Profile: Steve Peters, UKKFF Health & Fitness Instructor
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Steve Peters is currently a Health & Fitness instructor with the UK Kung-Fu Federation. He offers individual or small-group personal training daily from our New Malden HQ in South-West London.
Steve writes...
I was born in Swindon in 1977 to an African father, a Caribbean mother and a 5 year-old sister. My interest in movement became evident early on when as a child I could regularly be seen pirouetting & leaping around the house. Fortunately I grew out of it, but as a result of all this youthful energy my parents decided to enrol me in a Judo class. This seemed to be going well until I got thrown on my head one day - one hysterical crying fit later my Judo career was over! After that my parents tried various activities from music to gymnastics but nothing stuck until I was spotted running at a school sports day by a member of Swindon Athletics Club. I was invited to join the club and went on to sprint at national level for two years until an injury meant that I was unable to continue.
By this point I, like every 15 year-old around me, had developed an interest in the martial arts. I sampled lots of different styles but never found one that I wanted to stick at for more than a few months. I instinctively felt that true martial arts instruction should be about more than just overpowering your opponent or performing set movements in response to set attacks, however nothing I tried ever seemed to fit. It was also at this time that I discovered a love of music. I had been learning the piano from an early age but became more absorbed with it as I looked for things to fill the void that athletics had left. I started to write music & began DJing in and around Swindon on a regular basis.
In 1997 I went to Birmingham University. I began DJing frequently in & around Birmingham and set up my first club night. Unfortunately it all went very badly (I got about 20 people to come to a 200 capacity club) but it was a great experience which made me realise that music was something I really loved. It was also in Birmingham that I got my first taste of Wing Chun. A friend told me about a Kung-Fu class at our student union and asked me along. Watching the movements of the instructor as he effortlessly outmanoeuvred the attacks of his students (even with his eyes closed once contact had been made) was something I had never imagined, let alone seen before. I was hooked! I studied Wing Chun there for a year until deciding to take a year out, leaving university and returning to Swindon. Unfortunately there weren't any Wing Chun classes available there so I went back to trying out various other styles. This took me through both Aikido and Taekwondo. I enjoyed both immensely, however they didn't seem to suit me quite as well as Wing Chun had. A few years later a Wing Chun school opened up in nearby Gloucester and thanks to a wonderful girlfriend willing to ferry me there & back I was able to resume my study. It was through this instructor that I discovered Tai-Chi. I was intrigued by the spiritual & philosophical aspects of the art and the emphasis on correct body use. This would later become the foundations of my thoughts on fitness.
In 2004 I left Swindon for London to pursue DJing and make music. I set up a night called Delectronica, a networking event for musicians & DJs, and began Djing around London. I also found classes in both Wing Chun and Tai-Chi and resumed my study of martial arts. It was at my Wing Chun school in London that I had my first doubts - the teachers at the school were simply unable to explain things in a way that satisfied me. My increasing knowledge of the body plus the influences of my Tai-Chi study meant that certain things just didn't make sense. It became clear that although they were teaching, the instructors didn't truly understand what they were doing, nor was their attitude towards the martial arts compatible with my own. I understood then that the problem was the teacher, not the art, and this experience really drove home to me how vital a good teacher is to a students progression.
Thankfully it was around this time that I spoke to a friend of mine in Oxford who had also been studying martial arts for a while. He was learning WingTsun, which was a brand of Wing Chun popularised by a Chinese Grandmaster called Leung Ting. After speaking to him about the principles & ideas which he was learning I knew this was something I would be interested in. So it was that I finally discovered Lee Heron's school in September 2004. Although he was teaching on the other side of London I decided to go check him out, and was truly glad I did. His attention to detail & sound theoretical knowledge were exactly what I had been looking for! I enrolled the following November and have been with him ever since. As I fell more & more in love with the art I came to realise that I wanted to devote more time to studying the body, understanding from a biomechanical point of view how it all worked. I started looking more closely at what I was doing & researched related concepts including Alexander Technique and Kinesiology. As I delved further it became clear that finally, this was a study which I wanted to devote my time to.
In 2006 I completed a Professional Gym Instructor Award with the YMCA. During the course I realised how much I had already learned about movement from Alexander Technique and martial arts. Ideas about alignment & body use were now second nature, and I knew that I could really add some personal ideas to the foundation I was being taught. However I needed a direction and after applying to a few local gyms I approached my teacher, Lee, for advice on how I might take things further. He suggested that as I was already learning Kung-Fu & Escrima with him and shared the teaching concept of the Federation, perhaps I would like to apply my ideas by teaching Health & Fitness with the UK Kung-Fu Federation. It was as if the missing piece finally clicked into place. Having the opportunity to work with an organisation which so closely shares my own ideas & ideals whilst also having the freedom to develop is a dream come true and I look to my future with the UKKFF with great enthusiasm.
