Early career
Coleman began martial arts at the age of nine by practising Shotokan Karate. He trained and competed in Karate and earned a blackbelt at the age of thirteen. From 1991-94 he was a junior Karate Kata champion and in 1994 was a national champion.
In 1995, he turned his attention to Kung Fu and kickboxing. After a year of finding his direction in martial arts Coleman began training in London in wushu and Chin Woo, later complemented by training in sanda and gymnastics. He began to train in wushu around the world including in Great Britain under Mike Donoghue and at Ray Park's former school, as well as in Malaysia under Oh Poh Soon. In 2001 and 2002, Coleman won at the Traditional National Wushu Championships as well as at the 2002 Chin Woo World Championships [2]
Wushu career
At 21, Coleman decided to focus strictly on Wushu. Training privately under Mike Donoghue, Steve went on to win the all-round National Wushu Championships in 2003 and consecutively every year since. This was added to with another World Chin Woo Championship win in 2006, various European Competition wins, and representation of the Great Britain Wushu Team. [3]
Coleman made his wushu continental debut at the 2002 European Wushu Championships in Porto, Portugal and his international debut at the 2003 World Wushu Championships in Macau. [4] He subsequently competed in the next few European and world championships, becoming the captain of the Great Britain Wushu Team in 2006. [5] [6] At the 2008 European championships in Warsaw, Coleman won the silver medal in jianshu, [7] but did not compete the following year in the 2009 World Wushu Championships. A year later, he competed in the 2010 European Wushu Championships in Antalya and won a shared bronze medal in changquan. [8] From 2011 to 2012, Coleman retired from competitive wushu.
In 2013, Coleman started competing in wushu again. A year later at the 2014 European Wushu Championships in Bucharest, he became the European champion in daoshu and won silver and bronze medals in changquan and gunshu respectively. He then returned to compete internationally at the 2015 World Wushu Championships in Jakarta with a 7th place finish in daoshu. [9] A year later, Coleman competed in the 2016 European Wushu Championships in Moscow and became the European champion in gunshu and won bronze medals in daoshu and gunshu. [10] He returned to the European championships two years later also in Moscow and was a bronze medalist in gunshu. [11] Later that year, he competed in the World Martial Arts Masterships in South Korea and finished 6th in gunshu. He then competed at the 2019 World Wushu Championships in Shanghai where he was the oldest competitor. [12]
After the COVID-19 pandemic, Coleman returned to competition once again. His most recent competition was the 2023 World Wushu Championships in Fort Worth where he was once again the oldest competitor and competed with multiple injuries. [13]
