Wingtsun Kungfu – Leeds

I am looking to start a new Martial Art.
I have been practicing martial arts for 27yrs but still class myself as a student.
I hold black belts in 4 separate martial art disciplines and I have always fancied learning Kungfu.
I searched online and decided I would give Wingtsun Kungfu school a try.
I filled in the online contact form. I also included that I was an instructor in other martial arts. As some schools don’t like instructors from other school training there. As some think you are out to poach their students. Or try and show them up in front of their students.
A couple of days after filling in the online form I received a phone call from one of the instructors inviting me to a free introductory lesson.
During the phone call I again mentioned that I wasn’t a martial arts novice and I had no hidden agenda. I just wanted to learn.
The instructor thanked me for my honesty and said that the free lesson would be beneficial because they could use it to gauge my level of competence. Then put me in a class with students of the same ability.
It all sounded good so I booked my free lesson.
Being an ex delivery driver I knew where Roseville Road was and got there in plenty of time. It was a good idea because I walked straight past the building as the dojo is actually in an office complex.
I was welcomed by a young man who said he would be showing me the ropes.
The training centre looked very barren but clean and functional.
It looked like the sort of place where you changed into your training gear before you arrived as the changing rooms looked small. But that wasn’t a problem because they trained in track suit bottoms and a T-​shirt.
The actual training room was very clean and the mats were the expensive jigsaw type mats. That totally covered the floor. Which was a plus.
Everyone who trains at the centre has a place on a grading board. Which I think is a very good idea because everyone can clearly see how far they have progressed and what their next grading is.
So then down to the nitty gritty!
The young gentleman who put me through my passes was very competent indeed.
I found the way he taught very informative and he was also patient when I bombarded him with questions and asked him about variations on techniques.
It was obvious he was adapting his teaching methods to me. This is a big thing to look out for when you are thinking of taking any form of martial art or self defense. No 2 people are the same and should therefor be taught as individuals.
I really enjoyed my free lesson and even worked up a bit of a sweat.
Now then, this is where the bubble burst.
I was then shown to the chief instructor who asked me what I thought.
I told him I had really enjoyed myself. He was pleased that I had
He told me that in order to train you progressed at 3 grades at a time. So within each stage of training you paid to be taught for your next 3 belts
This sounded a bit confusing so I asked him to clarify.
You start as a beginner and you pay one payment which covers your training until you have graded 3 times.
So that would cover me from level 1 through to 3.
I said ok and asked him to carry on. He then went on to explain that if I didn’t want to pay the lump sum, they would arrange the finance and I would pay by direct debit.
At this point I stopped him and said that he had stated over the phone that my previous martial arts experience would be taken into consideration. After all, his instructor had to move onto advance techniques as I had previous experience of Kungfu, just not on a formal level. (I have trained in a few Kungfu instructors’ backyards/​garages etc).
He said everyone had to pay the same amount to train through the first 3 levels.
I stopped him at this point and said that, that was not what he had told me over the phone. I also said that I didn’t think it right that some one should commit to spending many hundreds of pounds training in a martial art that they didn’t know if they would take to!
What if they didn’t like it after a month? In effect they had taken out a loan to cover the cost of 8 months of lessons.
And what about the other extreme? Some people pick things up really quickly to begin with. They may progress quickly through the early grading levels until things become more technical!
Are they purposefully held back? Or do they have to pay more sooner in order to progress further?
He just said he had over 200 students and he wasn’t going to chase them for their monthly membership fees.
At this point I had seen enough to make my mind up and decide it wasn’t the school for me.
So to sum up. Good school, very good teaching methods, but I just couldn’t get my head around why they wanted such a big financial commitment up front when a new student might not like this style after a few lessons.
I went home very disappointed.