Living the Kung Fu Life, with Meng’s Martial Arts

Q&A with Sifu Jeremy

I’ve seen posters for your school saying that enrolling children in your school is the best thing for them guaranteed. Why is that?
We touch on all aspects of life for our youth students: not only self-defense but also developing a positive attitude, improving grades, developing strong personal motivation, working to find solutions instead of complaining about situations, developing and showing respect, and a host of other topics. When I started my training with Master Meng, I was 20 and had a very negative attitude towards myself and life. Within a very short time, my attitude completely turned around. I know what we can do for the more challenging children and teens because I was there once upon a time. We can help those with negative attitudes turn it around, and give those with positive attitudes the armor they need to stay positive as they go through life. We break our teaching down into several areas: Self-Defense & Safety Skills, Character Skills, Life Skills, Mental Skills, and Physical Skills. Our students are generally top performers academically and we help them to develop a strong foundation for any sport, solo or team based.

What do you feel is the prime motivators for most students you have taking martial arts?
With our youth students, it’s primarily about having fun, learning something new, and being active plus some self-defense and self-improvement. With their parents it’s about their children learning to be assertive without being aggressive, developing self-defense skills and how to handle bullies, developing a good attitude towards life, and having fun. With our adult students, it’s initially a mix of learning self-defense, getting a good workout, and having fun. As our adult students develop, they also appreciate the philosophy, the mental skills, and the improving attitude. Overall, we’re here to help people improve fitness, develop the tools t survive a confrontation – be it verbal or physical, and get more of what life has to offer. And a lot of that falls to the attitudes we carry, most often without knowing it.

What age range do you have for current students and what is the ratio of men to women?
We have a very good mix of youth/family and adult students. At the moment there are more men than women in the adult program – which is great for the ladies because they have so many excellent partners. It’s about even in the youth/family program. We aim for a good mix of size, strength, gender, and experience in all our classes because it’s important for students to train and gain experience with all sorts of sizes, shapes, and attitudes.