Category Archives: Inspiration

Is Kung Fu Easy?

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Brea Shaolin Kung Fu

Brea Shaolin Kung Fu

First, carefully consider the question.  We are not selling you a product, but rather giving you an opportunity through good training to develop yourselves mentally and physically in a multitude of ways.  Martial arts training improves:

  • Physical Strength
  • Endurance
  • Flexibility
  • Body Control
  • Mental Focus
  • Awareness
  • Self-esteem
  • Calm
  • Patience
  • Toughness, and
  • Stress Relief

Each student will come in with his or her own strengths and weaknesses.  The training we offer is focused on making our students’ weaknesses strong and their strengths even stronger.  Nothing is ever attained without effort and a student will surely find his or her training both mentally and physically challenging, but then if you are seriously invested in good training, isn’t this what you are looking for?

Failing a Rank Test

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Brea Shaolin Kung Fu School

Brea Shaolin Kung Fu School

When you are told you may test for the next rank, it means that you have learned sufficient forms, techniques, and skills to potentially pass that test.  However, there are two things you need to do to pass.  The first is to prepare yourself in the weeks and months prior to the test by attending class regularly and practicing those things you will be tested on.  The second is to perform well at the test.  Without the former, the latter can be quite difficult.

If you don’t prepare and you don’t do well on your test, you will not pass and get the next rank.  It doesn’t mean you are a bad person.  It simply means you weren’t up to snuff on the day of the test.  The purpose of the test is for the student to perform under a stressful situation that requires exactness, concentration, and execution.  Those three attributes are exactly what are required should you need to defend yourself or others outside of the school.  The higher the rank, the more that is expected of you and the better you must perform to pass.

At some point after the test, you will be told what specifically you did or didn’t do that caused the failure.  Take this constructive criticism with you to your next class and the classes that follow and try to work on the areas of weakness.  It is important to come back to class strong and continue your training.  Remember, this is not a reflection on you as a person, just a reflection on the quality of your movement during the test.  Lastly, and most importantly, kung fu is a way of life that can keep you vital, vibrant, and strong the rest of your days.  Rank tests are only a part of your training.  Consistent, hard training will take you as far as you want to go.

How Often Should I Train?

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Brea Shaolin Kung Fu martial arts

Preparing to Kick

The question of “How often should I train?” might not be asked out loud, but has probably been thought by many students thru the years.  In our modern world where a high level of martial arts skill is not a necessity for survival, it might seem like a simple question.  You train when you can fit it in… hopefully no less than 4 hours a week, which is perfectly fine.  But, to those who want more – for those who want to squeeze every ounce of kung fu from their training – the answer is different.  Your training becomes high on your priority list and you train as often as you possibly can – 3+ hours a day with a day or two off a week.  In fact, your goal is to not miss a class.

Only more advanced students comprehend how vast our school’s kung fu is with its multitudes of striking, shuai jiao (wrestling), chin na (joint locking), and weapon techniques.  When they do comprehend it, it’s both mind boggling and intimidating.  In the beginning, most students want to simply learn new things, but as training evolves you want to be able to utilize everything you learn in a fighting situation.  Even mastering a few techniques takes a great deal of commitment and focus.  For those who decide to make this kung fu their own, there are three keys:

  1. Daily (or almost daily) training for multiple hours and multiple years – it’s no longer a “hobby” or way to “stay in shape”
  2. Healthy diet of natural, whole foods – meat, vegetables, fruits, and nuts to provide maximum nutrients per calorie ingested
  3. Sleep – 8 hours a night to reenergize your body, rehabilitate sore muscles and damaged body parts, and relax your mind.

Assuming you eat and sleep well daily, you can train as much as your schedule and body allows.  Classes are scaled based on rank, which means lower ranks can expect more down time than higher ranks.  Thus, you can begin upping your training hours whenever possible.  Initially, you will likely notice your body is more fatigued and sore than normal after upping your training hours.  However, your body will adapt and get stronger in time (again, assuming sufficient sleep and nutrients) and you will find your kung fu skills increase remarkably over a few months time.  If your body becomes truly exhausted with aches, pains and a material lack of energy, then it’s time to take a day off to rest and recover – maybe even two days.  Otherwise, push.

Remember , the Chinese term of “kung fu” refers to any study, learning, or practice that requires patience, energy, and time to complete.  The secret to our kung fu – our martial art –  is not in “secret techniques” or any such nonsense… it’s consistent effort over years with correct instruction and learning.  This is the key.  Thus, the answer to the question of “How much should I train?” is answered by another question, “How much skill do you want to acquire?”

Don’t Rush Your Training

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Each student learns at their own pace.  Some have the ability to not only learn quickly, but to seemingly ingrain the movement upon learning it.  It’s possible for this to happen, particularly for more advanced students.  It is thought that these students are talented, which they may be for this moment of their training.  On the other hand, some students struggle while learning new things – be it remembering what was taught to them or simply having the body strength and coordination to do the movement.

