User:Mannsifu
===== 8 years old I started training with my dad. =====
My Father was a complicated man, he was in the army for 28 years during which time he was involved in many conflicts ranging from Ireland to the gulf. Starting as a rifle man in 3 RGJ Royal Green Jackets, he joined at 15 years old by lieing to the recruitment office and geting away with it. He quickly moved through the ranks and became an SAS soldier, British Army boxing champion and left the army as a captain and intelligence officer.
My Father also helped train Andy McNab who later became famous for an SAS operation called Bravo Two Zero where he was captured behind enemy lines.
The chief of general staff (CGS) and commander of the British Army's land forces Sir Richard Dannatt attended my Fathers funeral and he was cremated with full military honours and regiment bugalair, I was very proud as you can imagine.
My dad, having an interest in boxing was also attracted to all types of martial arts. At the beginning of some time in Borneo he told me he met someone after seeing them training Chi Gong just outside a town on the edge of the jungle. I don't know much about this other than what I remember but I know the person he trained with was old and very powerful but I don't know what his lineage was. After training Iron Shirt Chi Gong during his time in Borneo it had an impact on his life that changed him forever and his outlook on Kung Fu and Qigong.
By the time I started training with my dad he held instructor qualifications in karate, boxing, judo and western sword fighting (fencing) but also was training in tai chi and qigong because of his influence in Borneo.
At this time he was also a coach for the British Bobsledge Team. Under his guidance they won bronze in the 1998 winter olympics. Despite all of this and many other opportunities to become well known due to his past he kept himself to himself. He was actually a very thoughtful and quiet man who generally liked his own company and to be by himself if not with family.
Until I left school I would train with him most mornings. Sometimes boxing, sometimes karata and 18 chi gong excercises and sometimes just talking stratergy or just about life in general. At the time I took this for granted and wasn't interested in chi gong at all for example just boxing although he used to tell me it was the most important thing along side training a martial skill.
He used to always say to me that I was a second generation of our family to study martial arts and this was very important to him. He would say, like him, I must keep up training and studying my whole life so these skills can be passed down my family and every generation would get better and acheive more. This is one of the reasons I' ve worked towards acheiving this, besides my love for this art form.
When i left school i became a out door instructor and fencing sword instructor, i moved to the island of white to teach full time, it wasnt till i came home before also joining the army i came across wing chun.
===== My Wing Chun Journey Begins. =====
Like most people I had seen the Bruce Lee films and heard of wing chun so found the most local school I could to start training. At the time I didn't know that there were different interpretations of wing chun, and some skills were closer to the source than others, so was happy training. Not long after, I decided to join the army.
Because of my infantry roll I got to learn close quarter combat skills with and without weapons and although it's very effective for that situation and a good experiance it is not ideal really for street application.
After coming out of the forces I was keen to get back in to wing chun and after a few years was teaching at a school under a different lineage of wing chun and thought I was doing ok, it wasn't until I started at the Tse Qigong Centre that I realised what I was training wasn't correct. It was good but not like the skill of the centre at all.
I was not expecting my sifu's skill and the skill of his students to be so good and he explained to me he had been through and seen experiances like this before and what I should do is start again and gain the correct skill from the Tse Qigong Centre. This was similar to what my Father had said to me before he passed and the reason I was there in the first place.
However this was hard for me to except at first and felt after so much time how could I not be training correctly although it was obvious that what I had learnt wasn't right when compared with Centre Wing Chun skill.
I went away for one month to think and then started at Sifu's class with the outlook of starting over and have never looked back.
===== Fathers Advice. =====
My Farher had an idea of starting a family style school origanally and I liked this idea and wanted to be part of it.
Unfortunatly my Father became ill with cancer as so many people do nowadays so this was never realised with him. When my Farher died it hurt me deeply and has taken me a long time to truly get over this as I was so close to him. The reason I ended up at the Tse Qigong Centre instead of somewhere else though is actually down to him and something he said to me.
Four days before my Father passed away he said to me "Sean if you really want to teach Chinese martial arts there are a few things you need to do. Find Michael Tse and go to the origin of the art you love so you can better understand the reason you like to train in the first place"
Actually he had said this to me many times but was only now I listened.
My dad never told me that the man who is now my sigong did wing chun only qigong. As a young man I didn't understand this was actually very important and used to say to him it was not what I was after and he didn't understand. He just smiled at me and said "Ok" and only ever said that I needed to find Michael Tse. It took my Farther to die for me to listen and learn what would be for me his final lesson.
After finding the Tse Qigong Centre on the web I decided to email to ask advice on what I should do as I felt pretty lost and wasn't sure what direction my live was heading in. It was only then I found out that the centre was very close to the origin of Wing Chun through sigong's relationship with Ip Tai Sigong Grand master Ip Chun. It made me smile as it was typical of my Father to encourage me to learn my own lessons in life as nothing is handed on a plate and often he would say nothing worth having was ever easy.
As a result of joining the centre I not only become part of an amazing family but I also got the opportunity to go to China and train at Ip Sigong class and attend a seminar with him as well as train in Foshan and be apart of the Ip man musem opening ceramony. It was a great honour but in all honesty most of the courses I've attended at the Tse Qigong Centre in China or the UK have all been pretty special for one reason or another, since then we have been back to China to train again and i look forward to future trips with my students as well.
My passion to succeed can sometimes get me in to trouble but my heart is in the right place and Wing Chun is helping me to develop as a person all of the time.
Originally I thought my Father must of trained with Sigong Michael Tse but now after geting to know sifu and speaking with him about it I think he just knew it was the right place for me to be considering what I wanted.
I have a big family indeed within the Tse Qigong Centre and feel lucky and very privileged to be a part of that family.
I think there is a lot to learn from Chinese culture and anyone who is studying wing chun would benefit from being part of the Tse Qigong Centre to learn this very special art form. I will never forget what the centre has and is doing for me all the time and hope that my small part in this family has a big impact on preserving the correct skill well in to the future.
I hope to soon be able to add Centre Qigong to the skills you can learn here to.
Sifu Sean Mann