Wing Chun club

[aefibird]

Akhtars Martial Arts Academy

 

Well, I've recently been searching for a style to train is, as I have had to give up Aikido - it looks as though my instructor has had to permanently give up his club.

 

I've done a lot of research of clubs and styles in my area and one name that I keep popping up against is Akhtars MA Academy. They have a very good reputation in my local area. Although they offer training in TKD, Kickboxing and Tai Chi, it would be their Wing Chun classes that I'd be interested in.

 

Although I know a very little bit about WC as a style, I know almost nothing about lineage, heritage etc. The WC instructor at this school is a student of Master Samuel Kwok, who is a student (I think) of Ip Chun and Ip Ching.

 

Can someone have a quick glance at the club website & tell me what you think of it please? Does it look like a decent club? Has anyone ever heard of it before?

 

One drawback about it is they only have one training session per week for beginners and lower grades.

 

The training is for an hour and 1/2 and is a bit pricey, costing £7 per session (which is more than double what I pay for karate and classes are 2 hours long and is £3 more than what I paid for 2 hour length classes in Akido.)

 

I've been invited to go and have a free trial lesson, which I've said I will. Even if I don't like the club - hey, it's free!

 

Hope someone can tell me what they think of the club. Thanks.

[Raze]

Hi Aefi

 

As u kno, I'm no expert on any MA style, however as you asked for opinions on the club based on what their website, here goes:

 

For starters they've haven't gone for a home-made website, which tells me they take their school seriously, so good first impression.

 

Concentrating on the Wing Chun Area...

 

Defo get a 'good' feel, they seem knowledgeable, friendly and unapologetic.

 

Sam Kwok is indeed a student of Yip Chun, as you can see here: http://www.wingchunkuen.com/who/masters/yipchun.html and I think Sams own site is here: http://www.kwokwingchun.demon.co.uk

 

I liked the 'articles' but they didnt say who wrote them (might just be duplicated from other sites?) I had a quick butchers at this one: http://www.akhtars.co.uk/martial-article.asp?ID=57 which seemed pretty good.

 

I think the price is high but is around the same I have seen other Wing Chun Clubs charge.

 

Not sure what the actual classes would be like but I guess you will be able to tell us that once you take the freebee!

 

Go for the freebee and go with your intuition - u'll know whether it's the right school for you or not

 

Good luck and let us kno how u get on!

[Drunken Monkey]

um...

 

i think i've said this before

 

but

 

prepare to get bored.

 

(there's only so[i/] much teaching/learning

 

a lot of it is drills and practicing)

 

hmm, but then, only a first lesson.

 

always lots to concerntrate on in a first lesson.

 

i'm not sure if you should pay much attention to the 1+1/2 hour class.

 

this is usually the 'normal' times.

 

i've had lessons that last 3hours once, after the main lot have gone.

 

it all depends on what/how you want to learn.

 

i mean, if you're serious about it, wing chun sifus are often quite accommodating in teaching you in their back-yard or something.

 

it's almost tradition.

 

the class is for teaching the fundementals such as stance, footwork, forms and training drills and stuff.

 

refinement and real studying happens outside of the class.

 

i don't think one class is going to give you the full picture....

[aefibird]

prepare to get bored.

 

(there's only so[i/] much teaching/learning

 

a lot of it is drills and practicing)

 

Well, I'm quite used to that anyway. We do a lot of drills in my karate class. My instructor is very hot on learning the basics perfectly, so we go over them again...and again...and again....and maybe a few thousand times more just in case we didn't get it the first million times Not that there's anything wrong with that - good basics are vital in any martial art.

 

A lot of outside study is encouraged in my Shotokan school, so I'm used to that too. My instructor always says that we're paying to learn karate and for him to teach and guide us - we're not paying him to think for us. We have to do that ourselves (with out of class research and study etc etc).

 

I was more enquiring about what people thought about the website and also about stuff like the lineage of the Sifu and just generally what feeling they got about the club.

 

Still, a website is put out on behalf of the club - they're not gonna declare that they're rubbish martial artists who don't know the first thing about Wing Chun, they want to entice students in, no scare them off. I suppose I'll have to wait for my freebie trial to find out, which is a week on Tuesday.

