Newsletter - Oct 2024

Welcome

Welcome to the new WCI Telford Newsletter.  I'm Sifu David Ridgway and I'll be producing these newsletters to bring you up to speed with news and events of the last month.  Of course, this this is not about me, this is about the amazing people who make our school the amazing place to learn and train that it is.

Student Gradings

Our grading system runs in 8 week cycles or rotations.  This means that over 4 weeks we build up the technical side of our wing chun system to bring your skill set up, we then pressure test it through training drills and free play to help you encode the skills to the nervous system, 'muscle memory' if you prefer.  Finally we condense it all over the course of a week to allow students to show what they can do with less input and see where they need corrections.
Without further ado...
Congratulations to the following students who achieved their next grade
Grade 2 - Jay Stokes
Grade 4 - Kev Flood
Grade 4 - Ethan Reece

Grade 6 - Rich Sankey
Grade 7 - Nicole Jefferies

Grade 10 - Matt Swan
Grade 10 - John Fraser
Grade 11 - Gina Ridgway

Seminar

September was also this year's final Wing Chun International super seminar, taught by our organisations founder Grandmaster Andrew Cameron.  The seminar was hosted by Sifu Andy Watts at WCI Northampton and was a fantastic opportunity for students of all grades from across our international stage to train together.  We had brand new students, Old students returning to training, Sifu's and everything in between in attendance.

As well as being able to experience Wing Chun at a high level, attendees also got to see how we structure training so that anybody can learn the skills from a basic exercise up to complex looping exercises.

As you'll see in the image below we had a great turnout, in fact we had 10 students representing WCI Telford at the event and putting on a fantastic show of their training ethos and skillset.

Technician Grading

Whilst attending the September seminar it was a great time to acknowledge and reward the development of students who have finished their 12 students grades and are honing their skills at the Master class level every month.  Technician degrees are in our system the equivalent of black belt grades.
It is my absolute honour to have taught some of my students since 2018.  Those who have been with me since I started teaching are really starting to come into their own and are well respected for their progress.

So I am overjoyed to congratulate the following students of WCI Telford for achieving their second Technician degree...

Mark Lloyd - Training with me since 2018, a skilled and knowledgeable practitioner, and a trusted part of my instructor team, training towards his Instructor qualifications and my Go to teach student's in my stead on the rare occasions I go on holiday.

Paul Garnier - Also training with me since 2018, a very analytic student with an eye for detail and a calm demeanour.  Don't be fooled, his energy and precision belie his amazing 72 years.  A trusted assistant in my instructor team. 

Kids Gradings

Our Kids classes have had a great start and have been running now for 12 months.  It's always great to be able to reward our youngest members for the efforts and energy they bring to the school and put into their training.

Congratulations...
Little Dragon Grade 3 - William Gough (5yo)

New Members

It's always a pleasure to meet new people and welcome those who find a mutual affinity with our school's atmosphere and training ethos.  I'm pleased to welcome the following new student's to our school as members of our Wing Chun Family...
Adrian D (adult)
Kairi L (Little Dragon)
George B (Junior Warrior)

Other news...

As a growing school, it's important to know that we don't just teach beginners, neither do we only teach students.  In fact WCI Telford is now considered an instructor school.  Not every student want to teach and we don't make students teach in order to progress through their grades as I have seen in some other systems.  It is very important for me to identify those students who are not only showing an interest in instructing but also have been identified by myself and my instructor team as being good candidates for instructing.  This selection process is a continuing process throughout every students career and at any time those prospective candidates can be identified and approached.
as well as having some candidates already in our instructor training programme as part of our instructor team I am happy to introduce a young student, still young in his career to become the first Young apprentice instructor.

Ethan R (12yo)

Ethan has shown dedication to his training, has promoted our school through referring friends and handing out flyers and trains with his friends from the school to help develop their skills by practising in their own time.  These are qualities expected of our instructors and as such Ethan has become our first Junior apprentice, helping to teach our Little Dragons and Junior warriors.  Though young he is in a great position to start training by shadowing myself and learning to teach by starting with the Smallest and youngest students, assisting with the Juniors before he steps up to the adult plate as he progresses.

Nicole J (13yo)

Nicole has been with WCI Telford for over a year now and has worked exceptionally hard to build up her own focus and concentration and has shown great progress.  It's not often that at seminars I hear so many unsolicited compliments about a student, let alone one so young.  As such Nicole has been personally invited at an early stage to attend Master Classes to help her to continue to develop and hone those skills and attitude towards training.

And Finally...

It's been a jam packed month for news and achievement.  Both our most senior and most junior students, by age and by grade have been showing how amazing they are and really putting our school in great light.

As we are coming to the start of October we are now going to start building up the pace to pressure test the skills we have learnt over the last 3 weeks.  So prepare to do some sweating in October.

Social Media has been a focus over the last few weeks, we've seen an increase in our natural exposure on social media which is great for promoting our school.  We aim to be a very personal school, with select students who are dedicated  rather than hundreds of students who last just a few weeks.  This means we aim to reach out for students to promote the school in a way that attracts the kind of people they would like to train with and share their training ethos and dedication.  We achieve this by being active on social media, handing out leaflets to people we know and referring likeminded people to the school.  Our referral rewards earn £10 for any student whose referrals join the school.  Keep up the great work everybody, We are the premier dedicated Wing Chun school in Telford and that is entirely thanks to the amazing students who make up the school.

I look forward to another great month of training.