I recently had the opportunity of spending an entire day, including a 2 hours workshop, with Bill ‘Superfoot’ Wallace and here are some of my impressions about my time with this legend of modern martial arts. It all started when Paul Barnett, a karate teacher which acts as his agent, contacted me offering a possible date for a seminar that I accepted without hesitation. I previously met Superfoot in 2011 at a workshop organised by Colin Payne down in Kent but the opportunity of having him in my club with my students and instructors was not to be missed.
Bill arrived at London Heathrow with an overnight flight landing at 5:55am; Paul collected him and drove straight to Cambridge where they arrived just before 8:30am. I was waiting for them at my clinic. Bill recognised me from our previous, albeit very short and crowded encounter, but it was immediately as if we knew each other for a long time. As he was very tired and jet lagged I allowed him to have a nap in one of our therapy rooms.
He woke up at about midday and we went together for lunch and then a coffee in town while visiting a couple of Cambridge Colleges. The afternoon went by pretty fast and it was soon time for our workshop that lasted about two hours where Bill run through the basic concepts of his ‘Superfoot’ system and he was explaining how he kept winning fights in his career of undefeated 6 time world champion of Full Contact kickboxing.
Bill is in late 60es and when you see him on the street he looks like a man of his age in a very good shape. When he gets changed and starts warming up he just transforms in a different person; he is more flexible than most people I know and can kill with a speed and accuracy that must be seen live.
After the workshop we went out for dinner and it was about 9:30pm when Paul called it the day and moved on to their next destination for the workshop they planned for the second day of Bill’s 9 days staying the UK.
All of my students and instructors were thrilled by the idea of training with such a legend before we started. After the workshop, they all confirmed how Bill exceeded any expectation. There is no doubt that training with a legend like Bill ‘Superfoot’ Wallace is great from a technical point of view, for any martial artist that uses kicks. However I gained more insights about his philosophy of life and training than I actually learn new techniques or strategies to win fights. It’s great to speak to him about how he met and/or trained with a huge range of celebrities within the martial arts, sports fighting and show business: Bruce Lee, Elvis Presley, Dan Inosanto, Dominique Valera and Benny Urquidez just mention a few. The fact that at 67 he still training regularly and runs between 80 and 100 workshops per year in 2 continents is a great inspiration for all martial artists that, like me, are aiming at training until old age. I hope there will be other opportunities to have a seminar with Superfoot in the near future; in the mean time I can say he really made my day.