It matters not whether you are one of the fast learners or slow learners as people catch on and “get it” at different times in their training.  At the end of the day what matters is the student’s ability to not just practice the movement until he gets it right, but to practice it to such an extent that he can’t get it wrong.  This poses a bigger challenge for most beginning and intermediate students as their is a big difference between getting it right and not being able to do it wrong.  Getting it right might take doing the technique/form tens of times.  Not being able to do it wrong probably takes doing it hundreds, even thousands of times.  This is when kung fu comes alive.

Most student’s see the next form, the next set of more advanced and fancy looking techniques and want to learn them – which is understandable.  Perhaps they think that just by learning something more advanced there abilities will automatically become more advanced.  However, it takes a great deal of practice to get to the point where you can’t do a technique or a form wrong.  This is why “advanced” students still practice the basics and beginning students should try not to rush to learn too much too fast.  In fact, stick to what you’ve been taught in class and be diligent in improving the details of what you’ve been taught the best you can.

The Mind Of A Warrior

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“It is because a mirror has no commitment to any image that it can clearly and accurately reflect any image before it.  The mind of a warrior is like a mirror in that it has no commitment to any outcome and is free to let form and purpose result on the spot, according to the situation.”

Yagyu Munenori (1571-1646) founder of Yagyu Shinkage-ryu style of swordsmanship. The Way of the Living Sword.  Trans. D.E Tarver

Developing Martial Fluency… Like Learning To Play A Musical Instrument

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Piano-Practice

There are many reasons to train, but for most, the ability to defend oneself with a high degree of skill is the most compelling.  Our school teaches fighting arts that were created by martial geniuses hundreds of years ago – before the advent of firearms.  Back then, being able to defend oneself with your bare hands or weapons could mean the difference between life or death.  Martial fluency can only be attained through a serious attitude and consistent, hard work and proper instruction.  Coincidentally, the original meaning of “kung fu” actually refers to any skill achieved through hard work and practice – not necessarily martial arts.

Learning to play a musical instrument is quite similar to learning our school’s kung fu.  In the beginning, you will likely feel awkward with the instrument and there will be growing pains as you take direction from your teacher.  You may even have second thoughts as to continuing.  You familiarize yourself with the basic notes and a few simple chords and begin learning to read music.  This is painstaking and can take weeks and month of daily practice.  As you progress, basic songs and musical pieces are learned and practiced and more advanced chords are learned.  Years go by, you continue to practice the basics and your instructor continues to push your abilities by teaching new techniques and musical pieces.  You begin to feel pretty confident about your playing and happily perform the songs you know for friends and family.  Many more years of diligent practice pass and you feel quite comfortable with your instrument and enjoy playing and practice more than ever.  It truly gives you joy.  You advance with even more difficult and challenging music, can play with your eyes closed, and can even replay music simply from hearing it.  You have become better than you ever thought you would and feel as fluent playing music as you do talking.  That is musical “kung fu” and an incredibly similar path is followed at our school to attaining martial fluency.  With no question, both musical and fighting ability become more fun – more addictive – the better you get.

Both musical and martial fluency are available to those willing to dedicate themselves consistently for years – there are no short cuts.  The only difference is that martial kung fu requires more sweat!

Self-Study: Pull-Ups/Chin-Ups

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Like push-ups, pull-ups (and chin-ups) are an outstanding upper body workout that can really benefit your overall level of fitness and kung fu training.  Unlike push-ups, however, they do require a pull-up bar and they are a bit more difficult to execute.  The reason why they are so difficult is the required strength per pound of body weight to complete even one.  People carrying extra body fat will find pull-ups more difficult than those who don’t because the extra body weight is literally weighing them down.  That said, a simple way to do more pull-ups is to lose body fat (maintain a diet of high quality calories and eliminate calories that don’t provide any nutritional benefit), train hard at least every other day, and practice pull ups daily (or at least every other day.)

Pull-ups are the perfect complementary exercise to push-ups for developing upper body strength.  As the names suggest, one is pushing and the other is pulling.  These different actions work different muscle groups.  Pushing something simultaneously engages triceps, chest, shoulder, and midsection.  Pulling exercises work most of the remaining upper body muscles such as:  biceps, forearms, upper back muscles, and midsection.  Together, push-ups and pull-ups are all anyone really needs to develop upper “body armor”.

In fact, pull-ups are such a barometer of physical fitness that many armed forces around the world use them to determine how fit a member is.  The U.S. Marine Corps uses pull-ups as one of three components in its Physical Fitness Test (the other two being crunches and a three-mile run.)  Most of these groups want to see 15-20 pull-ups done consecutively before feet touch the ground.  That is a good goal to have.  If you can manage to get 3 sets of 20 reps of pull-ups you will truly have high level of fitness.  If you can do that many one arm pull-ups, very few people will have your level of upper body strength.

