I have a search engine at work that enables me to check through a large selection of newspapers/magazines etc, and doing a search on Wing Chun brought up an article from the LA Times. Also means I don’t have a link for it, unfortunately, but its from an article entitled ‘MOVIES; THE LIFE OF HOLLYWOOD; Spinning into control; For years his life, complete with very public drug problems, was picture of chaos. Now Robert Downey Jr. says he’s too busy, and feeling too hopeful, to run amok.’, from 28th August 2005.
The full piece is around 5000 words, so I’ll just quote the relevant part:
[quote=““Mary McNamara, [i”]
Los Angeles Times[/i], 28th August 2005”]…“I knew it was different when he released the album,” says writer Sam Slovick, an old friend. “He’s been sitting on that for a while. And this,” he says, gesturing to the crowd around him, “this has been a big help. A big help.”
“This” refers to the opening of the new home for the Los Angeles Traditional Wing Chun Kung Fu Academy. On a warm Saturday night, Downey has shown up to support founder and chief instructor Eric Oram, who for the past two years has been Downey’s teacher. Oram trained Downey almost every day on the set of “Kiss Kiss.” “We called him the bald Colin Farrell,” Black says, which is both a nod to one of the film’s jokes and a strikingly accurate physical description of the man.
Although a few of the 150 or so highly eclectic Wing Chun enthusiasts gathered in the alley off Purdue Avenue in West Los Angeles give Downey sideways celebrity-registering stares, Oram, or Sifu, as everyone calls him, is clearly the star. When his wife shows up with the new baby in one arm and a blender in the other, it’s Downey who relieves her of the blender and takes it to the bar. And when Oram’s 2-year-old son, unfazed by his father’s status, repeatedly interrupts Oram’s introductory speech, it’s Downey who unobtrusively picks the little boy up and quiets him down.
The actor has been peripherally involved in martial arts for years, but he joined the academy three years ago. Before that, he says, he didn’t know if he wanted to box or do jujitsu or if his year “would involve an occasional 30-day spin dry,” which can make training difficult. Wing Chun, which was developed by Buddhist monks, involves as much meditation and concentration as it does self-defense moves. It also requires discipline of an interpersonal nature; while Oram’s business card includes a “film & stage combat choreography/SAG” reference, he doesn’t ask Downey when he’ll be in for training; he tells him.
“You’ll have to ask Sifu,” Downey replies to a young man who asks the actor if he would like to do some training in another form of martial arts.
Oram is just one of several people on whom Downey relies now – people who allow him to address his needs before they spin out of control.
On the set of “Kiss Kiss,” he says, his needs far outstripped those of costar Val Kilmer, who is known to have certain, well, expectations. “Val may have turned in that bill for the $5,000 haircut, but I was the one with high-end demands. You know those cups, like o7 bionic gulp? – I needed them. Filled with green tea and Coffee-mate, or espresso and foamed milk. Whatever. I needed my Sifu and Joe from the Tao Arts Healing Center every single day on the shoot.”…
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Anyone ever trained at that particular Wing Chun place? Sounds like it could easily tip over into a cult for Downey Jnr (considering the amount of control his sifu apparently has over him), though on the other hand WC seems to have helped him get over his notorious plethora of drink and drug problems.
