The Moy Yat Lineage Returns to Rio’s Elite Police Squad (BOPE)

  

On 8 November, at the invitation of Senior Master Fabio Gomes and with the consent of Grandmaster Leo Imamura, I took part in the support work provided to the 44th Tactical Actions Course (CAT II/2025), held at the Special Operations Battalion (BOPE), one of the world’s most respected centres of excellence, based in the city of Rio de Janeiro.

Our team also included the Commando Marcelo Alves, a veteran of the 1st Special Forces Battalion of the Brazilian Army. We were received with exceptional professionalism, respect, and warmth by both the officers and the course participants.

One could simply state that participating in a training conducted within a unit that symbolises excellence, discipline, and courage was an experience that fills me with pride in my professional journey. However, I would like to share a few further reflections on this experience.

As Grandmaster Leo Imamura has previously emphasised, in classical Chinese culture there exists the principle that “1 = 3”. What does this mean?
It signifies, for instance, that an activity such as this — applying the Ving Tsun System of the Moy Yat lineage in such a unique context — requires profound preparation. Thus, this “unique moment” unfolds into a “pre-event”.

With this understanding, I met several days in advance with Senior Master Fabio Gomes and my student, Daniel Eustáquio, to plan in detail the work to be developed during the four-hour session with the CAT II/2025 participants at BOPE.

All of the work was founded on the notion of “Noi Lik” (內力). Although many interpret this concept as “internal energy”, our approach was to present it as the capacity to internalise an external force and to use it intelligently and advantageously — in other words, to employ the energy provided by the opponent for one’s own benefit.

“What does the word ‘art’ signify in ‘martial art’? It is to capture and to employ, through gesture and the arrangement of things, every possible form of efficacy.”

Accordingly, our intention in conducting this study on “Noi Lik” (內力) was to encourage an appropriate attitude in the face of the unprecedented — an element that is ever-present in high-risk operations.

Hence, the reflection remains: how may this principle be transformed into concrete practice?

Before commenting on how we carried out this work, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Grandmaster Leo Imamura, who, through his determination, brought the Ving Tsun System of the Moy Yat lineage to Brazil in 1988. This visionary initiative has made it possible for professionals such as Senior Master Fabio Gomes — and myself — to experience opportunities as meaningful as this one.

During the pre-event lunch that preceded the activity itself, we concluded that we would use the Ving Tsun Experience Programme as the methodological foundation for our work.

The Ving Tsun Experience is a programme inspired by the vision of Patriarch Moy Yat, designed to enable individuals from diverse backgrounds to experience the high level of a Kung Fu system. The proposal is based on the defining characteristics of the Ving Tsun System, taking into account its phases, modalities, and types of mastery. In this way, it offers a gradual, accessible experience that remains faithful to the martial tradition.

Accordingly, we proposed to the participants that they adopt a Strategic Foundational Configuration. In other words, all the activities carried out that day would begin from an initial strategic configuration, practised in pairs, allowing each participant to calculate in advance — and with precision — all the factors involved, and to conduct the situation so that these factors became fully favourable to them.

Thus, victory would not be an end in itself, but rather the natural and predictable consequence of the opponent’s imbalance, provoked through conscious strategic action.

After the first rounds, a significant indication arose that we were on the right path. At a certain point, one of the participants managed to free his arm during one of the proposed exercises, demonstrating attentiveness not only to the strategic stages but also — as Senior Master Fabio Gomes emphasised that evening — to awareness of the other.

Surprised, the participant exclaimed:

“It’s easy!”

This spontaneous reaction — transforming what is difficult into something easy — is already foreseen in the classical Chinese treatises on strategy, which state that the true strategist achieves only easy victories.

It must be understood that “easy” does not mean devoid of challenge, but rather that, by the time success is achieved, it no longer requires tactical feats or great human effort. It is like the leader who, even upon attaining success, receives no applause, for genuine strategic qualities often go unnoticed.

In that simple moment, by verbalising his perception, the participant experienced the concept through his own body. It was something profoundly moving for me — impossible not to smile at the clarity revealed by that gesture.

 

That evening, I experienced not only a milestone in my journey as a martial arts professional, but also a transformative moment as a person. I felt profound gratitude, for since beginning my practice at the age of fifteen up to that moment — having just turned forty-two — I had travelled a long and meaningful path.

All the work carried out with the participants was not founded upon the individual qualities of our team, nor upon our combat ability, but rather upon something I understand as what Grandmaster Leo Imamura defines as “profound coherence.”

We dedicated ourselves intensely to the design of each activity and the construction of each strategic stage, ensuring that any solution adopted at one point, if it disregarded the opponent, would prove ineffective in the next — allowing the participant to realise this for themselves, without the need for correction. This dynamic, too, was carefully anticipated.

Our intention was that the participants, through movement, could act as strategists — capable of using the potential inherent in the situation to achieve maximum effect with minimal expenditure of energy.

Through these movements, we sought to convey that the determining factor is not individual goodwill, but rather the objective propensity that naturally arises from the way in which a situation is structured. Thus, by reinterpreting the use of their arms, legs, and body within the logic of the Ving Tsun System, the participants could experience this emerging potential from the initial strategic arrangement — the so-called Strategic Foundational Configuration.

This principle may be likened to setting rounded stones rolling from a mountain peak: once the movement has begun, the natural course of action leads inevitably to the outcome.
It was for this reason that the participant, upon realising it spontaneously, exclaimed:

“It’s easy!”

That simple phrase profoundly encapsulated the lived experience of the concept we sought to convey.

It is important to highlight the perseverance of Senior Master Fabio Gomes (pictured above), who for nearly three decades has been promoting the Ving Tsun System in environments of high performance and exclusivity. His work has directly contributed to enhancing the prestige of the Ving Tsun System within contexts of technical and strategic excellence — the result of his fidelity to his own vision and of a path defined by dedication and long-term perspective.

Throughout the four-hour session, Master Fabio demonstrated remarkable leadership, guiding our team with great mastery. Yet, twenty-five years ago, the results that are now visible still seemed distant. This journey reminds us that, in the art of strategy, means and ends are not always clearly defined; rather, it is the notions of disposition and efficacy that assume a central role in the development of any high-level process. As Master Fabio himself says: “Trust in the regulation of things.”

As important as his determination was Master Fabio’s respect for each strategic stage in pursuit of his objectives. To follow these stages with discipline is a necessary condition for success, but the true distinction also lies in the personal value that manifests in every decision and every action.

As Professor François Jullien exemplifies:

“However dense the clouds may be, a worm could not find support in them to fly — unlike the dragon.”

Thus, we understand Senior Master Fabio Gomes as truly called to this kind of work — someone whose journey both inspires and authentically represents the strategic spirit and essence of the Ving Tsun System of the Moy Yat lineage.

I am Thiago Pereira, and I humbly record my experience before, during, and after this singular moment, including the post-event held with Master Fabio Gomes and Mr Marcelo Alves.