Randy Williams is known to many as a Wing Chun Kung Fu icon, but I can personally attest that he is more than that. He’s a martial artist, an author, private investigator, head of security for famous celebrities, prison warden, horse farmer, a dog dad, the head of Close Range Combat Academy and the owner of Black Stallion Security and Investigations. When I met Randy, he was Head of Security for the band Five Finger Death Punch. At that time, I thought that he was just Head of Security, but little did I know.
Williams was born in Chinatown, Los Angeles. He began training at 13 years old, and he has been training for 35 years. He has a reputation of being one of the top ten World Masters of Kung Fu. When I spoke to him about having that title, his response was very humble.
“Some people might not feel [my being one of the top ten World Masters of Kung Fu] is true but if we were to do it as being true, [but] I would say, it’s an honor and it’s something that I had to work very hard to even be considered to be one of those ten,” Williams said. “I’m necessarily saying that I agree that I am one of them. If I were to be voted in as one of the top ten Martial artists on the planet, I would say it was because I had great instructors, I had great training partners, great students that motivated me to be the best I can be and I put a lot, a lot of work into it.
Randy has dedicated his life to training. When other people were getting married, he trained. When they were starting families, he trained. Where others dedicated their time to hobbies or other activities, he spent a majority of his time dedicating himself to becoming a Wing Chun Master.
I asked Randy what was the reason that he chose to train martial arts and he told me an incredible story.
“Well like most guys I wanted to learn how to fight,” Williams said. “I was very fortunate because my neighbor was Bruce Lee’s top student and Bruce Lee’s school was very, very close to my house. So I was constantly peeking in the windows, watching them train and I was inspired to be like him. So I was in kind of a perfect storm to become a Martial Arts Instructor having lived so close to Bruce Lee’s school.”
There are many different types of training equipment but two in particular are unique: The first is what is called the Wooden Dummy and the second is called the Octopus Dummy, which Randy invented about 12 years ago.
The Muk Yan Jong, which is the Wooden Dummy, is a tool that is used to train in Wing Chun. It has three arms and one leg with a center pole. The Octopus Dummy has a total of seven arms and one leg with a center pole. They are both suspended in the air with cross beams. They are used to help train in focusing your power in the core of your opponent. While the Wooden Dummy allows you to move a little bit from side to side, the Octopus Dummy allows you to have more movement to go around but not completely.
“You’re able to walk right around it,” Williams said. “Not all the way around it but quite a lot more of the angle 135 degrees of the face is being used instead of 45 degrees of the normal Wooden Dummy.”
I’ve watched a lot of Randy’s interviews as well as his instructional videos. I was in disbelief when I saw him train on the Wooden Dummy. He can close his eyes and know if someone is doing the techniques properly.
“The Wooden Dummy features square holes through which square projections, called tenens, pass,” said Williams This setup allows for multi-directional movement, where limbs are not limited to singular paths but can move in various directions simultaneously. By executing these movements correctly, a practitioner can generate energy that redirects an opponent’s force. This interaction produces a rhythmic sound, which I have memorized after countless repetitions. I can hear the accuracy of a student’s performance solely through listening, identifying any missed beats or missteps, and I can guide my students accordingly.”
It’s incredible how he does this, and it’s really something to watch him do in videos. With his knowledge, extensive training and length of time devoted to the world of Martial Arts, I asked him what advice he would give to someone entering the Martial Art lifestyle.
“My advice would be, expect to get out of it what do you put into it and there’s no substitute for training and time in the gym and you got to dedicate yourself. If you want to be world class you’ve got to put martial arts above any and everything else in your life,” Williams said. “So, it’s not like oh, I can’t come to practice because I’m getting my haircut. No, I can’t get my haircut because I have practice. The only thing that comes ahead of martial arts is work. So, when it comes to your martial art training you have to put that in front of everything. In my case I even put it in some ways ahead of my family. I never had a family because I was so dedicated to the martial arts. But, I felt like it wouldn’t be fair to a family to divide my attention that much with them. So, I think the only thing in my life that comes first is work.”
Randy explained what it was like growing up in Chinatown, LA.
“Life was a lot simpler than it is now,” Williams said. ‘There was no Internet, there was no cell phone, I grew up in LA Chinatown where there wasn’t a whole bunch to do. So my whole life was going to school and then getting home and training. I didn’t play High school sports and I didn’t do after school activities. My whole life was dedicated to Wing Chun when I was little. So, that’s kind of what my life was like was just training and doing the best I could in school. Life was simple, it wasn’t anything like today where kids are so much more adult than I was. I was a smart kid but I was never as advanced. When I was 16 I was really 16, 16 year old kids now know so much more about the world and everything than I ever did at that age.”