There are a number of pull-up variations and methods for developing a pull-ups.  We’ll start from the most basic and move up to the more advanced:

1.  Australian Pull-Ups (an upside-down push-up)

Australian Pull-Up

These are a great introduction to pull-ups/chin-ups as they develop many of the same muscles, but aren’t as difficult as your feet are touching ground and supporting the body as much as needed.  Accessibility can be a problem.  Parks with jungle gyms or even putting a broom handle/pole on the seats of two chairs will do the job.  When you can get to 20 straight Australian Pull-Ups, you will be on well on your way to doing regular pull-ups.

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2.  Chin-Ups (Palms facing athlete)

Chin-up

Chin-Ups are slightly easier than Pull-Ups, but work many of the same muscles.  If you can’t do one chin-up, either continue to work on the Australian pull-ups or get a chair and start from the top of the pull-up and resist going down as much as possible.  Even better, hold for 5 seconds at the top, at the midpoint, and at the bottom.  Continue to do that until you can do a chin-up.  Gradually build until you can do 50 chin-ups in a day and then try to string together 3 sets of 20 pull-ups in a row.

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3.  Pull-Ups (palms face away from athlete)

Pull-ups

Pull-ups are what many people confuse with Chin-Ups… pull-ups have palms facing away.  Strict pull-ups are when the arms and back “pull” the body up and down in a linear fashion without much swinging.  “Kipping” pull-ups occur when the body swings (kips) in order to get to the top of the chin-up.  Typically, people revert to kipping when they approach failure during the final strict pull-ups and they do whatever it takes to get their chin above the bar.  The kip works a few different muscle groups from the strict.  Either one is fine to do as long as you do them consistently and to failure.  How wide you grip the bar is a similar story.  Narrow grips on the bar work many of the same muscle groups as wide grips, but they also work other muscles too.  Switching these up is a smart way to increase difficulty and strengthen more areas of the body.

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4.  Muscle-ups

Muscle-Ups

Muscle-ups are something we most commonly see gymnasts do in competition.  Typically, the practitioner does a kipping pull up to get their waste on the bar and then pushes up with their arms until straight.  This exercise can be thought of as combining a pull-up with a dip.  For this reason, it’s level of difficulty is fairly high. Try them if your at a park with a high bar.

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5.  Clapping Pull-Ups

Clap Pull-Up

For those who can do a good number of straight pull-ups, adding a clap at the top of the pull-up can up the ante with explosive speed and power.  Like all pull-ups, you must have a good deal of strength per pound to accomplish clapping pull-ups.  These typically require a kip to get enough momentum to clap and get your hands back on the bar.

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6.  One Arm Chin-Ups

One Arm Chin Up

One Arm Chin-Ups are the most difficult of all the chin-up/pull-up options, with maybe an exception being weighted pull-ups/chin-ups.  As the pictures suggest, you need to grab the wrist of the arm not pulling to maintain a center of balance while performing a one-armed chin-up.  No weight machines or plates are needed for those exceedingly strong people who can perform a number of one-armed chin-ups in a row.

Hard Training – Not for the Faint of Heart

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Kung Fu training is hard.  Whether it’s your first class or 5,000th class, there is no way to get around it (at least at our school).  Intense and consistent physical conditioning is a pre-requisite to develop the “kung fu body” that can successfully employ martial techniques against one or many non-cooperative, determined opponents.

Hard training comes in many forms.  First, your muscles will consistently get sore from the numerous exercises and drills that have trained kung fu fighters for centuries.  More than anything, your legs and core will be pushed and pushed to get stronger and looser at the same time – no easy feat.  Kicks, stances, forms, sparring, and exercises will test your will to overcome exhaustion and pain.  For those simply wanting to get in shape, this will take care of you.  Second, you will undoubtedly receive bumps and bruises as you learn how to employ your newly learned martial techniques against both cooperative and uncooperative opponents in san shou and sparring.  These bumps and bruises will heal and sharpen your skills.  A simple way to think about it is that you must be willing to accept bumps and bruises from friends in a controlled environment in order to successfully defend yourself from those meaning to hurt or kill you in an uncontrolled environment.  It’s a small sacrifice.

There is more to having heart and courage than to simply withstand the physical struggles of training.  Having the heart to consistently attend class, maybe two or three classes a day, even when you are not feeling up to it shows heart.  Perhaps you have a minor injury and still train while taking care not to aggravate the injury .  Some might feel they’ve reached a plateau that can’t be improved upon and lose confidence.  By accepting that training is “the way” and a part of their life, these students will will have the courage to push onward  instead of giving up.  They will reflect honestly on their relative weaknesses and continue on their path knowing that effort and time are the overwhelming factors in breaking through plateaus and improving both their character and martial skill.

