WCI Oxford - Oxford

Elena R.

I attended classes for 2 years, I enjoyed each one of them. It was my first approach to martial arts and I liked it a lot. Leaving the town, but I will check where I can go ahead, I'm grateful to the Sifu and the other trainees for what I've learnt!
Ps: the Sifu is just great with kids: I've seen her interacting with some of them, and they had both fun and life skills training!

Veronica L.

The payment model sounds more like a contract which is not my cup of tea. I like flexibility and freedom. Having read the other review and being a parent myself I feel sorry for that little boys who seemed to enjoy the training. Putting him away from his usual group!? Whatever the circumstances you don't do such thing for a child. To be honest I'm not surprised they stopped it.

I would suggest to move on, don't look back and find something else. There are other martial arts available in the area. Some of them allow to pay per session so if you don't go you don't pay. They would never punish anyone for paying discounted price or stopping during the global crisis such as COVID19 pandemic.

matthew B.

My daughter is on the 'little dragons' programme. It's quite inconvenient for us to travel to Oxford twice a week, but 10 months later we're all happy and think it's worth it! Sifu Datze is full of energy and excellent at engaging the younger children. She teaches them kung-fu and helps them with their life skills. Highly recommended..

Chas S.

So far I have had a warm welcome with some laughs along the way.
Datze is very good at instructing how to apply each technique in real life situations and able to personally adjust methods to suit a person's learning capabilities.
Wing Chun isn't your usual martial art of blocking and countering so at first the techniques seem alien.
However, after several lessons, things begin to fall into place.
Highly recommend.
As for cost and pricing, this is someone's full time job, you should respect that!
I have trained at several other clubs that charged a lot more for less hours.
Prices are reasonable.

Stefan K.

I joined this school last year so classes were mostly on zoom due to lockdown but still have learned so much. Now we are training in the park I can put what I have learned into action and it is so much fun and very rewarding. I highly recommend these classes for anyone interested in martial arts.

Tom S.

I had never even tried a martial art before starting with WCI Oxford but I knew I wanted to. After two months at the school, I'm now going twice weekly and thinking about going even more often. The teaching is really structured and friendly so you always know what you're supposed to be doing or learning and I feel like I've learnt loads already. If you're thinking about learning a martial art but are confused about which one to try, I would highly recommend wing chun and specifically WCI Oxford because it's so much fun!

D N.

I really don't like giving negative reviews but I feel I have no choice here. If I was to review it before 2021 it would be better rating but after what happened I cannot. If you want a short version scroll to the bottom.

My two sons were going to lessons in Oxford for about 12 months until end of February 2021. We paid £35 for little dragon and £50 for junior warrior. During lockdown when the sessions were online we were allowed to pay reduced price of £50 per month instead of £85 in total. Our junior warrior was enjoying it, especially that he could train in the same session as his class mate. In fact his class mate was one of the main reasons he was keen to try it in the first place. Unfortuntely it didn't last long 🙁

The first red flag occured when after joining the online sessions in January 2021 it turns out our junior warrior was split out from the rest of his group and put together with the little dragons. It made him feel worse than the others who he used to train with before. It was bad for him but we decided to continue as it's only temporary until offline lessons resume. Two months later in March 2021 we decided to stop training until offline training is back.

In April 2021 offline training was allowed again so we were happy to return (after one month break in March) Then the second red flag occurred... We were given new prices increased from £85 to £115 per month excluding grading fees (£50 for little dragons and £65 for juniors) This is depiste knowing that their friends were allowed to continue on old prices. When asked about why do we have to pay more for the same thing than others it was because we are returning customers and we were paying discounted prices during lockdown. Furthermore up to today (until I pointed that out) the products/training prices here were showing old prices. At the time of writing this review the new prices specified here are apparently for the new customers only for the first 6 months. It doesn't even say what are the prices after that. Apparently we as the returning customers are not new customers and are also not allowed to pay old prices. Regardless as teacher said she has no interest of taking back my sons for training because she was unhappy that we were paying discounted price during lockdown which she allowed us in the first place.

This is not they way to treat loyal returning customers. For comparison if you get a voucher or discount in the restaurant you shouldn't be getting worse meal of worse treatment later and that is what happened here.

Now the short version - the main things I am not happy about:
1. Splitting my son out of his usual junior warriors training group and putting him in sessions with little kids. Leaving him feeling worse than others.
2. Asking us as returning customers to pay more than others for the same thing out of personal grief. Not only more than old customers but also more than new customers as it doesn't say what the price will be after 6 months. Unless we were to pay for 2+ years of training in advance in which case we would get 20% discount. Signing up young kids for long periods is difficult because they can easy change their minds. Totally unfair to me.

Jools H.

Great school, instructors and people 🙂 Have been made to feel really welcome and is a great place to learn one of the best self defence martial arts and get fit at the same time!