What Does Shutting the Door Really Do?
Every so often, someone in the martial arts world declares that online learning has no place in Wing Chun. Sifu Kendra Mahon, founder of Kung Fu Kendra and the Global Kung Fu Alliance, answers with a question of her own: what does that actually accomplish?
“It doesn’t make anyone’s Wing Chun better,” she says. “It doesn’t protect the art. It simply tells thousands of people, the ones who live too far away, work the wrong hours, or can’t afford to move closer to a school, that Wing Chun isn’t for them.”
The People Outside
Mahon hears from them every week: shift workers, parents, students hours from the nearest training hall. Serious people, she says, whose only obstacle is distance. Her Wing Chun Online Certification Course was built for them, and it has now been taken by more than 1,000 students around the world.
A Standard, Not a Building
Mahon’s argument is that bad Wing Chun comes from a lack of structure, testing and correction, and that can happen in any school. What protects the art, in her view, is the standard a student has to meet. In her course that means a published syllabus across 10 levels, a written exam and a video exam at the end of every level that she grades personally, written feedback on every requirement, pressure testing with a partner, and a Level 10 instructor exam of five written theses and a full practical. Certificates are issued by the Global Kung Fu Alliance.
Open Door, High Standard
“In the end, shutting down online learning doesn’t stop bad Wing Chun,” Mahon says. “It stops people from learning Wing Chun at all. I’d rather hold the door open, and hold my students to a high standard once they walk through it.”
Read Sifu Kendra’s piece in full: What Does Shutting the Door Really Do?, or see the Wing Chun Online Certification Course.
About Sifu Kendra Mahon
Sifu Kendra Mahon, known as Kung Fu Kendra, is a 3rd Generation Ip Man Lineage Master who has trained since 2005 and holds Master level (purple sash). She teaches Traditional Wing Chun as it was passed down to her by Master Brian Lewadny, who learned it from Grandmaster William Cheung. She founded Kung Fu Kendra and the Global Kung Fu Alliance in 2012 in Calgary, Canada, and is the author of 15 books and counting.
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Hear Sifu Kendra Mahon (Kung Fu Kendra) talk about Wing Chun, her books and her students.
Editor’s note: Wing Chun Magazine is published by Sifu Kendra Mahon.