This is why traditional martial arts is so particularly valuable and important for children.  Kids facing their fears, weaknesses, struggles, and pains develops strength of character, which is so difficult to acquire.  This strength of character, physical fitness, and self-defense skill will prove invaluable to them as adults as it creates massive self-confidence.

Correct Blocking

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One of the primary traits of shaolin’s fighting philosophy is to not get hit.  It is often taught in sparring that there is a no “exchange program” in fighting basically saying you do not accept any type of damage in order to get in on your opponent.  To avoid being hit, there are a number of things that need to happen including maintaining a proper distance from your opponent, moving your body away from an oncoming blow, and, of course, blocking.

In the beginning, blocking is simplistic.  Students are introduced to basic blocking skills:  proper distancing, blocking mechanics, and timing/reflexes.  At this stage, successful blocking means not getting hit… the intricacies of blocking come later.  Given all the different forms of attack from punches, elbows, kicks, etc. and all the various types of blocks against such attacks, it can take some time to learn and develop basic blocking skills.  At this stage, getting hit can often be the best training as it alerts the student to the inadequacies of their defense, but it’s a start to being able to defending yourself.

As blocking skill develops, less strength and movement is needed to make blocks effective.  Blocks are now more often glancing deflections than they are “bone on bone”, substantial blocks.  In fact, you learn to block just enough to avoid getting hit.   The circles in blocking are there, but are  becoming smaller and smaller – almost to the point of being imperceivable.  At this point, you might realize that certain attacks can be blocked in a way that can be to your advantage.  You deflect in order to lead the attacker into a vulnerable position for counter attack.  Blocking can also go the other way in that you can employ the “breaking weapons” theory and literally attack the opponent’s extremity that is attacking you.

After years of consistent training, as skills progress, blocking and avoiding attacks becomes second nature and doesn’t require a great deal of thought as you have done it time and again in san shou and sparring.  What becomes more important now is the ability to sense your opponents energy, balance, ability, and intentions through touching their attacks.  There is a great deal to this that won’t be explained here, but one example of a more advanced blocking technique is nullifying your opponent’s attack and sticking with it during its retreat or secondary movement.  By doing this, you are able to “keep tabs” on him and learn what his next movement would be before you would have if you weren’t touching him.  This “sticking” ability is one of tai chi chuan’s major fighting skills.

Again, it is crucial to avoid getting damaged.  Timing, reflexes, distancing, technique are all necessary to preventing getting hit and preparing you for whatever counter fits the situation.  Make efforts to stay loose and soft when blocking attacks (all the while being sure the attack doesn’t get thru) so counter attacks can be sharp and crisp.  If you are diligent to avoid being hit in the training hall, you have a great chance of not getting hit outside of it when it can mean a black eye, a broken tooth, or even the difference between life and death.

Chin Na – A Primer

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Chin Na is one of the core elements of our art (the others being striking and shuai jiao) that uses joint and muscle/tendon lock techniques to control your opponent.  “Chin” means to grab or seize and “Na” means to lock and break.  Virtually all Chinese Martial Arts styles employ chin na in some fashion – some more than others.  China, as the birthplace of Asian martial arts, was quite literally the mother of many famous chin na-like martial arts from other countries.  It is highly likely that chin na influenced the development of jiu jitsu, judo, and aikido in Japan and Hapkido in Korea.  Chin na is fun to learn and very efffective in self-defense against grabs or in the event you need to control an attacker.

There are many chin na techniques taught at our school.  In the beginning, escape movements are taught for the reason that you need to learn how to break free from a grab before you learn how to conquer it thru chin na.  After being taught the escape techniques and demonstrating some competency in them, students begin learning “attacking” chin na techniques used against adversaries who grab you.  People will typically grab to control through strength or possibly some form of wrestling.  Some grabs to the throat or neck can even be deadly.  Students must be able to react quickly and accurately with the correct technique to prevent harm to themselves and to gain control of your attacker.  In most cases, the attacker is devastated by painful attacks to nerves at various points on his body.

As students continue their training, other chin na techniques are taught to handle the same attack.  Grabs from training partners become stronger and more realistic, which demands a well-executed chin na technique.  Some techniques come naturally, while others may feel awkward or weak… just keep practicing.  Students are taught stunning, distracting strikes that provide an opening to apply chin na techniques.  As skill progresses, students will learn how to utilize chin na techniques from a punch, push or other strike.  Students will learn to apply one technique only to quickly move to a second or third chin na technique.  Proper reactions to missed or ineffective techniques will be trained.  Eventually,students begin to find opportunities to employ chin na techniques in sparring.  To be able to do this requires a good deal of skill, which, can only be gained through many hours of practice.

