Why Are You Here?

Why are you learning martial arts? Why wing chun, karate, kung fu? How come you've chosen your art, considering the plethora of arts that are in your area. Well, at least in the Vancouver lower mainland, there are numerous karate, taekwondo schools, many kung fu schools, some capoeira and the list goes on and on.

For myself, 2 things that I was looking for:

1) Practical street self-defense. At the time, it was pretty much limited to Wolfe's Hapkido (also known as Defendo now), and wing chun. Everything else: karate, tkd, kick boxing, tai chi, etc "says" they could be applied for self-defense, but none was actually teaching it that way. MMA was still relatively young, but it was gaining momentum very fast.

2) Whatever system I chose, I felt that there's something inherently important in knowing that whatever you happened to learn in class that it was 100% applicable in application. For example, in kung fu ,you would learn tiger claw, but when it came to sparring/fighting, the tiger claw never made its debut, rather it was the jab, right cross, etc.

3) Curriculum and structure - this probably came from my karate days. I liked the idea of structure and a set curriculum. I personally found it hard to adjust to the more lax teaching style of some of the wushu instructors I've met.

4) It's gotta work! Can the instructor consistently apply his methods? or is he just getting lucky because he's faster than me or stronger than me?

5) Costs. There's gotta be a balance between what you pay for, what you get, and what you can afford. Interestingly, what you pay is not always reflective to what you get. A lot of the other wing chun schools here charge WAY too much considering the lack of skill the school is producing.

So what are your reasons? We will touch on why people leave a particular school next time.

Until then.