification.
Potter did NOT train for any particular length of time under Wong Sifu (as opposed to Sifu Kan who was trained in Hong Kong over an extended period), and during the time that Wong Sifu was alive, Potter only visited Hong Kong ONCE, and that was for ONE WEEK (and Sifu only ran the class for four afternoons/evenings in a week!), hence the fact that all photos of Potter and Sifu together in Hong Kong (and there are not that many!) show them both wearing the very same clothes, clearly indicating that they were ALL shot on the ONE DAY!!!
On that same visit, Potter coerced Sifu to write him a certificate (the one that he so enthusiastically uses to “prove” his claims) following the fact that Sifu had REPEATEDLY REFUSED to issue him one on previous visits to the UK. Potter, on being told by Sifu that he had no ink to prepare the certificate, then went out to buy both brushes and ink himself, then put them in front of Sifu and insisted he write the certificate, telling Sifu that he HAD to have the certificate, not only in order to run the class in the UK, but also “to ensure” that Sifu would be invited back there in the future. Being put on the spot in front of his students in that manner, to “save face” as it were, Sifu had no choice but to complete and sign the document. This was an extremely disrespectful act and one that has led to most of those who have legitimately hard-earned certificates from Wong Sifu no longer displaying them because Potter’s actions have cheapened their worth.
Every time that Sifu visited the UK, he would stay and train with Sifu Anthony Kan. Potter would tag along at every opportunity, attempting to gain access to Sifu’s knowledge. Not being a speaker of Chinese, he relied solely on Anthony’s translation of the conversations, and with respect, Anthony is “economical” with his translations to say the least, so when Potter constantly says, “Wong Told me…” or “Wong said…”, he is speaking with incomplete second-hand knowledge at best. When it came to actual classes and seminars, Potter would stand off to the side looking important, refusing to touch hands with anyone for more than brief seconds, so that it was Sifu Kan who did ALL of the hands-on training with Wong Sifu and translation of proceedings. Potter’s physical training at these events was minimal, to say the least, as evidenced with available footage of these occasions where he appears to remain seated, cross-armed and looking important, at the rear or side of the room, occasionally standing to stretch his legs or make a phone call.
Potter gets great mileage out of some brief footage (belonging to Sifu Kan) of Wong Sifu teaching him the Baat Jaam Do in Sifu Kan’s backyard. He and his supporters state that this “proves” that he was considered senior in his skill level and accepted by Sifu Wong as ready to learn this set of advanced training skills. The truth of the matter is that Potter told Sifu that if he did not teach him the Baat Jaam Do form, that Potter would NOT invite him back to the UK for further seminar tours!!! He blatantly blackmailed Wong Sifu into learning the form, but it clearly amounted to nothing as on the film footage it is clear that he was NOT ready or capable of learning it—you can hear the exasperated comments off-camera by Sifu Kan and see the frustration on Sifu Wong’s face and through his body language as Potter repeatedly gets the movements wrong! …and he still, to this day, does NOT play the form correctly and what he teaches is a mish-mash that vaguely resembles the actual form!
The same applies to his knowledge and performance of the basic forms, Siu Nim Tau, Cham Kiu, Biu Ji and Muk Yan Jong—he has changed the movements such that his forms are NOT the same in sequence OR interpretation with those of Sifu Wong Shun Leung. When explaining many sections of the forms, or describing key concepts, Potter’s interpretation and explanations are way off the mark, oftentimes totally contradicting what Sifu taught.
On one of his DVDs, when demonstrating the Cham Kiu form, Potter initially described and performed the Bong Sau action at odds with the actual way that Wong Sifu taught it. After receiving a barrage of criticism on the Net from other members of the WSLVT family who rightly pointed out his erroneous presentation, Potter dressed in the same clothes as those he wore during the original shooting of the footage and re-shot those sections, changing the way he did the action so as to adhere to the correct method, then inserted this new footage into the DVD content without telling anyone of his deceit. This alone speaks volumes about his lack of honesty and integrity—he attacks everyone on the Net stating that he is right and they are wrong, then changes the footage to match what he stated was wrong!!!
