5 Points to Defending with your Staff in Fut Gar Kung Fu

As the majority of my students know, I believe staff is the most important weapon we teach. The reasons were outlined one previous blog entry. This is further emphasized by the number of staff forms we teach in the Fut Gar style. Here are 5 points taught in Fut Gar Kung fu that you can keep in mind during training, whether it be visualizing the application of the technique or in practicing fighting techniques:

1. Be sure to shift your stances on blocks. Typically we shift far enough that target area that we are defending is totally moved away from its original position.
2. Defend more than just your block. Using the angle of the staff, you are often able to defend your head while blocking a strike to your legs.
3. Know the body and staff angle required to allow you to counterattack. Work on being precise with your blocking angle to allow quicker attacks.
4. If your staff is underneath your opponent's staff during contact, we call it a "dead staff" which means you do not try to initiate the next technique because it will leave an opening for the opponent to strike quickly.
5. Relax. It may be difficult when you are blocking another staff but relaxing will make your blocks faster and avoid the urge to attack your opponent's staff (trust your technique to deflect the attack and you will see that you don't need much power).

Keeping these things in mind will add some extra focus to your techniques during practice and help improve your forms.

Our Newest Instructors

I would like to offer congratulations to the newest instructors of The National Fut Gar Kung Fu Training Centre. A few weeks ago I had the honour of naming 2 new instructors to teach our Kung Fu system. I'm sure that they will make me proud as they pass on their knowledge and thirst for learning to future students. Each of these instructors accomplished something of special significance to the school.

Silvia Castellarin became the first female instructor with her promotion. Those that have trained for any significant time in Kung Fu will know that this is a very rare accomplishment.















Jason Chin is our first instructor from students at our current location. He also is the fastest to reach the rank of instructor with our school.

Congratulations to both of you!!!!

20th Anniversary Dinner

It will be good to see everyone at our 20th anniversary dinner tomorrow night. We have actually been around longer than 20 years but have finally gotten around to arranging the dinner. Our school is now loaded with senior students, some of who began with me in our early days at Brock University. Here are a few facts:

• We have moved from St. Catharines to Hamilton to Mississauga to Toronto over the years.
  
• We have been in our current location since 2000.
  
• We are currently up to 3 full instructors (not including me) and 3 instructors in training at our school.
• We began with Lama Pai as our core style and Choy Li Fut as a complimentary style.
• We have been teaching Fut Gar Kung Fu since 1998.
  
• The students continue to make teaching fun after all these years.

The Mistake With Lower Stances

A note that I brought up in a few of my recent classes is the mistake that students often make when trying to lower your stances. This directly relates to my last blog entry about improving the look of your forms. The mistake that is made is to lower the stances by widening them. This is not the correct way of lowering most stances. The lowering of stances should be done by further bending of the knees instead of widening the distance between your feet. Of course this all has to be done without allowing yourself to bend over (another habit that I notice in students trying to lower stances). This will help in further improving the look of your forms.

1 Quick Change to Improve the Look of Your Form

There is one very easy way to improve the look of your form. As you perform, your body gets used to executing the techniques at a particular height. One very quick way to impact the look of your form is to lower the stances slightly from your normal height. Practice at the new height and over time your form will sink to that height. When showing the form, it is easier to remember to stay low than to remember all the little points that you need to fix in the form so this is one of the quickest changes you can make for immediate results.

Kung Fu Blogs

One of the things I have noticed is that there are few blogs on kung fu that are actually worth following. I have seen some that posted a few excellent articles spread over months but not consistent. There are a few reasons that I believe this happens.

1. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I have even seen a blog from an instructor that I know followed my blog and then started their own. I guess it is kind of funny that they felt that it was important to specifically say that they were urged by friends to students....not that they were reading my writing and thought they could duplicate...duplicate the idea as well as duplicating some of my blog topics, always a few months after I write it. Same duplication as starting a Facebook group for their school a couple months after asking for permission to join my school's Facebook group. I guess some people need to imitate in their ongoing struggle to look like they are innovative. OK enough ranting on that....since that is a totally different topic.
2. Writing is difficult when you need to come up with regular content. There are some brilliant instructors out there that could provide unlimited bits of wisdom but many cannot communicate in written form. I also believe that there are instructors in more commercial organizations that may have been able to learn enough to become instructors but have not had the opportunity to take their knowledge to the deeper levels which would cause a blog to start strong but slowly run out of content.
3. Secrecy for their style. Kung fu has a history of being carefully protected over the years and it is possible that some of the older instructors are wary of giving out too much information about their styles.
4. Time is required. Writing takes time and I know from experience that it is not always easy to find time to put down your thoughts. Many instructors not only teach martial arts but also have full time jobs which leaves little time to write.

I have seen some interesting vlogs out there that I hope can keep going. As for blogs, Is it really a blog if you can't write an entry on anything for months?

James' First Tournament

Just a quick note on the CCKSF tournament from this past weekend. We had one competitor from our school this time around but it was a great experience. James went into his first tournament and won a Bronze in Hand Forms and a Silver in Sparring. Congratulations James. Good showing for your first time out.