Suey Bing Fa is Chinese (Cantonese) for the "Way of Water & Ice".

Water ('Suey' in Chinese) refers to a relaxed way of movement. By being relaxed, we respond and move more quickly and with better maneuverability. We also conserve energy.

Ice ('Bing' in Chinese) refers to the solidifying of the whole body the instant before a strike of certain other moves. This allows for the whole body to act as a unit

Way or Method ('Fa' in Chinese) tells of it being a style. A way of thinking and conceptual belief.

Suey Bing Fa is a style or rendition of American Kenpo Karate developed by Ed Parker. While it has it's own forms and self-defense movements, it relies heavily on those found within American Kenpo Karate.

American Kenpo Karate is a system, complete with it's own forms, self-defense techniques, history and traditions.

Suey Bing Fa allows for the modification of Kenpo under another name without actually changing Kenpo in any way.

As with all Kenpo we are known for multiple strikes and rapid pragmatic response in a confrontation. This is the root of our art and is the same as in most Kenpo schools. We teach the Kenpo forms and use the movement from Kenpo techniques.

We practice a bit differently than some other styles in that we focus on "Response" rather than technique. Technique is a learned sequence of movements. Response is a creative use of motion to defend and counter attack. The difference is that no specific order of motion is called for. Students are judged by demonstrating the effective use motion. Applying effective motion to a situation is highly prized by us. A change to the technique is required to fit even a slight change in the situation or body position of our opponent.

Response teaches the effective use of motion has no order of response but it is judged as good if it comes out quickly and shows effective defense and counter attack suited the motion of our opponent. In real confrontations there are many variables and we hope to teach students to adjust their motion to fit well and provide the needed ingredients for success.

The core idea of Suey Bing Fa is that self defense is a non-verbal conversation. Our opponent speaks to us with a punch, kick or grab saying, "This should hurt you!" and we respond with a two part response first saying, "I don't think so!" (defensive motion) and follow (counter attack) continuing the conversation saying, "You should think about yourself and not about me." The entire conversation should be short and to the point.

When our opponent speaks we want to answer him with motion that says, "Attacking me only hurts you. You should change your mind about this." At some point the opponent stops the attack. Sometimes he changes his mind and sometimes he becomes unconscious. Either way the attack is stopped. We always continue the conversation until the attack is stopped. The opponent is made to be unwilling or unable to respond.

We focus on safety. Our safety and the safety of those who cannot protect themselves. Safety of those around the area (bystanders) and those who might do us harm (friends of our opponent) and the opponent's safety. We want everybody to keep safe during the conversation. At least to the level of safety they deserve. Our prime directive is Safety First! This puts a responsibility on us but as martial artists we train to handle this responsibility. This is a focus of our study.

The tools we use to succeed in this endeavor derive from being human. We use the human body (ours and theirs) knowing its frailties and strengths. How it moves and doesn't move. What propels it and how it feels. We learn anatomy and are responsible for the medical implications of our actions. We learn psychology to know human nature and sociology to understand human interaction and respect for our fellow man.

We are held to the legal responsibilities of our actions and know what moral implications are involved in the use of our skills. We want our opponent to be hurt when we hit them, stopped when we defend against their attack and controlled until the attack stops. We want them to be hurt only to the extent they intended to hurt others and not subjected to undue harm without cause by a misguided action. The goal of our study is to be at peace with our art.

We have defined components of the art in easy to understand concepts. They describe parts of what we do so we can talk about them and students can know why certain motions fit a given situation. We teach three ranges of combat, eight essentials of motion, and six defensive categories of motion used to gain our initial safety. The objective of the correct use of these is to gain Maximum Force Potential (MFP) with each movement. There are Beneficial Dimension of the art. The rest is learning the vocabulary of targets and weapons.

There are a few philosophies we use to anchor our priorities. They are "The 80% Rule", "cover hand / reference hand", "purchase", "plan", "monitor the opponent", "Water and Ice", "moving from where you are", "it is best to deal with a blind man", "work to remove their essential" and the obvious "options and opportunities".

That is about it. I tried to keep the explanation short and to the point. If you read between the lines you can fill in a lot on your own. We believe the principles of Suey Bing Fa apply to any art and can be used to strengthen your system, whatever it is. If you wish you can stop here and just fill in the blanks on your own from the above. For those of you who like it spelled out a bit more, we will continue within these web pages with the details.