While there are similarities between then and now, I would have to agree that life seemed much more simple and relaxed than it is now. There are more after-school programs, and it has become a faster pace of living.
As a senior myself, I was curious what he was like as a senior in high school.
“As a senior, I was somewhat popular,” Williams said. “My sense of humor is pretty much the same now as it ever was. I think people appreciated my sense of humor and I had a lot of friends who thought I was cool because I was doing Kung FU and they weren’t. I think in that respect I was somewhat popular. I think that Martial Arts gave me that little edge to have a lot of friends. I was a protector. I was always getting into fights with people that would bully other kids. The school I went to had a very well known facility for the deaf. We had a lot of deaf kids at our school and they used to get picked on, and I was the guy that would always stick up for the deaf kids and I got into fights with all different kinds of bullies because of them picking on the deaf kids.
It doesn’t surprise me who Williams was in high school because he still is a protector in many different ways. Whether it’s through his Martial Arts, his current position as a Warden or being involved with the security of celebrities. Being around Randy at different times, I can confirm he truly is a protector, especially for everyone he cares about. He is an individual that everyone should have as a part of their lives. I’m truly grateful that he is a part of mine.
Getting through a day must be mind boggling because as I mentioned earlier, Randy has a list of positions and titles he holds. It amazes me how he is so calm and grounded and handles all of them, so I asked him how he gets through his days.
“Well, you know I think that my dogs keep me sane, my horses keep me sane,” Williams said. “I have Kung Fu to kind of keep me centered because sometimes it can all be very overwhelming.”
With how busy his life is you would think that he had no time to relax and would be surprised how and what he found to be relaxing. I find it to be intriguing the way he relaxes.
“To me, kung fu is relaxation,” Williams said. “I get it that people would say that’s hard work and that it’s really not relaxing but to me it is. It’s a way of centering myself after a tough day at work or just a tough day. Whatever might be going on in my life. Kung Fu is my way of escaping everything and being able to take it easy. But, I also enjoy riding my horses and hanging out with them. I like to just go out sometimes and brush them and hang out with them. Some people might think brushing horses is work but to me, it’s relaxing.”
Williams is a published author. He has published many instructional books on self defense as well as many instructional videos based on Wing Chun Kung Fu and a novel called Sherlock Holmes and the Autumn of Terror. His books can be found and are available on Amazon. Randy shared his reasons why he started writing.
“Well, that was the days before the Internet and I was always one that took a lot of notes,” Williams said. “I’m the type of person that learns by taking notes. Back in the day when I was learning Wing Chun at the beginning there really wasn’t anything in English about it. What little there was was very spare and didn’t really go into much detail. So, I decided after being involved in Wing Chung for 15 years or so at that time maybe more I had a whole bunch of notes compiled from my very first lesson all the way to my most current training. I decided to then sort of put those things all down into a book for others so that I could sort of save somebody all the trouble that I went through to learn the system basically pulling information out of my teachers and going out and trying it and sometimes getting beaten up in the process of finding out if something worked or how it worked. By the time I had compiled that I thought geez, I should put the stand for other people and save somebody else having to go through what I went through to learn this stuff.”
His favorite quote came from a placemat at an Italian restaurant in San Francisco called New Pisa Restaurant that he and his mom were eating at, and at a young age he thought that the quote was deep. He was at just the right age to have understood the quote but his mom had further explained it. The restaurant was filled with pictures of Dante Benedetti and his successful baseball career. Dante Benedetti was very well known and was extremely idolized and because of this Randy felt that there had to be truth to the quote he read on the placemat that was written by Benedetti. It read, “learn to do the things you hate, that’s the sign of a strong person. Weak people only do the things they like to do.” This quote has resonated with Randy Williams throughout his Wing Chun training.
With having such a fulfilling life to this point I was curious what the next chapter is going to look like.
“I’m just starting this adventure with being a warden, and so I think that when that’s all done my next adventure will probably be the investigation of Bruce Lee’s death, and that’s probably gonna involve a lot of international travel again,” Williams said. “That’s probably gonna involve me spending some time in Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and so kind of revisiting my youth a little bit. ‘Cause I traveled extensively in Asia in my 30s and 40s, and then I kind of stayed away from that kind of world since.”
Randy Williams has traveled the world to train many people, he is known as Seef, which is a nickname from Sifu, which means Master/Teacher. He was invited by different people to all different places; he called it “an honor and privilege.”
The real honor and privilege is to know Randy Williams. He is full of knowledge, wisdom and experience like no other. There have been times where he has shared all three of those qualities with me, and I am one of those people to say I have that honor and privilege of having him a part of my life.