 

The main factor putting me off is the price. It's so steep compared to my own MA clubs and also compared to other clubs in the South Yorkshire area. There are other MA schools in my region that have purpose built studios, like this club, but their prices aren't as high as Akhtars (Wing Chun is the cheapest classes that Akhtar's do BTW - the price goes up to £8.50 for an hour & a half for TKD or kickboxing, which certainly makes it the most expensive school that I know of in the South Yorkshire area.)

 

Anyway, thanks for your responses guys.

[Drunken Monkey]

well, if it goes well, you will train way more than just that one class.

 

think of the class of being the weekly meeting so that everyone can see how everyone else is doing.

 

real training happens outside.

 

the class is there for you to ask about problems you have encountered.....

 

make sense?

 

anyway.

 

i can't speak about skhbar sifu but samual kwok has a good rep.

 

has trained under lee shing sifu as well as the yip brothers if i recall correctly.

 

a general thing about wing chun, especially when you have bunch of big guys trainig together is that sometimes they forget about the 'softness' that you should have and place too much emphasis on just being 'heavy' (not 'hard'...).

 

when you go, make a note of the male-female mix in the class.

 

a good mix should mean that you will get a good range of 'feel'.

[glassman06wtd]

You may want to take a look for a WT school in your area also. Don't know if there are any, but here is what you need to do to find one. Go to http://www.leungtingwingtsun.net/ Then click on links. Then select your country. I am assuming it is England. Click on https://www.wtdefence.com Click on club list. Then click on the area you are from.

 

glassman

[aefibird]

Thanks for the links glassman!

[aefibird]

Well, I went to the Wing Chun club tonight....

 

I was impressed from the start.

 

After years of training in a vile room above an even grottier pub for Karate, and also training in a tiny little yucky room in a school for Aikido, the fact that Akhtar's Martial Arts Academy has it's own purpose-built studio was like stepping into heaven.

 

They actually had soft mats on the floor and proper changing rooms and everything! *is amazed*

 

lol, I felt like as if it was I'd lived in a jungle and then suddenly been transported to the Ritz hotel.

 

Anyway, enough of my shallowness in instantly loving a place simply because it didn't have peeling paintwork....

 

Well, love it I did.

 

It was utterly different to anything I'd trained in before, but fantasic at the same time.

 

At least Karate, Kobudo & Aikido all use the same terminology and have roughly the same sort of class structure. It felt very odd not to bow at people, say "Oss" and call the instructor "Sensei".

 

Still, the differences are good. It's exciting being a newbie again and feeling like you have 20 pairs of arms & legs and you can't co-ordinate any of them.

 

As long as I can get to grips with the vertical fist punching and the fact that the training room was about the same temperature as a furnace, I think I'll be OK.

 

As an aside, what is the Wing Chun equivalent of the word "dojo"? Do Chinese martial arts tend to have a specific name for the place where they train, or is it simply referred to as a studio or a gym?

 

Also, can anyone recommend any good sites for Wing Chun beginners? Something that covers basic terminology and basic techniques, if poss.

 

Thanks.

[Drunken Monkey]

another nice little site with a comprehensive range of information regarding the various lines and masters of wing chun in the past and some in the not so past....

 

as well as a few nice articles.

 

http://www.wingchunkuen.com/

 

anyways.

 

it's kinda hard to give you a proper chinese name for training hall.

 

traditionally it is a 'kwoon' but that kinda just means 'training hall' really (and should be 'mo-kwoon' for 'martial training hall')

 

again, i should point out that i'm giving cantonese pronunciations so any non hk kung fu guys who use mandarin out there, sorry....

 

i don't actually like the use of 'studio' for this kinda thing.

 

it's too.. um... american...

 

and gym isn't quite right either.

 

i think most people do use 'kwoon' to describe the place.

 

i've always just said that i was 'going kung fu' or 'going training'

 

as opposed to 'going to the kwoon'.

 

anyway.

 

happy punching.

 

monkeyP.

[aefibird]

i think most people do use 'kwoon' to describe the place.

 

i've always just said that i was 'going kung fu' or 'going training'

 

as opposed to 'going to the kwoon'.

 

anyway.

 

happy punching.

 

Well, if I'm talking about karate I generally just say I'm 'going training', rather than 'going to the dojo'.

 

Thanks for the link!