Why Wing Tsun?

Why Wing Tsun? Why here, at the ‘Backyard’?

How can I explain to you what my teaching philosophy is?

I don’t like using pretentious phrases and promotional jargon, however effective those may be in getting new students in the door.

That’s just me. I can’t help it. All I can do is to try and talk straight with you.

Do I want you to come to my school and learn from me? Yes, I do. Why? Because I have something to share with you.

It took me over thirty years to get to the point where I am able to share it with you, and it wasn’t all of my own effort that brought me to this point.

I had help. Lots of help. Help from all of the people who taught me over the past three decades, but especially from my Si-Dai, Sifu Simon Mayer, and from the awesome Bay Mountain Wing Tsun family he has built over the last twenty years.

And that’s why I want to help you learn and grow as much as I did, in Wing Tsun.

Is Wing Tsun the best martial art ever? I don’t know. I only know that, for me, it is.

If you learn from me, I can show you why I think that way, and maybe, just maybe, you will come to understand why I think this.

Eventually, maybe, it will be the same way for you.

If not, that is fine, as well.

I only hope that, on the way to your decision (whether to continue your studies or to try something else), I will have contributed something valuable to your understanding of two things:

1. What Wing Tsun really is and what it can offer you, and
2. Who you are and how your body and your mind can work together to achieve the seemingly unachievable.

Wing Tsun truly is a way of life that can lead people to this understanding.

It is also a way of truth-discovery in fighting.

The very core of Wing Tsun is founded on the idea of not trying to portray yourself (to yourself as well as others) as the “best”, the “fastest”, the “strongest”, the “most intelligent”, or whatever.

Instead, the core of Wing Tsun is to ask, to seek out, to literally spy out your opponent’s strength, power, direction of attack, his intent - and his weaknesses!

Once you have discovered those weaknesses, Wing Tsun teaches to attack them relentlessly - because that is how you get to survive vicious and unprovoked assaults.

Here at the Wing Tsun Backyard, you don’t learn how to fight. You learn how to END fights!

In other words, Wing Tsun gives you what you need to walk away after a fight - instead of being carried away.

It’s reality. It is truth. And thanks to your training, you now get to decide the outcome.

At the same time, though, learning Wing Tsun gives you the ability to choose not to fight if the threat level doesn’t justify it.

You will know when to fight and when not to fight.

If you choose me as your teacher, I will teach you to the best of my ability, and to the best of yours, and of your commitment to learning this incredible art.

I will not hold you back if you learn fast, and I will not push you too hard if you learn slower than that - but do promise that I will always push you just a little bit, so you get a little bit better, all of the time, for that’s my job as your teacher.

I hope you will decide to join our Wing Tsun family and dive into this amazing adventure that some people call “learning Wing Tsun.”

All the Best,

Sifu Alex Wallenwein