Sifu Austin Goh

Austin Goh grew up in Malaysia where he gained a strong foundation in the martial arts. He left his home town in Malaysia for England in the early seventies to continue his academic studies. It was there that he set up his first Wing-Chun school in London and has since expanded into Europe. He now has well over a thousand students in his schools.

Austin has also travelled extensively around the world giving demonstrations and lectures in Hawaii, Japan, Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore.

His success as a teacher in the martial arts is due to his friendly and open-minded teaching methods which have gained him the respect and loyalty of his students. He teaches that anyone who wants to succeed in any martial art must be prepared to work hard and be determined to achieve this goal, and he leads in this respect by his own example.

Austin was the first wing-chun teacher in Europe to teach not only Bil-Chee (wing-chun's third form) but also the pole form, wooden dummy form, and the 180 movements of the Butterfly Knives.

Many wing-chun teachers are not prepared to teach these things for fear that the secrets and techniques of all these forms be revealed and stolen.

Austin feels that there should be no secret formulas or techniques in any style of martial art. He believes that as times change, so must the arts - what worked 300 years ago might not be practical now, and so the training systems and principles must change to suit our modern life. For anything to survive, it should be taught openly and properly.

In 1983 Austin appeared on the British television programme "Just Amazing" where he gave a chi demonstration. In an awesome display of chi strength, he made a new world record by breaking fifteen four-inch concrete blocks on his chest with a sledge-hammer weilded by one of his students.

He also stunned the audience by breaking two concrete blocks against the side of his head with a sledge-hammer!

After this performance, the audience nicknamed him the "Iron Man of wing-chun".