A world-renowned Wing Chun Kung Fu instructor is offering free classes to empower culturally-diverse women amid rising crimes and safety concerns.
For six months, Anne Pang, a martial artist for 35 years, will provide seven-week courses on Saturdays from 10am-12pm.
The classes will be held at her son’s Snap Fitness Dandenong gym. Together they came up with this idea out of concern for women’s safety in the area.
“Women already have a lot of instinct, common sense – that’s how women have survived until now,” Pang says.
“But with a bit more you can survive confidently, live better and to the fullest rather than in fear of something bad happening to you.
“Whilst empowering yourself physically you’ll become confident, you will speak differently, hold yourself in a different body language and therefore give out a message that you’re not an easy victim.”
The classes consist of a physical component and a mental component teaching women strategies on how to act if they are alone, if they are harassed, on public transport or if they are a bystander.
The classes also support a positive social connection to boost confidence.
“I think ethnic women especially from migrant backgrounds, they are so busy settling their lives, they don’t have much time for themselves so they don’t make friends very easily.
“So, this is a good time for them to network, have friend, share experiences and just to connect with people.”
Wing Chun is the only widely known martial arts invented by a woman which focuses on self-defence.
Ms Pang says the techniques are suitable for women’s physiques as it doesn’t require a lot of muscles but rather knowing where and how to strike.
The award-winning practitioner commercially charges at a higher rate for her classes however, since it’s a local community event coupled with her passion to support migrant, refugee and diverse women, it was decided to do it for free.
Part of her passion is formed from an early stage of her life when she migrated from Taiwan to Australia 50 years ago as a child without any knowledge of the English language.
She was attacked one day after school, merely weeks after she arrived in the country.
“A boy came running toward me. I was happy wanting to say hi, but he slapped me across the face and said ‘Go back to your country.’
“I didn’t know what to say or do, I was frozen. I knew he wanted me to cry so I froze and didn’t cry.”
She went home practised how to say ‘He hit me,’ spotted the boy at a school assembly, ran to him and called him out in front of the entre school community.
The boy was called onto the stage to apologise to her by the principal.
“I had this huge sense of justice and righteousness that I had to do something and make it right ever since I was a kid.”
Ms Pang has been working with Sister Works for the past six years on and off providing free self-defence classes.
She is recommended by the organisation’s chief executive Ifrin Fittock and Greater Dandenong councillor Lana Formoso who said the free martial arts classes offer was unheard of.
Ms Pang’s own love for martial arts sparked through comic books in her country but started her Kung Fu journey in Australia at Barry Pang Kung Fu School in 1974. Barry is now her husband.
She worked to condense Wing Chun into a system that can work effectively for women in a short-to-medium time-frame as more women approached her willing to learn the art.
Participants’ performances under pressure will be tested on the last day of the seven-week program to help release their “inner warrior” and confidence.
Enrolment for the initial classes on Saturday 26 July at Snap Fitness gym in Dandenong Square, Dandenong are booked out.
But bookings are open for courses starting in September and November.
