Wing Chun Kung Fu & Kali Eskrima
In Reading (Berkshire), Wycombe (Buckinghamshire), and Dartford (Kent), UK.

In July 2002 I went on holiday in Athens, Greece - my native country.

During my holiday I noticed a lot of martial art activities going on, especially Wing Chun kung fu schools. I was pleased to see that after many years Wing Chun had finally reached Greece. From what I was seeing most of the Wing Chun schools claimed well known masters as their teachers.

I couldn't avoid the temptation as a Greek man and as a practitioner of Wing Chun to go and visit some of the schools. Why not play with them, share ideas and theories? So I went to a Wing Chun school near my hotel in Varkiza, Athens. I walked in to the school and what I saw was not Wing Chun...I was confused. I could see the teacher sitting on the chair under the picture of Yip Man, which means I was in a Wing Chun school but for sure what they where practising had nothing whatsoever in common with Wing Chun. As nobody approached me, I left the school with a very bad taste and very let down. I couldn't believe how people without any knowledge of Wing Chun could teach, while claiming names of respectable masters, misleading innocent people and giving Wing Chun a bad name. I was shocked and disappointed but I tried to find another Wing Chun school.

I found one teacher that had a couple of schools in Athens, a school abroad and claimed a very well known Wing Chun family. The teacher (sifu as he like to be called) was more polite and we spoke about Wing Chun.

I mentioned the other teacher and he admitted that the Wing Chun in Greece was very poor and delivered to a bad standard. He was curious about my Wing Chun, my background and lineage.

He asked me lots of questions about Wing Chun. In my opinion, the only way to understand and answer his questions was to play hands (Chi Sao). The conclusion for me was that he did not have enough knowledge to teach. It seemed that he had not finished the system and that his standard was poor. I told him so and he answered that he knew that he had more to learn but that he had stopped travelling abroad to his teacher.

My conclusion in the end was that Wing Chun had not reached Greece in correct manner and that the system had been diluted.

On my return to the UK I decided to attempt to show to Greek people what Wing Chun is, how to practise it without any mystical techniques and how to use the side effects of the system to help you reach your full potential.