Sifu Ed Pettitt
UK Head Instructor
I began my martial arts training at a young age with Judo at the age of seven, but it was not until my teenage years that a real interest in the arts emerged. At the age of 15, I began training in Shotokan Karate in my home town. Karate was a great introduction to the traditional side of martial arts where discipline and respect are high on the agenda and I enjoyed the training. However, I felt I wanted something a little more immediate and with more emphasis on partner exercises, so a friend and I attended a demonstration of Wing Chun. The system immediately appealed to me as it was practical, fast and straight to the point. I was 16 or 17 at the time and I haven’t looked back!
I began teaching Wing Chun in 1999 and in May 2003 I began teaching as a full-time profession. In March 2006 my friend and training partner Tony Hollander and I set up our own organisation teaching Wing Tchun. We decided on the spelling we would use (Wing Tchun) simply to form our own identity, but we have since become students of Grandmaster Klaus Brand, and it is his amazing WingChun system that we now teach to our students (see Note below). On 21st August 2006, Sifu Klaus Brand formally invited us to represent The International Academy of WingChun (IAW) in the UK, and we proudly accepted.
In June 2008, Tony Hollander and I were honoured to be awarded the title of Sifu by Grandmaster Klaus Brand.
Specific dates
| 1980 | A childhood introduction to the martial arts with Judo |
| 1989 | Introduced to Shotokan Karate |
| 1990 | Discovered Wing Chun |
| 1999 | Started teaching |
| 2000 | First Technician Level |
| 2002 | Second Technician Level |
| 2003 | Began teaching full-time |
| 2005 | Third Technician Level |
| 2006 | Tony and I became IAW-UK instructors |
| 2008 | Awarded Sifu title |
On WingChun
WingChun is a fascinating and rewarding martial art which can be enjoyed by men and women of all ages and fitness levels. I teach a wide variety of people from different backgrounds and this makes my job all the more fulfilling. I truly believe that there are lifelong benefits to be had from martial arts training and would encourage those who have often thought of starting, but never taken the plunge to try WingChun with us. It could give you much more than you can currently imagine.
Note: WingChun has many spellings (Wing Chun, Ving Tsun, Wing Tchun etc.) and this is originally due to the fact that spelling Chinese sounds using our alphabet is simply a matter of getting the closest we can phonetically. However, the different spellings are now commonly used to denote different styles or systems of the art. WingChun (one word!) is a highly developed and modern style which, although it came from the same roots, is in many ways fundamentally different from other styles of the art.
