*MEET SIFU MARTIN KHOO*

Sifu Martin Khoo has been training in Martial Arts for 27 years.
In 2005, he discovered Wing Chun. This began a rewarding journey into helping young people find confidence and strength through this beautiful form of Kung Fu.

Martin has been a Senior Instructor, Branch leader and taught Wing Chun voluntarily at Epping and Chatswood for the last 10 years.
In 2021, he decided to open his own school - Wing Chun 135 teaching Wing Chun and martial arts at Castle Hill.
It focuses on a family-style environment, teaching not only fighting skills but also helping those that are affected by bullying and anxiety problems. The aim is to develop competent fighters who can defend themselves and also become valued members of society.
As well as Wing Chun, Martin has also trained in:
Karate, Hapkido, and Choy Lee Fut Kung Fu
Martin is First Aid certified and has a Working with Children Clearance.

Martin’s Journey

I began my love of martial arts at the age of 6.

As a treat, my Dad used to take me to watch the old-style kung fu movies at the cinema. The ones where the bearded long-haired Kungfu masters used to fly and jump from rooftop to rooftop. I thought that was great and my love affair began. I subsequently fell in love with Jacky Chan a guy who could fight and be funny at the same time !

My parents enrolled me in a Karate School at the age of 8.

Every Saturday we trained in full ghi outdoors in the Malaysian sun (no such thing as being aware of skin cancer in those days, at least we had long sleeves and pants !).

At first, I was apprehensive but then I got into it as I thought it would help me against some of the kids that were bullying me at the time. The only problem was that one of the bullies was also doing Karate. What to do now?

Anyway, I persisted with it for 5 years and got to Brown Belt until I moved to Australia. That devasted me because I was just shy of Black Belt. When I got here, I could not find the same Karate style (Budokan), so I decided to try another martial art.

Once again, my journey began. I tried Choy Lee Fut and Hapkido and then took a break until my eldest son was about 9. He was getting bullied at school.

As Dad’s do, we researched all the different martial arts together and as he was slightly built, he gravitated to Wing Chun.

For the first month, I took him to lessons and sat on the sidelines as most parents do with young kids doing martial arts.

At some point after the first few months, I could see the benefits he was getting out of it I thought I would give it a go and learn something new. It was totally different to any of the other martial arts I had done. The emphasis was on physics and relaxed power and to be honest it blew my mind at the start as I was used to hard martial art styles.

Anyway, after training for about 18 months I thought I was pretty good, and I learned double Chi Sau for the first time. We had a visit from our Chief Instructor at the time and I had the opportunity to chi sau with him. Being brash and full of ego I thought, “I got this”.

I still had not quite got the idea of relaxed power and used a lot of brute force against him. It was a big mistake. I felt like I was in a washing machine. I literally got thrown around at will. The next day I remember getting up out of bed and being sore all over and he only touched my arms!

From that moment on I committed to the idea of relaxed power.

I trained at the International Wing Chun Academy for a total of 15 years, taught there for 10 years including 7 of them as Branch Instructor at Epping NSW until 2020.

In 2021, I decided to open my own school with a focus on teaching students to not only defend themselves but also assisting them to become better versions of themselves.