Part 1 - The Six Skills Every Wing Tsun Teacher Must Master
A Martial Artist’s Path from Instructor to Master
One of the most extraordinary aspects of Wing Tsun is its dual nature—profoundly deep and immediately practical. It is both a physical art and a way of understanding life. And nowhere is this clearer than in the six core skills every Wing Tsun master needs to have to facilitate this wisdom.
These skills are not modern inventions. They are ancient in nature, though rarely articulated in this format. I am now the only one teaching them this way—but they are born from a lifetime of application: from training students who have gone on to set world records and defend themselves in life-threatening situations, to guiding individuals through family crises, professional transitions, and the search for life purpose.
So what follows here is a distillation of experience and living principles, drawn from real human transformation. And whilst they overlap, together they form the six defining capabilities of a Wing Tsun master and are part of the journey from technique to transformation.
Overview: The Six Skills of a Wing Tsun Master
Instruction – Clear, confident direction
Training – Turning knowledge into physical embodiment
Coaching – Unlocking inner intelligence
Teaching – Imparting new understanding
Mentoring – Guiding through shared experience
Advising – Offering wise counsel to overcome challenges and guide growth
Each has its place and deepens your capacity as a martial artist and as a leader. Generally, you find as you start your career in martial arts you spend most of your time focusing on the first two aspects – and as you stand to experience more you go deeper into the following four. In this part, we explore the first three: Instruction, Training, and Coaching.
1. Instruction: The Art of Clear Command
The first skill is instruction, and though it may sound obvious, it is often done poorly. Instruction is the ability to give clear, concise, and compelling commands. It’s particularly important in the early stages of a student’s journey—when they need structure, certainty, and precise direction.
This is where you establish their foundations such as how to stand, how to step, how to punch and how to train. In Wing Tsun, clarity is not just an act of kindness, but it saves years of wasted time and energy from all involved. The reflects the Wing Tsun principle of Dim Dim Ching – every point clear.
This principle is not unique to martial arts. I saw it time and again during my time at LEON and in the hospitality industry at large. In high-turnover, high-pressure environments—where people come from different cultures, languages, and learning styles—the ability to issue commands cleanly and without ambiguity was vital. Wing Tsun is no different. A good instructor lays the path; a great one helps the student walk it confidently from day one.
2. Training: Embodying the Art
Once a student knows what to do, they must train it until it becomes part of them. This is the second skill: turning intellectual and observational knowledge into embodied skill.
This is where reflexes are highly tuned. The nervous system learns and enhances it’s responses and movement becomes instinctive.
Training requires patience, pressure, and repetition. You no longer just tell someone what to do—you help them become it. You push, adjust and refine – often whilst leading by example so that the student can see what they are aspiring to do whilst they are doing it. It’s perhaps not glamorous—but it’s an almost sacred part which has the possibility to transform many aspects of your life. For instance, one student I trained came to me with very little physical confidence, and went on to break a Guinness World Record. That didn’t just happen through ideas. It happened through skilled training. This echoes the principle. ‘Your do don’t Wing Tsun, you are Wing Tsun.’
3. Coaching: Drawing Out Inner Wisdom
Coaching is the art of helping the student realise what they already know. Unlike instruction, coaching is less about speaking and more about listening, asking, and revealing. It’s about the moment you say less—but unlock more.
The coaching aspect ss also one of the hardest skills to have as a Wing Tsun master – you are so used to imparting knowledge and giving directions – that it’s really easy to ‘over-teach’ and neglect this aspect. Indeed, in my experience (which took me many years to see!) I have often found the less that I correct and the more that I create the space for the student to do so themselves, the quicker and deeper they learn. It’s the embodiment of the Wing Tsun teaching ‘less is more’.
Coaching requires deep presence. You see the gaps in logic, the patterns, the emotional blocks—and help guide the student to connect those dots themselves. This is where empowerment begins. It’s where you start to own your learning and Wing Tsun becomes personal to you. One senior student recently said to me, “It wasn’t what you told me— you didn’t have to say anything, it was what you made me realise.”
These three skills form the outer ring of mastery as a teacher—direction, embodiment, and awareness. But they are only half the journey. In Part 2, we move deeper—into Teaching, Mentoring, and Advising. This is where the master begins to shape not only students, but the legacy of the art.
Sifu