What is WingTsun™?
Realistic. An unarmed self-defence system recommended by the FBI-HRT (Hostage Rescue Team) and the German Special Forces GSG9, among various law enforcement agencies across the globe.
Grandmaster Kernspecht instructing members of the FBI Hostage Rescue Team ca 1992.
Intelligent. Invented by women, the system does not rely on physical strength or toughness, as these factors are often in favour of the attacker anyway. WingTsun™ uses body mechanics, geometry, physics and simple logic.
Instinctive. Through WingTsun™-specific training you learn how to use your natural reflexes which bypass the thought process and are therefore faster than your opponent’s conscious reactions.
Individualized. No mass ’military-style’ training, but hands-on instruction. The instructor teaches and corrects students individually.
Great Grandmaster Leung Ting correcting beginners Oct 2018 in Toronto, Canada.
Traditionally untraditional. We always strive to find the most economical and safe approach in unarmed combat. The development of WingTsun™ Kung Fu is ongoing, and always improving.
Taoism in motion . A very effective means of unarmed self-defence, influenced by the principles of WuWei, Yin and Yang, and other elements.
To really be able to defend yourself means that you should never expect your attacker to hold back, and also that you should be able to (temporarily) incapacitate him effectively. Strength or agility should not be decisive factors in a self defence situation; very often it is non-athletes and women who may be subjected to physical abuse and threats.
WingTsun™ Kung Fu has the unique distinction of being a martial art that anyone can master regardless of physical strength, speed or endurance. Most martial arts depend on fighters possessing certain physical attributes, such as strength, speed and endurance, for their effectiveness. Take, for example, boxing. There is a reason there are weight divisions, pairing fighters of similar size or weight. A heavy-weight-class boxer will always outclass the feather-weight-class boxer within the rules of boxing.
Regulated sports are entirely different from self-defence situations where there can be no expectation of fairness or adherence to rules. A WingTsun™ fighter is trained to expect anything: from kicks to the groin, to strikes to the eyes, to grappling, kicking and so forth. With sufficient training in WingTsun™ Kung Fu, students can compensate for, if not overcome those factors that may be in favor of the opponent, such as strength, speed, and endurance.
Any person who does not have significant physical disabilities can acquire a feeling for instinctive reactions through regular WT-training. And the newly acquired self-confidence and physical experience that come from even a short period of intensive training lead WingTsun™ Kung Fu students to become more relaxed after a short time. The WingTsun™ teaching methodology gives students regular feedback on their level of progress. Through the nature of WT training and also the recognition of your own skill level increasing and thus your ability to defend yourself from an aggressor, comes an inner peace.
Although the best defence is to walk away from trouble, you may not always have the opportunity of avoiding physical attacks. If you cannot walk away or stare your opponent down, then you need the ability to face the attacker aggressively, neither leaving him time nor space to organize his attack. You need to be able to put the attacker on the defence.
WingTsun™-fighters use even the smallest weakness of an attack to gain control of the opponent by initiating multiple attacks on sensitive areas. The feeling for the right moment to act, to react, to move with the opponent’s greater force and also to attack determinedly are really the core of WingTsun™ Kung Fu training which leads to increased self-confidence.
All this and more is offered at WingTsun™ Toronto, a school that teaches an authentic martial art which has never lost sight of its original intention: realistic self-defence against a non-compliant opponent.