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From Inside Kung Fu magazine: January 1988 (volume 15, number 1)

25 Years with San Soo’s Jimmy H. Woo

Written by Dave Cater

December, 1985

This story began two years ago when Jimmy H. Woo was first approached by Inside Kung-Fu for a feature article. Friends described Jimmy H. Woo as somewhat of a martial arts recluse, so it was not entirely surprising when Jimmy H. Woo, the Grandmaster of Kung-Fu San Soo, met the request with an emphatic “no.” At the time, he was a 68-year-old man with a character as no-nonsense as a Bill Wallace side kick. It was not so much that he was publicity shy, but that he was not publicity hungry – a rarity in a business where martial artists wave press packets shaped like halberds and wear gi with agents’ numbers stenciled to their backs. In Jimmy H. Woo’s corner of the world, there was no one better, no one more capable of standing toe-to-toe with any hooligan on the sidewalk. If we wanted to know more about Jimmy H. Woo, we would have to go to him. When he was ready.

September 1987:

Jimmy H. Woo has finally consented – on his turf – and as I drive toward his studio in El Monte, California, I wonder just how good this man can be, just how tough an art is San Soo. Although they say San Soo is represented throughout the country, you don’t hear much about it. Is it because there is nothing to tell, or because Jimmy H. Woo isn’t saying?

Getting to Jimmy H. Woo is difficult – both figuratively and literally. His studio is hidden in the dim recesses of an old shopping center where most of the other businesses have changed hands, names, and specialties. But for the past quarter-century, Jimmy H. Woo’s Kung-Fu San Soo studio has been the haven for thousands of martial artists, most of whom have remained loyal to their teacher and friend.

“When I was first here, they said I wouldn’t last two weeks (in this location),” he says, surveying the empty buildings across a darkened, rain-soaked parking lot. “They’re gone and I’m still here.” Where others have given up and closed their doors, Jimmy H. Woo has stuck around. Pure and simple, he is a fighter teaching a fighting art. One student even describes him as the kind of man who would have been employed 50 years ago by a Chinatown organization to impress the point to a non-believer. But to the outside observer, he’s as charismatic as Bert Convy. If there is any pretense to this man, he has left it at the door, along with the cigarettes, which he religiously smoked for 46 years. (“You know,” he says, turning to an interviewer, “I haven’t wanted a cigarette in years. But all day today I wanted to smoke.”) If this is a sign of nervousness, it is quickly dispelled as he describes his life following a discipline that has served him just fine.

His charisma is catching. Notes Bill Lasiter, a Jimmy H. Woo faithful for the past 24 years, “Jimmy can walk into a crowded room and everyone will get excited. He has tremendous charisma. He’s close to a father figure – even more so. You put him on a pedestal.”

Jimmy H. Woo (no one knows what the “H” stands for) was born in Hawaii on October 10, 1917. He began learning San Soo before his fifth birthday and continued when his family moved to Canton, China, where five generations of the art, which originated at the Kwan Yin Monastery (Kwan Yin was the Goddess of beauty), were passed into his capable hands. In 1931, three years before Ark Yuey Wong made the trek to Los Angeles from San Francisco; Jimmy H. Woo came to southern California. Although he insists the move was pure economics, his business practices over the past 50 years belie the contention. His philosophy always has been, “As long as I can eat and have a place to live, what do I want with money?” His four children have been encouraged to go to college. “Small money” in martial arts, he concedes.

With Jimmy H. Woo on his long journey to America were two hand-written (in Chinese) books extolling the principles and precepts of Kung-Fu San Soo, considered the most potent of all Chinese fighting arts. “San Soo means you’re a fighter,” he admits. Was Jimmy H. Woo a sign of his art? He wore false teeth by the time he was 20 years old. Fighting, in fact, is at the core of Kung-Fu San Soo. Although there are some forms as with any martial arts system, they take a back seat to the actual (fighting) techniques. Jimmy H. Woo readily admits San Soo’s forms are not a thing of beauty.

“Generally, the kung-fu form is not pretty,” he notes. “Why? Because fighting is ugly. Fighting can’t be pretty. When people get mad, they lose their head. Not pretty, it becomes ugly.”

The root of San Soo fighting is the mind. All movement begins in the head and is transferred to the hands, knees, and feet. “Your body is the tool, your mind is the mechanic,” Jimmy H. Woo stresses. “It doesn’t matter how big you are or how strong you are, but what you have up here,” he adds, his finger touching his temple. Kung-fu was created to develop your body and your mind. The mind is what really does it and it takes an intelligent person to grasp what it offers. It develops character. You use your mind to control your body. People who created kung-fu were not dumb people. They were very intelligent.”

By training the mind, a San Soo practitioner learns to instantly react to any situation. “You have to train your mind to use your body to generate power,” he says. “You have to move your hands to react to the target – his eyes, his throat, the sensitive parts of the human body. You have to know how to hit him where you want; whether you’re in front of him, in back of him, or to the side.”

All of which gives you the most important attribute – self-confidence. When a San Soo practitioner is faced with a perilous situation, he has a choice. “You have to decide how important the situation is,” says Jimmy H. Woo, 70 years old. “You’ve learned how to generate power doing the little things. Now once all that happens and you’re in a situation, you say “I don’t want to hurt him, I know I can hurt him, he may not give me any choice. But if I do have to fight, I know how.”

Which brings up one of Jimmy H. Woo’s main complaints about the martial arts. Many instructors, he maintains, claim they know more than they actually do. “You can learn all the kung-fu in the world, but can you use it in real life? The only real kung-fu fighting form is San Soo. You can read all the books in the world, but does that make you a scientist? Same thing about San Soo…you can make believe you’re a trained fighter, but it all depends on whether you’ve been trained to fight.”

Jimmy H. Woo’s training apparently is the reason most of his students come back 15-20 years after they’ve started. “Why do you think they came back?” Jimmy H. Woo asks. “Because their personality changes because they’ve become more confident in themselves. A student knows what he can do for himself when he needs to do it.” Students also say Jimmy H. Woo concentrates on character, on how to be a good person, how to develop a sense of right and wrong – when right is strong and fight is wrong.

“Best defense is I run if I can,” he once told a reporter. “I don’t want to kill unless I have no choice. Kill or be killed. Life is more important than anything on this planet.”

But there are times when someone else makes the choice for you. Not long ago, a disbeliever walked into Jimmy H. Woo’s studio and challenged the Grandmaster to a fight. No matter what Jimmy H. Woo said, the person would not leave. Jimmy H. Woo quickly dispelled the situation in picture-perfect San Soo tradition. Jimmy H. Woo would say later he was “very sorry” he did it. But his biggest concern was how his students would view the show of strength.

“I’ve made more mistakes than anybody in my time of life, but I don’t want my students to make the same mistakes. It’s like a father and his son. A father may be no good, but he doesn’t want his son to be the same. He wants his son to be better than him. He wants to pass that thinking on for a thousand generations to come.”

Plenty of sons have passed through Jimmy H. Woo’s house in the past 25 years. And each has become richer for the experience.