Bill Stewart

Sifu Bill Stewart - Instructor Profile Sifu Stewart is the head instructor of Dynamic Defense Wing Chun Academy in Victoria BC, an accredited instructor with the Canadian Wing Chun Kung Fu Association. With 26 years of martial arts experience including 19 years with Wing Chun, he has comprehensive knowledge to help students progress. He teaches and practices Wing Chun every day, combining life-affirming elements of martial arts, self defense, fitness and stretching. While he is a master instructor and practitioner at real world combat, confidence, inner balance and fun are the cornerstones of his instruction. Previous to Wing Chun, he trained in karate, jujitsu and various kung fu styles but only became serious about training when he discovered Wing Chun, learning under Grandmaster Sifu Lewadny and serving as an apprentice instructor before coming to Victoria. How I Came to Wing Chun I've had a lifelong relationship with martial arts. As a young child, I was not a high performer, a bit of a failure in school and athletics. I was also regularly bullied and beaten by attackers more than twice as old and twice as large as me. With nobody to help, I had to figure it out on my own. Over the space of years, I gradually figured out how to escape and turn the tables on my attackers. When I decisively beat one of my huge attackers at age 8, my world changed. Not only was I never bullied again, but I gained such a strong belief in myself that I became the top student and athlete in my whole school district the following year. This confidence inspired fearlessness in challenges ever since. If you are afraid to fail, you are afraid to succeed. I have made more mistakes than anyone I know, but confidence has allowed me to move past every mistake to outstanding success in several fields including athletics, teaching, designing and being a world renown inventor. My experiences as a child made me compassionate to others and acutely sympathetic to anyone pushed around by larger attackers. Belief in myself discouraged others from starting fights with me, but I also knew that belief isn't enough, you need skills, too. This lead to intrigue with martial arts, particularly kung fu because practitioners always seemed so gracefully athletic, totally in control of themselves and peaceful in the face of adversity. As a young man, I had moments of anxiety, thinking "What if someone attacked me, my girlfriend, my kids? Would I know what to do?", Learning something that really worked was important. I had the idea for a long time before actually committing myself to getting off the couch and doing it. I trained in Karate, Jiu Jitsu and other martial arts but was not satisfied until discovering Wing Chun Kung Fu 18 years ago when my first daughter was born. Learning Wing Chun Unlike other martial arts I had learned, Wing Chun wasn't just learning to aggressively hurt other people, it taught me a method to control myself and handle any situation, in life or in combat. My fighting experience had shown me that when people start fights, they always choose a target who should be easy to beat. While other martial arts attempt to train students to be tougher, faster, more aggressive and violent than the opponent, Wing Chun started from the assumption that the attacker is usually bigger, tougher and better trained and that we want to dissolve the problem and get on with our lives. This makes sense of course. Why would someone attack you if they weren't bigger and tougher, in short, if they didn't think they would beat you easily? Wing Chun defenses not only work perfectly in such conditions, it is often easier to defend against bigger and more violent attackers. I was amazed. It was also a holistic learning experience including breathing, stretching, conditioning and realistic defenses against any sort of attack. The training raised my energy level and I appreciated the logic and science behind Wing Chun. As I progressed to higher levels, I was also impressed that such an easy to learn system was also so complete, handling close contact, multiple attackers, ground fighting and weapon attacks such as knife, stick, staff and swords. Coming Full Circle - Teaching Wing Chun When I became an instructor in Wing Chun 16 years ago, teaching was as important to me as being a master practitioner. While it is empowering for me to be a master able to maintain control while handling multiple larger, violent attackers with any type of weapon or open handed attack, it is even more important for me to help others to achieve mastery for themselves. I teach students not to emulate me or Sifu Lewadny or Sifu Ip Man, but to internalize what is being taught so it becomes their own. True confidence flows from this sense of ownership over skills taught to you. I enjoy sharing this powerfully effective martial art and positive experience with others. After many years with the Grand Master, I came to Victoria and opened the Dynamic Defense Wing Chun Academy. I particularly enjoy the moment when a student suddenly realizes that they aren't emulating me or trying to do set moves, them are starting to embody the techniques, own them and expressing them gives them the power to handle themselves. When students truly understand that their expression of Wing Chun defense is easier than any attack we face, their skill and enjoyment in the art leap forward. The memory of spending years as a child fumbling around developing a way to overcome larger attackers makes me eager to be the finest instructor possible, helping men, women and teens gain true confidence and power over their own lives. Teaching my wife and 4 kids has also motivated me to constantly improve my teaching methods over the last two decades.

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