Sihing Paul
Paul started his Wing Chun journey in 2008, he was 18 years old and had no previous martial arts experience. Paul achieved his black belt in 2010, he trained 7 days a week even though the club was only open 2 days a week at that time, he would meet up with his training partners outside and also did private classes with Sifu Alun.
In December 2013 he achieved his 1st Technician level
In 2009 Paul showed an interest in becoming an instructor so that he could share what he was learning with as many people as possible. The Instructors passion inspired him to make it happen, starting with helping the club grow by promoting the club in the city centre with Sifu Alex, meeting and greeting new students and assisting the team with the classes.
In 2014 Paul started teaching Wing Chun full-time, running the Coventry club, teaching in local schools and assisting Sifu Alun in training the new instructors. He has run clubs and self-defence sessions in secondary and primary schools to classes of 12-200.
In 2016 Paul reached out to Sifu Mauro To attend a Wing Chun seminar in Italy which was being taught by Sigung Sergio. Impressed by the Skill Level Paul and his students have joined the IWKA family. Paul is a member of the Certified Instructor Training course ran by the IWKA for senior students and Technicians in the UK.
Sihing Paul Tierney
I first started training Wing Chun in 2009 at the age of 21 having had no previous experience in martial arts whatsoever so I had no idea what to expect. I was hooked straight away with the easy to learn moves, the passion which the instructors taught with, the fantastic atmosphere of the club and the friendly attitude of the people I trained with. I was able to progress quickly through the grades and earned my Black Belt in 2011. Since then I have continued to progress through the system, eventually earning my 1st TG grade in 2013.
Training Wing Chun has given me the biggest boost in self-esteem, self-confidence and overall fitness levels that I could ever ask for and has transformed all areas of life for the better. These benefits made it possible for me to stand in front of the class and take everyone through the warm-up drills at the start of the class when an urgent matter delayed the instructor at the time, which served to kickstart my journey as an assistant instructor shortly before I earned my Black Belt. That first experience of teaching helped to fuel my interest in passing on the knowledge that I’d learnt so far to the students that came after me to help them along the way towards their own Black Belt in the same way that the students above me helped me in my own journey.
I was an assistant instructor from 2011 through to halfway through 2012 when I decided to take a break from instructorship in order to travel abroad to places I’d never been before like Malaysia and Nepal.
That first year and a half spent as an assistant instructor provided an invaluable experience to draw upon as an instructor because the variety of challenges I had to do helped me to build up my character and also gave me invaluable skills such as being able to speak to complete strangers, deal with issues between students with diplomacy and develop the will and perseverance to keep pushing forward no matter how hard the situation is and no matter how tempting it may be to quit.
I am back on board as an instructor as of January 2015 and am relearning the different aspects of being an instructor again in order to help push the organisation forward whilst making sure that every student who joins gets to enjoy their own journey through Wing Chun