Chin na is a particularly useful skill to have for self-defense at it allows the defender the ability to show compassion in response to an attack.  Smaller practitioners who know chin na can utilize the techniques against larger and stronger opponents simply by using their body weight against weak areas of their aggressor.  Weak areas include joints, pressure points, or soft areas of the body.  This is why chin na can be particularly valuable for women.  Law enforcement and security workers can especially benefit from the control aspect of chin na techniques.  Chin na has a vast history and repertoire of techniques for those looking to gain control of attackers.

Humility

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Humility is a key attribute to attaining both a high degree of martial skill and a high degree of martial morality.  It is also a very shaolin trait.

Our school doesn’t focus on punching (such as western boxing).  It doesn’t focus on kicking (such as some tae kwon do).  It doesn’t focus on chin na/grappling (such as aikido and jiujitsu).  It doesn’t focus on shuia jiao/wrestling (such as western wrestling and judo).  It requires training and development in all of those skills and then some.  Because of this, our school’s kung fu is very comprehensive, complex and demanding of the student.  It also requires a student to remain humble as they learn and develop… excellence in all of these disciplines undoubtedly takes time.

Because of the comprehensiveness of our art, students will find certain parts of training more difficult than others.  This is mostly due to natural abilities and athleticism that were brought to the school on the first day of training.  Some will find kicks particularly difficult because they’ve never kicked anything in there life and may be relatively inflexible or unbalanced.  Some will find shuai jiao to be quite hard as they’ve never had to wrestle anyone before.  Whatever it is, EVERYONE has strengths and weaknesses.   Humility allows your ego to accept that others are better than you at certain things at various points in your training.  Kung fu is all about the process… the training.  Where you are at the moment is what matters – not where you think you should be.

In addition to individual strengths and weaknesses, everyone has good days and bad days.  Perhaps you didn’t have a good night sleep, had an exhausting day at work or school, or skipped lunch and breakfast.  Maybe you were just having a “bad day”.  Your humility will accept that you are not perfect and that your training effort (read:  consistency) is more important than your performance on any given day.  It will allow you to accept “off” days as they are and get you back in class the next day.

Humility is equally important outside of the school.  Understanding your own weaknesses and need for improvement is reason to never take anyone for granted should an altercation occur with someone.  There are always going to be others out there who have trained hard in their respective martial disciplines or maybe you’ll encounter someone with friends lurking nearby.  In such an event, you need to lose your arrogance, sink your chi, and calm yourself for what you’ll need to do.  Remember, avoiding a fight shows superior technique when the only thing on the line is your “ego” – for someone who trains hard to defend him or herself, walking away from a fight shows great humility.

Single Step Movements

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Our forms are the dictionary, encyclopedia, and playbook of our martial arts style.  Forms were created and improved upon over hundreds of years and generations upon generations of martial artists who dedicated their lives to learning the best ways to defend themselves and their loved ones from one or more highly skilled attackers.  For this reason, the forms are not to be taken lightly.

Single step movements are a way for beginner, intermediate, and advanced students alike to work on singular movements from forms that need improvement.  Of course, certain single-step movements such as the horse stance punch, forward bow punch, open-hand movement, etc. are the foundations of our training.  These movements are found in most forms and for this reason are some of the first things new students learn at our school and are continually practiced.  Even the kicks practiced in class can be considered a single step movement as they create a foundation to properly execute the movement in sparring.

However, single step movements need not be reserved for beginning students.  Forms have a number of demanding movements that require strength, explosiveness, flexibility and general athleticism.  A great example of a movement that many students struggle with is the first movement in bashu.  It is a fast down movement evading a high attack and following up with a punch to the mid-section.

For those who struggle with this movement (or any movement), simply break it down into a single step movement and practice doing it up and down the mat before or after class.  Sometimes you will do the movement going forward… sometimes it will be done going backward.  Either way, watch yourself in the mirror.  Practice doing it slowly at first.  Is your posture correct?  Are you low enough?  Is your body too tight to make it work properly?  Are your muscles strong enough to do it very slowly?  It may take time to develop the strength, balance, and/or flexibility to get it right.  Learn what you can from this practice and continue until you are satisfied the movement is up to snuff and their is another movement that needs your attention more.

Being Corrected

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Mastering kung fu is the mastery of the details that make up the system.  Perfection is unobtainable, but the endless pursuit of it is the mantra of most serious martial artists.  With this in place, self-improvement is a way of life.

Throughout your training you will be taught many things.  Shaolin kung fu is a vast art and tung lung (praying mantis) also has a great deal to it (although not as much as shaolin).  Because of this, some of what you’re taught will be grasped somewhat easily at first (at least you think it is), meanwhile, a good deal of it may be difficult to digest and you might find yourself struggling.  At this point, remember that if it was easy anyone could do it and clearly that is not the case.

