If you are looking to begin your journey into the world of Wing Chun and want to know what to expect, I hope the following information will be useful. If however your query is not answered then please feel free to give me a call or e mail. Honestly you can ask me anything – I won’t be offended.
Every four months I hold demonstration events at my class venues. These events are an excellent way to introduce you to the style of Wing Chun and the way I teach it. It’s completely free, relaxed and friendly. If you like what you see and the people you meet then you can grab an application form at the end.
The following week you bring your form, your payment for one months training and begin a four month beginner course. You are not under any kind of contract and never will be. Some organisations offer new students the chance to join an honourable martial art but yet are made to sign a one or two year contract that they can’t get out of. It’s Wing Chun that should keep a student and not a credit agreement. I want my students to feel free to stay or leave as they see fit.
So you progress with a group of people that are all new to the style, you will quickly make friends and help each other along the way. I only accept beginners starting within the first three weeks of a course. After that whether I have two people or twenty two people, I close my doors and focus on getting that group to the required level to join my main class. Being part of a beginners course means you won’t feel thrown in at the deep end. The course is progressive however and as such I have to have a cut off point at three weeks.
The training is fun and addictive. Many of my senior students are there to help you through as they enjoy going back and breaking down the basics of the style. You will find me very approachable and open to your questions. The style really is science in motion. It’s taking the logical steps of what to do in a fight situation and training it to a level that it becomes instinctive. By the end of four months you become eligible for my main classes and that’s where it gets even better! Having acquired the necessary basics in the beginner course you can now start working towards applying your training and even perhaps working towards your first grade.
So why grade? Let me be clear on this. I will never insist that anyone has to take grades in order to progress through my system of Wing Chun. Instead I want people to have such belief in my grades as a way of aiming for and achieving goals that they will see it as truly the best way to test and push themselves. If you pass a grading of mine, you will know you’re competent at it! The concept behind my grading system is simple. The first grade is the two most important areas of self defence and without them everything else you learn will be ineffective. Each grade follows on in order of importance in a fight situation. The new material in each grade is progressive and only achievable with competency in all the grades before it. For example it’s no good teaching someone how to knee (part of grade 4) if they haven’t mastered balance of there own body (part of grade 1), can destroy someone else’s balance and move them into position (part of grade 2) and deal with anti grappling (part of grade 3).
Of course it’s not just about learning to fight. I believe whatever the reason for training it all should lead down a similar road……
You may be interested in learning the artistic side of a martial art but in order for something to work effectively in a fight we must look for martial artistic perfection when practicing. So much is lost in the transition to real combat but if you have achieved near perfect form in training, then the loss of form in the transition to a fight is still within a level that will allow effective application. If you only roughly do it in training it will never be good enough when applied in real combat! Therefore only the quest for martial artistic perfection is good enough! The art must be trained to the highest possible level. To be honest as beautiful a style as Wing Chun is in training, when used in a fight it usually looks real ugly but also very precise, direct, brutal and effective! However, please don’t be under the impression that I’m just interested in teaching rough looking self defence. I need to see it looking beautiful and I love the art of Wing Chun.
You may be looking for an alternative way of getting fit – I’ve always found training as a great way of keeping fit. Through training you are improving co-ordination, functional strength, muscular endurance, cardio, explosive power, even brain power! The best bit of course is that it’s fun. You don’t feel like you should be doing it to get fit (unlike that feeling a lot of people get at a gym). Taking Wing Chun to a high practical level does require effort and regardless of your fitness levels you will get fitter through training!
You may be looking to do something that’s fun and allows you to meet new people – That’s what it’s all about for me. I find it remarkable that some teachers demand silence when in class and they put themselves up on some Godly platform and never engage in conversation with their students. They are missing out on one of the best bits about teaching. My students call me Martin and I like to get a few laughs going in class when I’m teaching. Don’t misunderstand me, you will still train hard and there are times when you will enjoy the fruits of your training rather than the training itself! On the whole though you’re going to be progressing at something while having a lot of fun on the way. We are all people from different walks of life drawn together for the love of Wing Chun. It’s my honour to call my students my friends and to help them become better martial artists and vice versa.
Check out the details page to find out when the next beginner course is starting.
