Does Martial Arts Build Character?

I received a question on my views on whether or not the claim by some that Martial Arts builds character outside the class is true. My answer is a definite yes and no...it depends on a variety of factors including the student, the instructor and the school.

My belief is training in Martial Arts will build something in everyone beginning with a person's weaknesses but this is not necessarily anything to do with character. It could be completely physical or mental. For example, if a person has a bad memory, this will be the limiting factor in their training and all other areas of training cannot progress until the memory improves. If another student has limited endurance, they may not have the opportunity to test their memory because they are exhausted before they get to that point.

So what areas are built through Martial Arts? These include:

• Humility - during training a student will discover that there are many better Martial Artists in the world and even a frail old man may be able to defeat them in a fighting situation
• Patience - Martial Arts is all about repetition and a typical Martial Arts school will force a student to pass certain gates before progressing to their next level of learning
  
• Persistence - nobody will be able to do everything without failure but with persistence everyone is able to succeed in learning and performing techniques taught by their instructor
  
• Self discipline - certain points in a student's training will require their own discipline which was covered in my previous blog entry Fighting Through Monotony
• Respect - for tradition, for other students, for instructors
• Confidence or courage - students that have learned how to defend themselves will be much more confident walking down the street at night, students that have performed in front of a crowd will be less likely to be intimidated by speaking in front of a crowd and students that have seen a punch coming straight for their face is less likely to be scared in a non-physical, confrontational discussion
  

Given this information it would seem that I believe that the absolute answer is yes, Martial Arts will build character. My qualifiers are the attitudes of the student and the instructor as well as the school itself.

• Does the student want to learn with an open mind or are they at the school with the attitude that they pay their money and therefore are entitled to certain things?
  
• Does the instructor treat the class like his/her Martial Arts family or is this a business to them?
• Does the school push students through their program so they can sell a franchise to that student or does the school recognize based on actual level of the student?
• Does the instructor believe in tradition or is it purely fighting that is important such as in boxing or Mixed Martial Arts? Furthermore, does the school have a tradition and lineage that is discussed?
• Why is the student there? Is it because their Mom signed them up or did they truly want to learn Martial Arts for their own reasons?
  

Generally, the students will build character when they join and attend a Martial Arts class regularly but signing up only gives the opportunity to learn and build character. The student still needs to make sure that they work hard and listen while they are in class.

Chinese New Year Demo

Our school performed at the Hainan Association's Chinese New Year dinner this past Saturday. Unfortunately, due to video camera difficulties, we were unable to get the first 2 performances in our demo. It is too bad because it is always nice to have some footage of the newer members of our demo group. Here is a video with a a mix of the forms we were able to capture on video. Unfortunately, the video quality was not great because it was with our backup camera.



For those that were not filmed, here are a couple of pics that at least prove that you were on stage.



Here is a nice picture at the end of our part of the show.



Thanks again for everyone that helped out and Michael for his guest appearance. You all did a great job!!!

The Forbidden Kingdom and Kung Fu Panda

2 movies coming up.

The Forbidden Kingdom - Jet Li and Jacky Chan together in a movie!!! That should be fun to watch.




Kung Fu Panda - An entertaining looking animated movie...how can you go wrong with Jack Black?

Most Annoying Kung Fu Phone Calls

I often get people calling me about trying classes. I am happy to offer a free trial class to anyone that is interested regardless of their level of experience. I am also often in a position where I am accepting new students. Personally, I find these phone calls to be painful, especially as the person tries in some way to prove they know something. This is the main reason I prefer e-mail contact with a short list of questions on location, cost, training times etc.

Here are some of the most frustrating discussion points that I run into regularly:

• The prospective student for some reason feels that I need to have a very detailed breakdown of all of their previous Martial Arts experience. I really don't care what someone was years ago...if they are joining my school, they need to learn my basic techniques. I don't need a 10 minute Martial Arts biography.
• Come try the class and experience it when invited. Don't ask questions about what exactly will be done in class....if I explain everything that is going to happen then why would a trial class be necessary?
  
• Why do people that don't understand ask to compare our style to another style. I often get asked if we are similar to Wing Chun and when I try to clarify, the person actually knows nothing about Wing Chun so I could say anything and it would not make a difference.
• Is this the right class for me? I don't know....you just called me up out of the blue...I have never met you. Try some different schools and choose one that you like.
• What is the best Martial Art style? For these people, the answer is any style but mine....please go find one of those schools. Actually, I think I spoke about the school that claimed to be the best style in one of my previous entries...here's the link.
  
• When do I get to fight? Any time you like....go to a bar and punch someone in the head...congratulations, you get to fight.
• Then there are the people who have asked some good questions but instead of hanging up, start asking dumb questions just to continue the conversation....
• The people that describe their health issues and ask me if the style will help them. I don't know....I am not a doctor!!!! I can definitely assure you that it is better for you than sitting on a couch eating a bag of Doritos.
• How fast can I reach your highest rank? How should I know? Try showing up to class and giving us an idea of how quickly you learn, how well you correct mistakes and how diligent you are at showing up to every class for the next few years. At that point, I can give you an educated guess.

This is a list of some of the discussions I have with people that call in. I'm sure there are other things that I am missing that I will think of over time.

Grandmaster Chen Rong En and the Knife

Some of my students will remember this story if they were around 7 or 8 years ago. Back at that time Grandmaster Chen Rong En still had his own school and I brought my students there once a week to practice and get direct exposure to my Sifu. I thought it was important for the students to get as much time as possible with Sifu since he was always happy to help me by correcting techniques and explaining theories. In exchange for his help, I allowed any of his students that were interested to join our class without paying an extra fee. This was before I formed The National Fut Gar Kung Fu Training Centre as it exists today.