When you have been taught something new or had something corrected, take the time to practice it after class or when you get home to commit it to memory (both brain and muscle).  Ask a higher rank, preferably the highest rank available, for guidance if needed.  It is important to do your best to learn things properly the first time.  But as it is can sometimes be difficult to get things the first time , it is important to listen and pay attention when you are being corrected.  Do your best to make the correction permanent and not go back to doing it incorrectly again in the next class.  Your instructor can only do so much – the endless pursuit of perfection falls on your shoulders.

10,000 Hours of Practice

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There have been a number of studies and books written about groups and individuals who have mastered various disciplines such as singing, musical instruments, chess, various sports, martial arts, sculpture, painting, even mathematics and science.  They addressed the question, “Is world-class skill or “mastery” the result of innate talent or effort?”  The bulk of the studies conclude that natural “talent” matters very little in the long run when evaluating what it takes to master any given discipline.  Another conclusion is that roughly 10,000 hours of focused, deliberate practice is what’s necessary to acquire world class ability – otherwise known as “mastery”.

This theory of 10,000 hours of focused, hard training dedicated to consistent improvement certainly applies to developing mastery in kung fu.  Proper stances, punches, kicks, blocking and countering techniques are new and fun to learn at first and progress in martial arts typically comes quickly in the beginning.  This is when you are introduced to the various fundamental elements of training.  However, plateaus occur as you progress and  begin working on mastering what can be thought of as “small” details of the basics.  After learning what might be considered more advanced techniques, often times these fundamental elements of “basic” training often seem less interesting.  Unfortunately, this is sometimes when students become less enchanted with their training and look for something new to stimulate them.

Not enough can be said regarding the importance of truly mastering the fundamentals of kung fu.  The basics are the building blocks to advanced techniques as much as simple addition and subtraction are the building blocks to algebra.  When you learn new movements, place special attention on the fundamentals that are the basis of the movement.  As an example, a good side kick is required to develop a good hook kick or spinning side kick (both of which can be thought of as more advanced.)  Without a good side kick, it is impossible to develop the other two to a high degree.

As you continue your training, be cognizant of the skills and areas you are weak in – remember, everyone has strengths and weaknesses.  Improvement requires extra focus and attention on those skills that you are struggling with and/or are new to you.  Spend time before class starts or after class ends developing those weak portions of your practice.  Even better, spend time training on your own – outside of the school – working on what needs improvement.  Often it’s as simple as lowering your stances or having faster kicks with better form, but sometimes it can be as advanced as envisioning sparring scenarios and “what if’s” that might occur and shadow boxing to those scenarios.  Working on weaknesses can be difficult as our ego want quick fixes to our inadequacies.   However, this struggle for improvement is what breaks us through the inevitable plateaus.  This training is a very important part of the 10,000 hours.

For those wanting to master this art, training 3 hours/day, 6 days/week, for 10 years can roughly get you to mastery at 10,000 hours.  Training 2.5 hours/day, 5 days/week will take roughly 15 years to hit the 10,000 hours.  Training 2 hours/day, 5 days/week will get you to 10,000 hours in around 20 years.  This may sound like an awfully long period of time, but consider two things.  One, you are developing a world class skill and physical ability that can benefit you in a number of ways.  Two, you are hopefully enjoying your training.  Like most disciplines, more fun is had as your skills develop and become more advanced.

Not everyone needs to become a master, but consistent and diligent practice with an excellent instructor over a long period of time can make true mastery in kung fu a possibility for those willing to put in the time and effort.

Internal Training

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Internal training occurs solely through the practice of the empty hand and weapons forms and moves through three stages.  In the beginning, diligent and thorough practice of the forms with the correct postures and details of the techniques is required.  The second stage progresses beyond technique, as the forms are performed with swift coordination, precise timing, fluid rhythm, flowing momentum, and maximum focus.  Combining these qualities with an understanding of the techniques allows one to practice the forms as if one were encountering an opponent.  The final stage reaches the state of chuan, no chuan (technique, no technique), yi, no yi, (mind, no mind).  The Chinese maxim reads “from no yi shoots out true yi,” meaning that from thoughtlessness comes true meaning.  The internal practice follows the tradition of Zen rather than Taoist methods of consciously or willfully guiding the chi through special routes.  All one needs is a total commitment to the form without any mistakes or artificial feelings for the true unification of mind, body, and action to occur.

A Zen Story

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Zen Master

Long ago, in the age of the Shogun, there lived in Japan an infamous young samurai.  Through many years of arduous training he had developed great strength.  Along with this strength, he had an uncanny ability to spot and exploit a weakness in his opponent’s form.  He would wait for his opponent to charge at him, thus revealing the weakness, and swiftly cut the aggressor down.  It was this talent that made him invincible.  He vanquished all who dared to fight him.  In his quest for a worthy opponent, he traveled from village to village and found that none could stand before his prowess.

One fateful day, he came to the village of a certain old master.  Skilled as this master was, he was known far and wide as one who possessed great wisdom.  The samurai challenged the master as soon as he saw him.  And much against the advice of his concerned students (who had heard the arrogant samurai who vanquished all), the master agreed to the duel.

