Mario Lopez was born on October 5th 1964 in Duisburg Rheinhausen, chinese zodiac Dragon. Element wood. His parents were Spanish. When the Bruce Lee movies appeared in the cinemas in the 70`s , Mario was found of them like many others and motivated to learn this martial art. But there seemed to be no possibility far and wide. There were just a lot of gyms over crowded with Budo-people. So he started to do physical training at the age of 12 to be ready for eventual fights. And those occurred more often than actually wanted, as at this time every place in the area he grew up had its own "gang" with its own "territory" to defend. To the age of 15, Mario had about 30-40 brawls behind him, most of them luckily undefeated. But one day he met two opponents who were not only stronger but to make matters worse also a lot of older than him. So he had to face the fact- no chance without a Martial Art. In 1980 he decided to look again after a JKD (Jeet Kune Do, Bruce Lee`s own Martial Arts style) school and finally found a Wing Chun school under the lead of Sifu Wolfgang Polzin, who had learned at the EWTO (European Wing Tsun Organization). From him Mario learned that Bruce Lee had also done Wing Chun in his young years. A further positive effect to do Martial Arts was a therapeutic one. Martial Arts have made Mario Lopez a cool-headed guy. From the time on he did Wing Chun, he only faught in cases of emergency and in the ring.

Exalted about this fact and about his first Wing Chun lesson, Mario Lopez decided to learn Wing Chun and to teach it himself one day. In 1983 he got to know Sifu Phillip Bayer through his own teacher Wolfgang Polzin, who was representative of a complete different Wing Chun style. Mario became interested in this different style and he started to train it one year as a private student in Altena (Sauerland). Wolfgang Polzin learned of Ph. Bayer,too. In the following years W.Polzin trained with Andreas Hoffmann in Bamberg then so called Chi Sim Wing Chun ,which does not belong to the Yip Man line and Mario now learned this Wing Chun style from W.Polzin, which again had its own notable peculiarities.

Today, Mario Lopez can say; All Wing Chun systems are good, if one handles them! He is very grateful to have learned so much from his different teachers.


In 1995, Wolfgang Polzin and Mario Lopez had the idea to invite Randy Williams, who was already well known through magazines and videos at that time, from the USA to Germany, to hold a Wing Chun seminar. In september 1995 Randy came to Germany the first time. On February 2nd 1996 W.Polzin and Mario Lopez opened together the first CRCA-school in Germany for Randy Williams. Here upon other interested people in Germany and Italy followed. Until 2001, Mario Lopez learned directly from Randy Williams in the United States, Singapore, Switzerland, England, Austria and on numerous seminars in germany (Kiel,Berlin,Gelsenkirchen,Bochum,Frankfurt and Duisburg). In the year 2001, after 20 years of Wing Chun studies, Mario went into business for himself and founded the "Academy for Close Range Combat" with the shortcut CRCA-Lopez and since then teaches as a regular occupation and for his own account. He solely teaches the style of Randy Williams. He has kept the shortcut "CRCA"in the name of his school for two reasons. First to be found easier that way by people who are interested in Randy`s Wing Chun and second because the letters are contained in "Academy for Close Range Combat" anyway. After six years break, "CRCA-LOPEZ" belongs to the Randy Williams CRCA-International Group since Decembre 2006. There will be seminars with Randy Williams regularly now. The first one already took place in February 07 . "Seef" I respectfully salute to you!!


In 2003 Mario finished a two years instruction at the WAKO (World Association of Kickboxing Organisation) as "Diplomtrainer" with black belt. Before he had learned Kickboxing from Alex Derghal until the brown belt, by taking private lessons. Since January 2004 he also learns Capoeira and teaches beginners in this brazilian Martial Art. From 2003 to today, he worked on until today 22 DVD`s about Wing Chun education. This is the most comprehensive Wing Chun library in german language, made especially for people who do not understand English. He educates Wing Chun Instructors, who are teaching themselves today, gives seminars, holds tests, organizes tournaments and Martial Arts festivals and workshops. His biggest single success: German Master 2001 ,WAKO.