Nam Yang Martial Arts

We have a new home, Check our DIRECTIONS page for details, Located in Epsom, Surrey, KT17 4AB.


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Tel: 07969268595

Meet the Epsom Team

Nam Yang wouldn’t be what it is without a team of dedicated, knowledgeable and supportive Instructors. 

Each teacher is a long term member of Nam Yang with a geniune desire to get the best out of their students and a strong passion for the arts they teach. Instructors are also available for private tuition – please just contact us if you are interested. 

Learn a little bit more about them below!

Steve Keen

Director, Chief Instructor & Manager 

Steve Keen started training with Nam Yang Epsom at age 6 in the year 2000.  He originally joined Nam Yang to learn Traditional Chinese Lion Dance. To build up the strength, flexibiility and co-ordination needed to learn this skill, Steve had to first train Kung Fu for a year directly underneath Master Iain Armstrong, the current Master of Nam Yang Pugilistic Association. It was not until the age of 7 where he then started learning Chinese Lion dancing.  Since this time, Steve has performed for the Queen of England – Queen Elizabeth II, a premier for Kung Fu Panda, Chinese New Year Parade in London and was flown to Bahrain to perform. 

At the age of 13, Steve began to help with teaching the Lion Dance lessons within the club and at 15 he started helping with the Kung Fu Lessons.  At 16, he started learning kickboxing (Sanda & K-1).  It was at this point that he officially started his work experience teaching within Nam Yang Pugilistic Association and at Nam Yang Epsom. This is when he decided that teaching Martial Arts is what he wanted to do. 

As a direct student of Master Iain Armstrong, who at this point now established the famous Kung Fu Retreat in Thailand, Steve decided to live in Thailand and join him for a full year to continue his Instructor training and deepen his knowledge.  At this time, He was also fighting professional Muay Thai during 2012. You can see two of his fights from November here, and his most recent K1 fight in February 2022 here.

After returning to Epsom in 2013, Steve worked his way up to being a Senior Instructor in teaching Kung Fu, Kickboxing, Lion Dance and Tai Chi in both Epsom and Brighton Clubs. Since this time, he has won multiple British Championships for Kung Fu and Shaolin Weapons, as well as capturing the I.K.F Professional K-1 English Title. As of 2022, he is now our Director, Chief Instructor and Manager of the Nam Yang Epsom branch. 

Paul Wright

Instructor

Paul joined Nam Yang Epsom back in 2006 to try learning Tai Chi, but it wasn’t long before he also started training Kung Fu, Weapons and Sparring. After a few years, he decied to focus on the Tai Chi and Qigong, subsequently becoming an Instructor with the club. He has now been teaching our Shuang Yang and Chi Kung routines for over 10 years. 

Outside of Nam Yang, Paul works as an Osteopath so he is able to bring his knowledge of human anatomy and movement into his teaching which greatly enhances the classes and the benefits of the routines we teach.

Michael Hensen

Instructor

Michael has been a dedicated member of Nam Yang Pugilistic Assocation since 2002.  When he first joined Nam Yang Epsom, he attended the Kung Fu lessons with his brother and since then, has completed the intermiediate levels of the Tiger Crane combination, Weapons (Shaolin Staff & Shuang Yang Cane), the Tong Ling Chi Kung and Shuang Yang.  Having always been active, he found that the adult evening classes suited his very busy lifestyle. The training and discipline in self-defense was beneficial in helping him get both mentally and physically fit. He had lost weight, became agile and more flexible. By becoming a member, he found that his overall health was better mentally, phsyically, and that he could maintain a good level of fitness. 

  After training with Nam Yang Epsom for quite some time, he was approched by Master Iain Armstrong and fellow peers to assist with teaching students to learn and improve their routines in Chi Kung and Tai Chi. Michael now looks forward to helping his students improve themselves and their routines, motivating each of them to strive to a level where their routines flow from beginning to end.

“Being in the moment is the best way to perfect our art”

Creating Community Through Martial Arts