its been a while - i want to get back into Wing chun!!!

[android]

Hi Andy

Your pretty close to me. Basingstoke has a few more classes you could check out. Sifu Martin Barnett runs a class there I used to attend and trained with for years. I'm currently training in Farnborough with Sifu Dave Fenton but going to classes twice week there could get tedious.

There was another guy that teaches in Reading:-

Welcome

From what I hear the Sifu has good credentials. I've never trained there so I can't comment but it's Reading. Theres quite a few classes in this area but it might not be on your doorstep. My current Sifu travels to Luton from my area and used to drive to Southampton. Now that's dedication.

Price wise from the class you went to depends how you look at it. Schools that are affiliated with some form of organisation will always cost you more than one Sifu by himself. If there organisation is anything similar to mine I have to pay £30 a year for membership and insurance. Which for a year seems reasonable to me. The money goes directly to the organisation. My Sifu has no say on the price per student and he doesn't make any money from that at all. But he charges £50 a month for 2 x 3 hours training a week. He just put his prices up as it used to be £40 but he hadn't changed it for 4 years maybe more.

£70 seems a little steep for me. But say if there's loads of seminars, trips to China maybe £70 to gain access doesn't seem that bad for a year. But then again it may not. I suppose it depends on what experience you want? Want to play with loads of different people to gain experience or more happy with training with say 5 people the vast majority of the time? Do you want to train to fight? Or prefer the theory and traditional side of things and don't want to spar loads? In my opinion you have to just go and try loads of classes and find the right people to train with and consider how far you want to travel on a bi weekly basis or once a week?

Hey thanks only just saw your reply
I spoke to the guy that runs the reading WC club,. Probably the most popular and professional WC club in this area
Although at £90 a month just too steep for me...will take a look at the Basingstoke instructor
Thank you for your help

Andy

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[axelb]

I'm from Reading, UK.
A while back I looked around for similar, and there was also this school:

Reading Academy Wing Chun Kali Eskrima/JKD - Berkshire Martial Arts Training School since 1992 Master Loukas Kastrounis-Wong Shun Leung-Yip Man Kung fu Family

I'm not sure what the cost was.

£90 per month seems excessive for Reading, other martial arts clubs I've trained at here have been between £20-70 per month for 1 or more sessions a week, those on the higher end includes multiple sessions per week.

 

[wingchun100]

I am not at all familiar with the layout of your country or what city is near where, but are you anywhere near these folks?

Classes

 

[Tony Dismukes]

Just had this response from him which I thought was kinda nice, after I mentioned the monthly payments were too much for me

thanks for letting me know was looking forward to getting your journey under way and to keep pushing you forward especially as you seemed to be doing quite well for your 1st session I'm more then happy to reduce your monthly to £35 while your financial situation improves.

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35 pounds (roughly $48 per month) for 1 class per week sounds pretty reasonable. You might want a place that offers more classes so that you can progress faster, but the tuition doesn’t sound bad.

I wouldn’t be terribly concerned about the instructor being out of shape. It’s probably an indication that he doesn’t do much in the way of hard sparring (at least at this point in his life). However you don’t need much physical conditioning to properly demonstrate WC technique and lots of WC instructors don’t seem to do much sparring. (I’d prefer a class which does include sparring, but many people seem to disagree with me.)

 

[Martial D]

35 pounds (roughly $48 per month) for 1 class per week sounds pretty reasonable. You might want a place that offers more classes so that you can progress faster, but the tuition doesn’t sound bad.

I wouldn’t be terribly concerned about the instructor being out of shape. It’s probably an indication that he doesn’t do much in the way of hard sparring (at least at this point in his life). However you don’t need much physical conditioning to properly demonstrate WC technique and lots of WC instructors don’t seem to do much sparring. (I’d prefer a class which does include sparring, but many people seem to disagree with me.)

Do you believe any school, of any style, can produce competant fighters without including contact sparring in their curriculum? If so, can you name an example?

 

[Bino TWT]

Do you believe any school, of any style, can produce competant fighters without including contact sparring in their curriculum? If so, can you name an example?

I'm a firm believer in sparring and training under real live pressure. While this is how I train, I can see possibly how a teacher can train fighters even if the teacher himself doesn't spar. Look at most pro boxing coaches; they don't spar, they get sparring partners for the fighter they're training and they coach them. Same with wrestling.

If the school in general doesn't spar and is always lost in dead-end choreographed compliant drills, that's a sign that you want to keep shopping though.