As soon as they reached the appointed place, the samurai began to hurl vulgar insults at his senior.  He threw dirt and spit in the master’s face.  Seeing that this had no effect, the samurai spit out every obscenity he knew; all to get the master to show his hand.  He did this for hours.  And all this time the master stood there like a stone Buddha; his sword in his hand, his eyes expressionless, and every-so-ready.  Finally, the samurai found himself exhausted.  He gazed at the master with respect.  He humbly bowed and left, a much wiser man.

After the samurai had gone, the students asked the master about what they had seen.  “How did you defeat him without striking him?” one asked.  “Why did you endure such insolence?” another asked.  The old master smiled and replied, “If someone comes and gives you a gift and you do not receive it… to whom does the gift belong?”

Chinese Kung Fu Virtues

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Use Kung Fu ethics to balance personal judgment

Use Kung Fu technique to become fully rooted

Use Kung Fu practice to assist those in need

Kung Fu must not be used for evil purposes

A hero adopts a hero’s ways

Virtuous warriors have their duties

The Shaolin Way

Consistency

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Consistency in Kung Fu training, no matter the style, is an absolute must.  But rather than going on about all the pros and cons of the subject, let me explain it in the form of a story that was often told by Grand Master Cheng:

Once many years in the past, there was a very famous old Kung Fu master who knew his time had come.  So he called his three oldest students to his bedside to tell them the greatest secret of Kung Fu.  He bid the eldest of the three to kneel down close, and with his last ounce of chi, whispered the secret into the student’s ear.  And right after that he died.

The eldest student sat upright with a combined look of amusement at what he’d been told and deep sadness over his good teacher’s passing. The other two student’s had a combined look of sadness and great anticipation over what the greatest secret of Kung Fu was.

“Well!”  they finally blurted out, “tell us, what was Master’s secret?!”

The oldest student looked blindly at them and said, “Keep Training!”

Muscle Memory

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One of the most important differences between beginning, intermediate, advanced, and expert martial artists is the level of muscle memory that is acquired.  When a movement is repeated over time, long-term muscle memory is created for that task, eventually allowing it to be performed without conscious effort. This process decreases the need for attention and creates maximum efficiency within the motor and memory systems.  Examples of muscle memory include riding a bike, typing on a keyboard, even handwriting, walking and talking.

Although the precise mechanism of muscle memory is unknown, what is theorized is that anyone learning a new activity, or practicing an old one has significant brain activity during this time. The walking child is gradually building neural pathways that will give the muscles a sense of muscle memory. In other words, even without thinking, the child is soon able to walk, and the muscles are completely accustomed to this process. The child doesn’t have to tell the body to walk; the body just knows how to do it, largely because neurons communicate with the muscles and say, “walk now.”

Muscle memory thus becomes an unconscious process. The muscles grow accustomed to certain types of movement. This is extremely important in kung fu training and is also why learning to do things right the first time is stressed.  You want your muscle memory to reflect the correct way to do things, not the incorrect way. Your muscle memory can actually play against you if you’ve constantly been practicing something the wrong way.

Teaching kung fu to students who have trained at other martial arts schools is typically more difficult than teaching someone without training.  It’s a lot harder to teach someone who’s learned a different fighting style for a few years because the first step is breaking them of the incorrect or incongruent habits they’ve acquired, which are now part of the muscle memory.  This requires diligence on part of both the teacher and student to focus effort on changing muscle memory.

Most top level athletes and performers in a variety of fields believe that muscle memory is best developed when the same activities are practiced over and over again, with any corrections of form that are needed. Thus, there needs to be a focus on the “quality of the quantity” of training.  This consistent and continual practice is what is required to develop kung fu fluency.

Beginning students are simply learning and internalizing the basic kung fu movements of stances, kicks, punches, etc.  As students improve, they are good enough to apply what they’ve learned in sparring at an intermediate level – although they may appear clumsy and uncoordinated.  At this point, these students typically still lack the muscle memory needed to adequately defend an opponent’s counter to their attack.  After much more practice and development of muscle memory, the student’s abilities become advanced and are then adeptly able to counter their opponent’s counter.  Because muscle memory doesn’t require conscious thought, it is smooth, quick, and powerful.  The final step, to reach an expert level of skill, requires such a massive amount of muscle memory and reflexive skill that very little thought is used when sparring.  The body just does what it has been programmed to do thru repetitive movements and the accumulation of muscle memory.

Habit

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“We are what we repeatedly do.  Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” ~ Aristotle

Aristotle

Each of us have 24 hours in our day to pursue our goals and enjoy our downtime.  Many of those hours are spent on activities basic to living such as sleeping, eating, bathing, grooming, etc.  Time and thought must be placed when deciding what activities are worthy of your daily (or almost daily) attention.  Hopefully, kung fu is one of those daily habits that has become a big part of your life.

