Why write the standards down?
Wing Chun is a specialised art. A course can be beautifully filmed and heavily marketed and still teach poor structure. A plainer course taught by someone with real depth can be excellent. Generic online-course reviews, which look at video quality and app features, tend to miss the things that matter most.
So we've written down the seven questions we actually care about. They shaped our reader checklist. Our contributors, who are unpaid practitioners from several lineages, helped refine them (see About). Final decisions are the owner's.
The first five apply most to courses. Pricing transparency and production quality apply just as much to gear and books, and we explain how below.
1. Verifiable lineage
Wing Chun is a lineage art. What an instructor teaches depends on who taught them, who taught their teacher, and how that chain connects back to the art's roots. A teacher with a named, checkable lineage is a very different proposition from one who can't tell you where their training came from.
What we look for: the instructor names their Sifu and their Sifu's teacher; that chain can be checked against public sources or with the people named; ranks are described clearly. Different lineages teach differently, and that's healthy. For example, there are two distinct lines from Grandmaster William Cheung's teaching: some schools teach mainstream Wing Chun, others teach Traditional Wing Chun. What matters is that the line is stated openly and can be checked. Our lineages guide explains the main branches.
Applied to Kendra's own course: Kendra teaches Traditional Wing Chun as it was passed down to her by Master Brian Lewadny, who learned it from Grandmaster William Cheung. That chain is named so you can check it yourself.
2. Curriculum structure
A good Wing Chun curriculum builds from foundation to application in a sensible order. Foundations come before application, the forms are introduced in sequence, and principles are taught before the techniques that express them. A course that teaches Biu Jee applications before students understand Sil Lim Tao structure is not well structured, however polished it looks.
What we look for: defined levels or stages, stated outcomes for each, and clear guidance on what to master before moving on. A loose library of videos with no path is a warning sign.
3. Depth of instruction
Teaching Wing Chun well means explaining why, not just what: the structural principle that makes a technique work, the common errors that stop it working, and how to correct them. A course that only demonstrates produces students who can copy shapes but can't apply them or fix their own mistakes.
What we look for: explanation of elbow position, stance, centreline and weight, not just demonstration; common mistakes named and corrected; enough detail that a student at home could self-correct.
4. Feedback
Nobody learns Wing Chun fully without someone looking at their practice. A course with no way for students to get corrections has a fundamental limit, no matter how good its videos are.
What we look for: video submission review, live sessions, direct contact with the instructor or qualified coaches, or a well-run community. We also ask whether the feedback is genuinely useful for correcting technique, rather than mainly a selling point.
5. Pricing transparency
The total cost of reaching your goal should be clear before you pay: subscriptions, level unlocks, exam fees and certification charges. Hidden costs, and subscriptions that become much more expensive over a full training period, count against a course. We also look at whether refund terms are stated clearly and are easy to use.
For gear and books, the same principle applies: what exactly are you getting, what will you need to buy separately, and are the shipping and return terms clear? Our home training setup guide walks through this for equipment.
6. Production quality
Video and audio quality, camera angles and editing all affect how well you can learn from a screen. You need to see hands, feet and body angles clearly. But production matters less than lineage, structure and depth. A beautifully filmed course that teaches poor structure is worse than a plainer one that teaches the art correctly.
For books, the equivalent is clear photographs and diagrams of positions and sequences. For gear, it's build quality and how well the item holds up to the training it's meant for, such as the stability of a wooden dummy or the balance of training knives.
7. Certification validity
For students who want documented proof of their training, for teaching, lineage membership or personal achievement, the value of a certificate matters. We ask whether certification is backed by a named lineage or organisation, whether it requires students to demonstrate skill, and how it's described.
A completion certificate for watching videos is not the same thing as a multi-level certification that requires demonstrated competency at each stage. Kendra's course uses 10 levels with a graded exam at each level; you can judge for yourself how that fits this criterion. For more background, see Kendra's post on getting certified online.
What we don't do
- We don't score, rate or rank other instructors or their courses.
- We don't claim to be independent. Kendra teaches a course of her own, and we label it.
- We don't edit reader reviews for opinion. They're moderated for spam and abuse only, and critical reviews of Kendra's course are published too (see Student Reviews).
Use the criteria yourself
The best way to use this page is as a set of questions to put to any course before you pay, including Kendra's. Write down the answers. If a course can't or won't answer them, that tells you something too.
To make that easier, we've turned these seven points into a plain reader checklist. If you're brand new, start with our beginner's guide to learning Wing Chun online.
If you think we've applied these criteria unfairly anywhere on the site, please tell us.