The Wutian Martial Art Institute offers specialised programmes for the LGBT community as well as other community projects. Founder and teacher Sifu Jai Chan explains how learning martial arts can help you gain confidence, lose weight and have fun.
The Wutian Martial Art Institute was founded in 2015. For many years I have been active in volunteering and charity work. The nature of the work involved helping people from all kinds of background: victims of domestic abuse, women’s group, Paralympics wheelchair racer, deaf children, refugee kids and the LGBT community.
I was fortunate enough to be able to introduce and teach martial arts to some of these groups of people. I found that my self defence classes had the effect of empowering my students in mind and body and helping them put their differences aside. The experience gave me a definite sense of purpose. Since then, it has fuelled my determination to set up a martial art institute.
This institute was founded on the love for martial arts and the idea of equality. Martial art should be accessible to everybody and my classes will reflect that. Wutian Martial Art Institute takes pride in providing a safe space for training. It also provides a platform for people to train around likeminded people.
A typical session comprises of a warm up, introducing students to the techniques of the day, practising, sparring and a warm down. The main bulk of the class will be focused on learning the techniques. We usually introduce the techniques to our student by a short demonstration. Students have plenty of time to practice in pairs or in groups. The instructor will come by to oversee, correct and perfect each student individually. We encourage our students to ask questions during training as it is an important part of learning.
We get a lot of students who have no previous experience in martial arts. Students will be eased into the class in the first couple of sessions. They will be exposed to a variety of self defence techniques such as locks, throws, punching, kicking and fighting on the floor. We aim to train our students to be well rounded individuals and encourage them to develop their own fighting style on the outset. All you need is comfortable sportswear, a bottle of water and a ‘can-do’ attitude!
Learning self-defence not only serves as fun, recreational activity but it is a highly desired skill with many longterm benefits, including: improved body coordination and fitness levels, greater self-confidence and the ability to stay calm under pressure situations.
Body contact sparring is an important element in our class. We equip our students with realistic street defence training exercise to help them react quickly from any situation. Sparring exercise can help students to practise distance and to get used to the feeling of being under pressure in a fight. Students can book a free trial class by visiting wutianmartialart.com or by emailing [email protected].
The Wutian Martial Art Institute offers LGBT classes every Saturday from 11.15am until 1pm at Jubilee Hall Gym, 30 The Piazza, Covent Garden, London, WC2E 8BE.
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