In more recent times, he has made outlandish statements about people and events in the history of WSLVT, amongst them the most blatant lie being that HE advised Wong Sifu to change the spelling (in English) of Wing Chun/Ving Tsun from the “WC” version to the “VT” variation. Funny thing is that it was Wong Shun Leung and one of his WC/VT brothers in Hong Kong in 1968/9 who came up with the “VT” variation, some 15-20 years before Potter ever met him!!! An interesting side-note to this is the fact that Potter was chastised by Sifu in the late 80s for printing T-shirts and documents with the “WC” spelling, telling him that it was his preference to use the “VT” spelling, forcing Potter to go back and have everything re-printed.
When Sifu Wang Zhipeng visited the UK just a couple of years ago, Potter sent one of his overseas students around to “try out” Wang and his student Jai Harman, on the pretext of having a (free) private lesson. When the student tried to “ramp up” proceedings, he was unceremoniously sent crashing around Harman’s father’s garden, spending the remainder of his “visit” trying to find out why what he had been shown by Potter did not hold up under pressure. According to those concerned, the next day, Potter called to see how his student had gone, then went on to state that he was “the TOP STUDENT of Wong Shun Leung outside of Hong Kong”, and that he was highly regarded by all concerned AND was on great terms with Sifu’s widow—the fact of the matter is that she, along with most of the senior students in Hong Kong, cannot stand the man! Potter even claimed that he stayed with Simo in her home—he wouldn’t even know where she lived!!!
After causing so much pain, anguish and insult, Potter now expects everyone to just forget the past and carry on as if nothing ever happened. Easy to say when you are the one to gain the most from such an arrangement and in any case, why should any of us affected by his lies, deception, insult and personal character assassination simply say, “That’s all right, Clive!” and act as if nothing ever took place. Many people have now wisely left his organisation, most after attending Peterson’s seminars (and later those conducted by Sifu John Smith, Sifu Ernie Barrios, Sifu Gary Lam Man Hok, Sifu Cliff Au Yeung, et al) and realising how much that they had been mislead and mistaught. Many a time we have witnessed the groans of long-term practitioners who suddenly have the realisation that what they have been shown is not even remotely the same as what Wong Shun Leung taught to his genuine long-term personal students. Potter has been peddling mistruths and misinformation for far too long and it is sad that many are still being fooled by him, not to mention robbed of hard-earned money and irreplaceable time.
Everything stated above is true and verifiable – we even have footage of Potter declaring, in front of witnesses, that: Sifu Barry Lee has “Karate-fied” Ving Tsun; that Sifu Gary Lam does not do WSLVT; that Sifu Wan Kam Leung “does not do proper WSLVT”; that Sifu Philipp Bayer wants to be the “Kaiser of Ving Tsun and take over Europe” and that Philipp was a wife cheater; that Sifu Chiu Hok Yin is “that cross-eyed c**t “; and that David Peterson’s interpretation of WSLVT is completely wrong, despite the fact that Sifu Anthony Kan, his self-proclaimed friend and training partner, stated to Potter categorically that Peterson’s Ving Tsun is completely correct (in fact, according to Sifu Kan’s direct student, Doug Clark, Kan and Peterson perform their forms and basic skills EXACTLY the same way, unlike Potter whose techniques are totally different—so much for Potter’s claims of learning from and with Anthony Kan!) On visiting the class of Sifu Cliff Au Yeung just a few years ago, Potter was heard to say: “What is this, …a Karate class?” as the class was being taken through a warm-up. Such is the lack of respect he shows for a man whom he claims is his senior and personal friend. We are now making this statement because it is high time that Clive Potter is exposed publically to protect more innocent people becoming unknowingly caught up in his deceitful web of lies. We also do this in the hope of removing this stain from the honour of the late Sifu Wong Shun Leung once and for all.
To those who see this as one person’s personal attack on Potter, or to those who think that what has been stated is just “sour grapes” from only three or four individuals with a personal grudge, let us assure you that the numbers who have experienced and can verify what has been written, and whom can provide concrete evidence of what has been stated …and more, include the likes of Alan Gibson, Kevin Bell, Ged Kennerk, Adam Cope, Kevin McLaren, Graeme Handbury, Nedret Kilic, John Smith, Ernie Barrios, Chris Reilly, Doug Clark, Ashley Cooper, Pat Falvey, Rusper Patel, and a host of others who have witnessed Potter’s antics or heard his lies. In short, there are plenty of people for you to ask.
As a final point, recently Potter’s supporters have suggested that he would like to apologise for his actions in the past and, in his own words, “move on” into the future with the WSLVT family. If, as he has constantly claimed all along, he has done nothing wrong, why does he suddenly feel compelled to apologise? Apologise for what? You do the maths!