Michael Sooper
Sifu Michael Sooper's first introduction to Martial Arts was the film The Karate Kid, which inspired him and his younger brother to start taking karate classes. After relocating to Las Vegas right before his freshman year, he decided to begin training again the following April in Kempo Karate, eventually becoming an assistant instructor and earning his black belt before his senior year.After graduating high school, Michael had to put martial arts aside to start his career in Information Technology. However, the martial arts bug started biting again, but this time he wanted to concentrate on Chinese martial arts. After recalling a run in with a Wing Chun instructor and much research, he decided that Wing Chun Kung Fu would be the best fit for him and what he was looking for in a system. After a lot of dead ends, Michael tracked down an instructor that had just moved to Las Vegas at the end of summer 2001 and became his first student. Eventually, that instructor parted ways with his own instructor and started training under Master Eric Li, a student of Ip Man's youngest son Ip Ching.
With encouragement from his first sifu, in fall of 2003, Michael become a student of Master Eric Li, traveling to Vancouver, BC yearly to spend days at a time privately training with him and completing the entire Wing Chun curriculum. In summer of 2013, Master Li awarded Michael with the title of Sifu.
Since 2009, Michael had been teaching Wing Chun privately from his home and training with other Wing Chun practitioners in the Las Vegas area while continuing to train under Eric Li.
In spring 2023, Michael and his family relocated back to his home state of Massachusetts. Michael found his way to Excel through his son who attends the adaptive karate program, where he looks forward to sharing Wing Chun with others. In early 2026, Sifu Michael Sooper began teaching his Wing Chun program at Excel Martial Arts in Canton.
RANKS
Sifu - Wing Chun Kung Fu
Affiliations
Wing Chun Society
