Q: Where did Wing Chun come from?
A: Wing Chun became a recognizable school of self-defense in the town of Foshan, Guangdong Province of Southern China in the mid-nineteenth century. It was heavily influenced by the theories and skills developed in the middle Ching dynasty temples, including Shaolin, Wu Dang and Ermei, as well as by the military requirements of the era. However, it is clear that in Foshan, the focus was on personal defense.

Q: What is Wing Chun?
A: Wing Chun is a complete and comprehensive approach to learning self-defense. With the exception of ballistic weapons, Wing Chun covers the full range of defensive and offensive fighting skills for entering, kicking, boxing, grappling, throwing, blunt weapons and edged weapons.

Q: How does Wing Chun differ from other Martial Arts?
A: First, Wing Chun is a complete art, whereas many other martial arts tend to focus on just one aspect of fighting or self-defense. Second, many of the arts that mix elements of fighting tend to do so by taking aspects from different arts to cover all areas, whereas Wing Chun has a central, unified theory which allows you to flow seamlessly from one skill to another without having to change styles and mindsets. Third, Wing Chun uses relaxed, soft power, which allows smaller, weaker people to overcome larger and stronger attackers. Fourth, Wing Chun instruction is principle-based, rather than technique-based. The principle-based approach allows students to generate their own techniques. Finally, though it probably takes as long to Master Wing Chun as it does any other legitimate fighting method, the principled approach, along with the sticking hands training allows students to achieve a level of competent self-defense more quickly than is possible from most other methods.

Q: Why doesn’t Wing Chun compete?
A: Most martial arts started out as non-sport approaches to self-defense, but in the early twentieth century brought powerful pressures to convert these arts into competitive sports. Scoring points became a problem when so many different skills were involved, so the leaders of these movements began to split the skills into different arts and styles. This tendency, along with that of conforming to rules of safety, transformed the arts so that today they would be almost unrecognizable to those who conceived them. Thus far, the majority of Wing Chun practitioners worldwide have resisted these pressures to transform the art that it may remain an effective method of self-defense. On the other hand, Wing Chun training consists of several games in which a spirit of cooperative competition is encouraged.

Q: What are the qualifications to enter classes?
A: Eligible students must be at least 14 years old, of good character and able to pay the tuition. There is no long-term contract, but participants must sign a waiver and an agreement for the length of the course. No course lasts longer than one year. Total time required for training is approximately 4 1/2 years.

Q: Why don’t you teach children?
A: It has been our experience, backed up by International Olympic Committee research, that children lack the physical and cognitive skills required to grasp and perform the mandatory skills in Wing Chun. We feel that any effort on our part to teach these lethal skills to children would either be an injustice to the art or disingenuous to children and their parents.

Q: How much does training cost?
A: At Wing Chun Hall, tuition is charged by course so that students can get a realistic idea of the total cost of training. A list of tuition fees follows:
Tuition can be broken down into monthly payments. For complete information on tution for each course, go to "Courses at the Hall."

Payment is expected before training commences.

Q: Can students skip right to Advanced or Weapons courses?
A: Each Wing Chun course builds on previous courses, so advanced courses assume knowledge and skills introduced in beginning courses. In other words, unless you've had previous Wing Chun training, skipping courses is unwise.

Q: Do you offer private instruction?
A: Private classes can be scheduled with Sifu Nielson or an assistant instructor for an additional fee.

Q: Besides tuition, what do I need to buy?
A: Nothing is required. However, there are some optional items, such as clothing and equipment. For instance, you might want your own sets of focus mitts and bag gloves, your own wall bag, heavy bag, and eventually your own dummy, pole and swords. None of these items is sold at Wing Chun Hall.

Q: Do you teach a traditional art?
A: The quick answer is, “Yes.” But the more complete answer is that there are several traditions, and some of them are opposed to the philosophy and practice of Wing Chun. Wing Chun has always been a practical, modern and adaptive martial art, not tied to any particular philosophy or social group. In that sense, its lack of attachment to any preconceived social structure, along with its focus on practical self-defense is traditional.

Q: What is the difference between Wing Chun, Ving Tsun, Wing Tsun, etc.?
A: Any professor with a deep understanding of his or her subject will have a personal approach to the presentation of that subject. Other than that, the only difference is the particular organization’s preference for spelling a Chinese word in English. At Wing Chun Hall, we feel that the “W” and “Ch” spelling will result in a typical English speaker’s more closely approximating the Chinese sounds than would any other available spelling.

Q: When does the next class start?
A: For a schedule of new introductory classes go to the top of the home page.