Authentic Chinese Martial Arts - London

Hi everyone,

I’m fairly new to martial arts - I recently finished a course I paid for online at great expense and I am not convinced it was the real deal. I am now looking for something new and would love some advice but I am of course very nervous to start paying for a new style.

Can someone recommend a good teacher in London? What should I be looking for? How can I spot a charlatan?

Nick

 

Avoid anyone who uses words like mystical or secret, look for someone who is open about what they teach, can apply the skills themselves, and is happy for you to do a trial of some sort.

What sort of martial art are you looking for? What do you want to gain from it?

 

Good to know. I wonder if I was training under a scame previously - hard to know. There was a lot of secret training that could only be unlocked with cash payments etc.

I'm looking for an ancient tradition and I would like to be able to defend myself ideally!

 

Ancient traditions are very often the opposite of what you need for self defence.

What was the name of your previous dojo/kwoon?

 

Self defence is a great big subject, and there are people much more qualified than me on here to help you with that. I know a good Shuai Jiao (a form of jacketed wrestling) instructor in the Islington area, but I'm not telling you that it's aimed at self defence. If you're interested I'll see if he has a business email?

 

For a blend of traditional and effective I'd recommend Sanshou. Self defence doesn't really have anything to do with martial arts though.

 

Thanks so much for your feedback. I will definitely look at Sanshou. I've actually seen the person I was training with is online on this forum - I don't want to say for sure it wasn't real but I was told the master lives in China and needed regular payments to honour him etc.

 

Sanshou/Sanda is good fun. It's a good workout, you'll get pressure tested, and with the correct instructor the wrestling component should be Shuai Jiao based. It could be a while before anywhere is doing face to face training, but good luck, and have fun!

Regular payments to 'honour' an instructor is suspect. The payment should be to allow them to keep providing a service.

 

If you want to end up competing (and it's a good way of testing what you've learnt in a higher adrenaline environment than sparring) your club will need to have a BCCMA licence, you can look for clubs in your area here Find a club | BCCMA

 

That's sounds very very likely to be fake.