Do you like martial arts? Are you looking for a reliable teacher? Someone you can trust? Someone who’s not going to rip you off? Someone who asks the right price and is more concerned about teaching you and not how much he can gain from you?
These questions and more have been travelling around the martial arts world for the last number of years. And believe me I know how frustrating it can be.
Im going to show you very easy steps on how to find out which is the right teacher for you.
What are his credentials?
How many years has he/she been studying?
How much time do they take in improving their quality?
Is he passionate? Is he eccessively violent with his students?
Does he need to demonstrate his power to win over students?
Does he badmouth other systems and show virtually no respect for others?
Does he believe he has the only source of true martial information and all the rest is rubbish?
Things to look out for.
Inform yourself of his/her reputation.
See what types of courses he provides and what the community opinions are of this teacher.
Even the local police station may have information on him and what his credentials are.
You don’t want to associate yourself with some local thug who pretends to be a teacher but really is just a public bully.
Does he have a curriculum? Attend one of his classes and see what his attitude and those of his students are.
What are his credentials? Has he learnt from reputable teachers or recognized associations of martial arts?
What is his attitude? What is the attitude of his students?
Be careful many teachers look for easy prey, and if you are weak minded he will immediately know this. The weak minded usually succumb to seemingly powerful teachers who in a demonstration can create wonderful displays of fantastic martial arts. If you don’t know anything it will be very easy to impress you. Remember anybody selling invincibility is a person to look out for.
Anybody selling you that in 10 lessons you will become a great fighter is just simply selling you rubbish.
Don’t fall for the ‘hey if you give me 20 thousand dollars upfront I will guarantee to teach you the whole system’
Remember martial arts can be learnt quickly but not everybody is the same, what may take you 6 months to properly learn something may take someone else a year or maybe another person even less than what you took.
Ask yourself why you want to learn martial arts or in this case Wing Chun,Tsun, it is in reality a beautiful art but it has in time deteriorated, mainly because of high quality marketers and businessmen who’s main concern is that of thinking primarily of their income and not teaching quality.
It is correct to pay for tuition, no one should do it for free. I believe that information is worth the time,study,experience and quality your teacher has amassed in the years.
Can my teacher fight?
Your teacher doesn’t necessarily have to be a top fighter to be able to teach, but then again teaching is a rare quality and the teacher must have the intelligent structure to show that the techniques being taught can work mechanically and that you can make them work.
Simple questions to ask yourself, is the Wing Chun punch powerful? If so show me, also show me how to train it.
Can a Wing chun technique really stop a powerful hook punch? Well then show me and show me how to structure my technique and the functions of the technique.
These are very simple guidelines to help you finding the right teacher.
Remember that Martial arts teachers ARE NOT psychologists, they cannot resolve your personal issues in case you have fear of conflict. Teachers can guide you and give you certain tools to help you discover yourself and that’s it. If you have many social conflicts and want to become a war machine then I suggest you forget about doing martial arts for now.
Martial arts has many phylosphical attitudes which can be combined with your training and helps you to create an internal balance. Martial arts are not intended to promote violence but from a basic point of view help you understand the art of self preservation.
Other points to help you
Nowadays on the internet it is very easy to find out lineages of Wing Chun Ving Tsun and Wing Tsun.
Go on youtube!
Do the films show only teachers who beat up on their students and show an air of invincibility? If so I would consider looking elsewhere.
Do teachers teach that violence is the only answer to most social conflicts? Is so I would again consider looking elsewhere.
Do certain teachers falsify their qualifications and train themselves from DVD’s and then reteach the same techniques to you without having ever tested them? If so I would consider looking elsewhere.
Do certain teachers rely on image, fake photos, self proclamations of having studied abroad without having a single ounce of proof? Once again I would consider looking elsewhere.
Is his school insured?
Does the teacher provide or supply adequate protection to avoid injury whilst you’re training?
How is his school structured? Does he have specific programmes to cater your development?
What’s in it for you?
What will you gain by attending his course?
Wing Chun Tsun is meant to be an enjoyable experience and help you with many aspects of your life.
There are many other guidelines I could provide but the list is endless. This is just a basic guideline and I hope this information will help you
Fighterman is a well known martial artist and has studied varied systems of combat. He started Wing Chun under the lineage of Tsui Shun Tin (for many years a closed door student of the late GM Yip Man)in 1973 and was also a direct student of Grandmaster Leung Ting. After 35 years he founded his own system which embraces many Wing Chun Tsun theories and renamed it Wing Tchun Do.
Fighterman is against politics in the Wing world and still studies and learns from as many lineages he considers authentic.
Fighterman is preparing online tuition and courses of Wing Chun/Tsun online via his website.
You can contact him on fighterman@hotmail.it
He cannot always guarantee you an answer as he has so many emails pouring in daily.