One night I was teaching a regular class at Sifu's school. There was a group of people that had asked Sifu to borrow the back room of his school to get together to play cards. Sifu was talking to me as the students trained when suddenly we heard yelling coming from the back room. We looked over and one older gentleman came running out and said someone pulled out a knife due to an argument. We all knew that there was no back door so everyone could only come through us. Sifu told me to close the door behind him...when I tried to argue, he told me not to worry and just to make sure that my students were OK. I quickly asked the younger students and female student (I believe there was only one present at that class) to go in the change room and close the door until we told them it was OK. Sifu had already gone into the back room and closed the door. I instinctively grabbed my sword and my senior students grabbed their staves. Here is the funny part....we looked over and the older gentleman that had come out of the back room was holding a mop!!! We all waited....silence. We continued to wait.....still nothing. Finally Sifu came out of the back room and said don't worry, everything is OK. We watched the guy that was holding the knife leave...without his knife. Once everything seemed OK we got the students back and finished the class.

I later asked Grandmaster Chen if he had to fight the guy. He said no. I clarified...so he just put down his knife? Yes. Finally Sifu explained to me what happened. He walked in and the guy was very angry. He had pulled his knife because he had gotten into a dispute with one of the people in the room. Apparently he was not a person that knew them very well but was brought by one of them. When he walked in the room and closed the door, he asked the guy if he realized where he was. He said "you are pulling a weapon on my friends inside my Kung Fu school. You are giving me no choice but to kill you." The guy put down his knife and apologized. Sifu told him he should leave. That was the end of the conflict and we never saw the guy again.

Grandmaster Chan Tai San and the Tough Guy

I was passing on this story to one of the students tonight and remembered that it is actually a very funny story about Grandmaster Chan Tai San that should be told.

I was practicing a form in my normal spot, the park across the street from the apartment where Sifu was staying. It was convenient because he could watch me from the kitchen and if needed yell instructions at me from the window. I remember that I was practicing a broadsword form. This was back in the days when people carried around ghetto blasters on their shoulders. This guy was walking down the street and decided to stop and watch me. As usual when people stopped to watch me, I just kept on practicing and ignored the guy. He turned up his music on his ghetto blaster....I continued to ignore him. He started saying something but being the bright guy he was, didn't realize that I couldn't hear him over his music so I kept ignoring him. By that time Sifu had noticed him and come down to the park. Mr. tough guy looked at Sifu and said something like "what do you want, old man?" Sifu smiles at him and waves him closer. The guy walks up to Sifu and Sifu does a series of actions to his arm....really innocent looking stuff like pull his arm, squeeze a few spots, pat his shoulder, etc. Then Sifu walks away. The guy is confused and goes away and I return to my form....about 5-10 minutes later the guy comes back and starts yelling at me...."What did he do to my arm? He better tell me or else!!!" Trying not to laugh, I asked what was wrong. He said his arm was in a lot of pain and the old man better fix it. I yelled for Sifu to come down and told him that the guy wants his arm fixed. This is where it gets really funny....

Sifu goes through a series of interesting motions....poking the guy, touching the guy's nose, pulling his ears, rubbing his head, rubbing his shoulders...all of it with a big grin on his face. Then he walks away. The guy says tell him that it still hurts....all of that did nothing!!! I translated and Sifu says tell him it will feel better later. The guy goes away and returns about half an hour later. Still trying to be a tough guy, he explains to me that the old man was lucky because his arm feels better now.

Watch and Feel in Fighting

As we train ourselves to fight, we need to understand what to do with our eyes...where to look, what to watch. In general it is good to watch the upper body while separated from your opponent. Some people say watch the eyes as you will be able to see the intent of your opponents while others say watch the shoulders.

I believe there is more than one answer to this. If you are always watching the eyes, I believe you can be faked out but I also believe that watching the shoulders will put you in danger of falling for shoulder fakes. I recommend a combination. I watch eyes to look for intent of the opponent and watch the entire upper body for an indication of my opponent closing distance. While at a distance, I recommend using your peripheral vision to look for strikes coming from different angles. Your peripheral vision should allow you to monitor both arms and both legs of your opponent.

Once engaged in the fight, meaning a strike has been thrown (and hopefully you have blocked successfully) you should use the feel built during your sensitivity training. As long as you have contact with your opponent's hand (assuming the strike was a hand strike of some sort) you will be able to feel any moves he tries with that hand. In this case, you now focus your eyes on the hand that is not engaged and allow your peripheral vision watch the kicks. In many cases you will be able to feel your opponent move to kick as they shift their weight.

New Year Wishes

Happy Chinese New Year!!!!!

Keep training hard. Let's make it another great year at the school. This year also is the 20th anniversary for our school starting in the beginning as a Lama and Choy Li Fut class back in 1988 all the way through our transition to focus on Fut Gar Kung Fu.

Thanks for everything.
Sifu.

Generating Power in Fut Gar Kung Fu

Students of my school will understand that generation of striking power in Fut Gar Kung Fu is different from the generation of power of most other Martial Arts styles. Fut Gar does not use a Gung Bo (Front/Bow Stace) in its hand forms. The theory is that pushing your weight forward into a Gung Bo to generate power will produce too much forward momentum which allows another martial artist to pull you off balance with a quick grab and pull.

Generation of power in Fut Gar Kung Fu comes from a combination of pulling backwards with your non-striking arm and turning at the waist. Pulling back the non-striking arm should be done as hard as possible as if you were throwing an elbow strike. Grandmaster Chen Rong En speaks about Leung Tin Chiu as someone who would create a snapping sound every time he pulled his arm back. As students train in Fut Gar they will be instructed on where the elbow should end up based on the strike being thrown. The pull will generally be in the exact opposite direction of the strike being thrown. The back should be kept straight and the body should pivot on an axis that is straight up and down.