SIFU DARREN ELVEY

Sifu Darren Elvey is passionate about Wing Chun/Ving Tsun and established Ving Tsun Combat Science to pass on his skills and knowledge of this system to as many people as possible.

Sifu Elvey’s coaching philosophy is to develop individuals to their full potential. Everyone is treated equally and given the same opportunity to develop their skills. Sifu Elvey has developed training protocols where students will push themselves and test their skills in a safe environment.

As students’ abilities improve he incrementally increases the pressure applied to the practise of the concepts. Sifu Elvey’s aim is to enable his students to develop a deep understanding of Ving Tsun fighting science and to eventually develop their own expression of Ving Tsun.

As a teacher, Sifu Elvey says that he is ‘not prepared to stand still or just do things because that’s the way it’s always been done.’ Sifu Elvey, continually evaluates his coaching methods and strives for continuous improvement.

Sifu Elvey has had the benefit and misfortune of learning several different marital arts and experience applying them in the real world. He has used these experiences to ensure that his training is always aimed at developing practical, useable skills as quickly as possible.

Sifu Elvey’s interest in martial arts began when he was 10 years old when a boxing coach introduced him to the “sweet science.” He also trained a few different martial arts throughout his teenage years searching for a practical fighting method that would be effective if he ever needed to use it. He often wondered about the practicality of what he had learnt and doubted that it would work under real-world pressure. Sifu Elvey learned from a very uncomfortable experience that it would not.

Sifu Elvey heard about Wong Shun Leung, whose Ving Tsun skills had been tested in real fights many times, so he sought out Wong Shun Leung Ving Tsun (WSLVT) at the Melbourne Chinese Martial Arts Club (MCMAC) under the instruction of Sifu David Peterson.

At his first training session he saw a simple, direct, efficient and very effective approach to Martial Arts, one where every exchange had a very clear outcome. That pivotal moment for Sifu Elvey was in 1989 – the night he chose to let go of everything he had learnt up to that point and immerse himself in WSL Ving Tsun – and he’s never looked back.

Sifu Elvey ran his first class at the MCMAC in 1992. In 1994 he became a government-accredited coach under the National Coaching Accreditation Scheme administered by the Australian Sports Commission and Kung Fu Wushu Australia.