Self-defense, physical strength, endurance, cardiovascular health, flexibility, enjoyment, camaraderie, personal development are just a few positive and enduring results you get from making a habit of your kung fu training.  It’s probably more interesting than going to the gym and doing the same weightlifting routines or grinding it out on an exercise bike.

Once training has become a habit, then one of the keys to kung fu development – consistency – will be in place.  Next, you need to once again employ habit, but this time during your actual training.  Developing the habit of pushing yourself in practice to punch harder, kick higher and faster, lower your stances, block properly, counter-attack sharper, focus your energy, etc. will propel your skill and health to new heights.  As a positive side effect to increased skill and health, you will start to enjoy not only your classes and personal training more, but everything in your life takes a turn for the better.

Positive habits in your life can mean the difference between achieving your life’s goals or not.  Spend some time to actively review what you “repeatedly do” and develop those habits that propel you to “excellence” and eliminate those that don’t.

Kung Fu – A New Language

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One of my favorite metaphors regarding learning and mastering kung fu is that of learning and becoming fluent in a new language.

Before elaborating on this, I want to be clear that if you can become fluent in a language – which most adults and older children are – then you can become “fluent” in kung fu.  It simply requires consistent, almost daily practice with others for years.  Kung Fu fluency is the ability to spar another practitioner in such a way that your body can naturally and successfully move and respond to various attacks/counter-attacks and your mind has the nimbleness to decide what your body should do in the split second it has to react.  This does not come easily, but it’s definitely proven worthwhile to those who have achieved that level of ability.

When learning a new language, you begin by learning the letters, common words and sentences of that language.   While learning the basics, you are definitely not able to manage a conversation with someone who is fluent.  They would speak quickly and easily and you would have no idea what they were saying.  In fact, they would likely be confused with what you were trying to say to them with what little you know.  An equivalent in kung fu would be a beginner student sparring an advanced practitioner – there would simply be no contest.

In kung fu, the beginning of training includes learning basic kicks, punches, stances, single step movements, escape movements and basic block and counter techniques.  For most, these beginning movements seem awkward and unbalanced.  This is ok and can be expected to last for weeks, months, and even years for some.  However, if you keep pressing yourself to grow and improve, these basic movements won’t feel so strange and you’ll be on your path to martial fluency.

As you progress with a new language, learning and memorizing new words and combining them into grammatically correct sentences becomes a major part of your learning.  While doing this, you continue to utilize and build on the fundamentals taught in the beginning.  You begin putting sentences together both in writing and in speaking.  Memorization and repetition is required to develop speed of thought.

As you progress with kung fu, new striking and blocking techniques, and, most especially, new kung fu forms are learned.  Learning forms is similar to the learning of sentences.  You continue to develop the basic fundamentals that were taught in the very beginning.  You begin to feel more and more comfortable with some of the beginning forms and techniques.  Additionally, sparring skills are developing and some confidence is gained when sparring those close or below your rank and/or ability level.

As years go by, you become more and more comfortable with your not-so-new language, you have acquired a good deal of mastery with hundreds of words and can easily put sentences together both on paper and verbally.  You are working on fine tuning your grammar, but mostly are engrossed with speaking to others who are fluent with the language as this is where you learn you uncover your speaking deficiencies.  You are approaching fluency.

With kung fu, you are an intermediate-to-advanced student.  The basics have been mastered (sort of) and you are consistently working on improving the smaller details of more advanced technique training.  You want your abilities and techniques to be sharper, faster, and more powerful.  Your reflexes and reactive movements are becoming clean and your sparring has become crisp. However, you still have difficulties with various movements and can get stuck from time to time while sparring.

After years of studying your language and practicing speaking to native speakers for some time, you are now fluent.  You are able to hold conversations with most anyone in that language and speaking it is as common and easy to you as walking or eating.  There are still words that you don’t know and a good deal more you can learn about the language, but you are able to speak effortlessly at will.

Among martial arts masters, there is a common theme that once they reached mastery, “form” went away.  Sure, these masters would continue to practice forms and other things they were taught, but their sparring became fluid and their movements to various attacks and counterattacks were able to be performed with controlled intention and precision.  They truly owned their art – this is fluency in kung fu.

The Student’s Search

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Those who are looking for a school of Chinese boxing, whether it encompasses weapons or not, will need to set certain specific goals in their own mind before beginning the search.  It is not hard to find a school that teaches the modern concepts, but the old traditions offer a greater challenge for the modern exponent.  The first step is to find the school, the second is to be accepted, the third to endure the training, the fourth to retain the humility as the skill develops and the fifth to bear the responsibility of the knowledge when you are skilled.  This path represents a lifetime’s study in a chosen skill, for there is a Chinese saying by Kang-hsi, “If you reject iron, you will never make steel.”