Kwoklyn Wan grew up in Leicester in a family steeped in Martial Arts tradition. He was inspired by the films of Bruce Lee, like many youngsters from the 1970’s. Kwoklyn started his martial arts journey at the age of 4 in 1977 studying Shotokan Karate and then went on to study Wing Chun and Chinese Boxing with his uncles in the early 80’s.
During the late 80’s and early 90’s Kwoklyn tried many other martial arts and it wasn’t until he discovered Jeet Kune Do in 1998 that he began to focus on becoming an Instructor in the martial arts.
Kwoklyn subsequently became the European representative and Vice Chairman of the famous JKD Wednesday Night Group headed by Tim Tackett, which has the aim of preserving and promoting Bruce Lee’s original form of the Martial Arts.
He opened his own Martial Arts Academy ‘URBAN MARTIAL ARTS’ in 2004. Starting with just a handful of students Urban Martial Arts has grown, and now teaches martial arts to over 1200 students.
Kwoklyn also works alongside his brother Gok, the famous TV fashion presenter, to promote Kidscape, the UK’s first anti-bullying charity.
About Urban Martial Arts
Based on St. Johns Street in Leicester, the academy is a stone’s throw away from the Karate club where Kwoklyn began his own Martial Arts journey in 1977.
Urban Martial Arts is very much Kwoklyn’s boyhood dream realised. He wanted somewhere people could go without a hierarchy, a place where people could come down, meet up with friends and train on a very informal basis.
Kwoklyn remains keen to nurture talent and promote the enjoyment of Martial Arts in an unceremonious, relaxed environment, offering students another way to exercise whether their motivation is to lose weight, get fit or increase confidence.
Jeet Kune Do is a comparatively modern Martial Art (founded in the US as recently as the mid-1960’s) and Kwoklyn and his team are modern in their approach to teaching it.
Despite its American roots, Kwoklyn wants to promote what the UK has to offer across the growing Martial Arts arena and this desire led to him launching ‘The Martial Arts Festival UK (MAF-UK)’, in 2009.
The Martial Arts Festival & The Martial Arts Show
April 2009 saw the launch of The Martial Arts Festival UK (MAF-UK) in Leicester. From an idea he had in 2007, Kwoklyn was determined to create a martial arts event where like minded individuals could meet, train and experience all styles of the arts without politics and prejudice.
He originally thought of the idea about 4 years ago whilst I at a boating festival where he saw a friend perform a Capoeira demonstration. This gave him the idea to have a festival incorporating all martial arts but having them demonstrating outside as well as in. He had a vision of people walking around in the open air with the green grass and the trees, watching martial art demonstrations and trying different styles.
Kwoklyn’s gym in Leicester city centre is only a few minutes away from one of the big city parks and sometimes they train there if the weather is nice and they experience a totally different feeling – one he wanted to encourage with the festival.
MAF-UK attracted 10,000 people over the course of the weekend and was given a huge ‘thumbs up’ from all who attended.
In May 2010 Kwoklyn staged his second show The Martial Arts Show at the NEC in Birmingham, on a much larger scale, but still with his initial vision of creating a martial arts event for ALL styles at the forefront of his mind.
Now in it’s second year, The Martial Arts Show LIVE is set to be the largest UK industry show for martial arts in 2011 and takes place at the NEC Birmingham over the weekend of the 7th & 8th May.
Why NEST?
In 2003 I started my first club “Urban Martial Arts’. My Instructor at the time was already using NEST and I had seen the support that they offered to small clubs and the industry. So after a year of running my club like an amateur I decided that the club needed a push. This is when I first met Gerard, who took the time to come to Leicester and see what we were doing. Gerard talked about the industry in such depth (trends, marketing, retentions, atrophy, billing, designs) that I knew NEST was exactly what my business needed.
NEST has offered me the confidence to run my club and concentrate on the delivery of classes, marketing etc whilst they maintain the business element. I never have to worry if students have paid for a session or if their licence or insurance has expired. NEST provides you with a complete system of support so you can analyze trends such as which are your busiest classes, who’s training regularly etc…and all this info is available at the click of a button.
In 2009 we started to get some students up to an Instructor level, all of whom wanted to potentially turn their hobby into a business. NEST helped me create a franchise package where my students (now Instructors) could teach for Urban Martial Arts but in their own locations. This has proved to be very successful and we now have schools throughout Leicestershire (Aylestone, Blaby, Whetstone, Melton Mowbray) as well as in London and Wolverhampton. There are several new franchises opening later this year too.
NEST's martial arts club software has been an integral part of Urban Martial Arts over the past 5 years helping with our marketing, billing and providing a support system like no other. Gerard and Joy have shown true friendship and an unquestionable loyalty and always have time to discuss business and more importantly personal matters. The staff are all very friendly and approachable and many have become friends. Since starting MAF-UK and now TMAS Live they have advised and supported the shows and play a very important role in it’s design and feel.
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