The other day I got asked a question “who is your best student and instructor?”
I sat there and thought about it for a while, and replied with “best at what?”
Puzzled, my friend looked at me and said “you know, Wing Chun!” to which I replied “how can you be the best at Wing Chun?”
At this point my friend realised he wasn’t getting a straight answer from me and went back to looking at his iPhone.
However, it was an interesting question but one I didn’t really want to answer at the time.
I’ve taught a lot of people over the years, some I’ve shared the whole system with. Does this make them the best? Not really… I have a student who is a good fighter, so is he the best? Nope… Is the student who understands the system better then anyone else the best? No.
Let me explain…
IMHO the worst thing you can do as an instructor is to create clones of your own Wing Chun, all moving the same as you, understanding the system the same way, teaching and explaining it the same way as you, problem with this is they will never be as good as you… because they aren’t, you.
So to answer the question, all my students and instructors are the best, at their own Wing Chun.
Each student, and instructor develops his or her own understand and movement suited to their own body type, mind set and so forth. I’ve always felt the mark of a good teacher, someone who can share his or her own knowledge and allow someone else to make it there own and grow with the right training and time.
Yes, this doesn’t happen over night, but if a student stays with you long enough this should always happen.
If you took a look at all the WCKUK classes run by our instructor team each one would be completely different even though I have taught them all the same material. However, this isn’t a bad thing! Trust me, you’ll be getting the very best they have to offer. 😉
Sifu