This is more of a curious entry but I thought I would throw it out anyway.
I have had some discussions with students on why they joined my class and have always loved hearing the reasons. What might be even more interesting is why you stayed with the class as some of the students have been with me for over 20 years. I would welcome any comments on this either here or during class. I am also always curious if the reasons you joined Kung Fu held up or if you train for different reasons now. If it was a movie, I would like to hear that you joined Kung Fu to get revenge on some evil martial artist only to decide that you no longer need revenge but decided to stick around anyway because the Sifu was soooooo cool :)
One more question....if you changed your reason for training, was it because you achieved your initial goal?
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6 comments:
I really love Kung Fu and Yaido.
Satellite TV for PC
Ah yaido...the deep art of beheading people.
I joined the NFGKFTC out of a life-long interest in martial arts, although I had never had the opportunity to do much but dabble til then. That, and I wanted to be able to learn how to do something while staying fit (rather than just repetitively lifting heavy objects). I chose kung fu because it seemed like one of the more graceful and well-mannered of the martial arts, and the NFGKFTC because it appeared the school had not forgotten that a martial art must be effective in its application as much as it is artistic in its execution.
I think those reasons are still valid for me today; however, they have been overlaid with a sense of loyalty to my kung fu "family" and being comfortable with the personality of the class. I'm also more deeply appreciative of the way that kung fu reveals one's current physical limitations, but rewards hard work and constant practice.
However, I am still striving to achieve my goal of acquiring magical powers like flying through treetops and the ever-elusive "dim mak".
the proper spelling is Iaido. The article "the deep art of beheading people" is fraught with inaccuracies!
Iaido is traditionally called BattÅjutsu, which means The Way of Drawing Sword.
Iaido is one of the funniest martial art (albeit deadly), there's four components:
1. drawing sword.
2. cut down imaginary opponent.
3. funny part: wipe off the imaginary blood off of your sword.
4. sheath sword.
PS. when a katana is made, it's often tested on live prisoners. they dont "behead" per se. they try to cut through the prisoners. the sword is ranked "1-man", "2-man" etc based on how many people you can cut through. now that's fucked up!
I joined Kung Fu because I got bored with Kendo AND I am culturally drawn to Kung Fu after watching too many Kung Fu TV shows when I was in China.
Kung fu has being an expression of my deep desire to acquire strength - physically, psychologically and spiritually. The reason I say it is a "deep" desire is because it roots from a feeling of "fear" buried in my psyche due to:
1. various childhood/adolescent traumas
2. extremely over-protective and hypochondriac family
3. a feeling of vulnerability all TRUE agnostics share.
The recognition of the previous points triggered a paradigm shift in my internal representation of the universe. Now, kung fu is a mean to practice the "courage" and "strength" that resides within myself.
The reason for this practice is to protect myself, my loved ones, and the society at large.
ps. I think that psychology is largely overlooked by the field of modern martial art. this is one of my major training interests.
When I told one of my friends in India that I am learning Kung-fu, he asked, “Do you mean that you are reading a book on Kung-fu?”
Seriously, I didn’t know anything about martial arts and never had any plans of learning one. I don’t even watch action movies! When Kai told me that he learnt Kung-fu, I casually said that I would like to try it once. I didn’t know that Kai would take it seriously. After turning him down two-three times I decided to go for one class just so that he does not feel bad.
But when I came for the first class, it clicked. I forgot about all my worries when trying to balance on one leg and trying to make sense why everyone made fun of each other. Something made me happy and in spite of my sore quadriceps which made me take elevator to reach my office on second floor, I decided to go for the following class and the one after and the one after…
Joining the team has taught me two things –
Nerds can try out cool stuff and one can fall in love at first sight ;)
PG
p.s. – Sifu you sure are cooool!
…why did I join Kung Fu…and specifically your school….wow well me the drama queen/hippy/emo/teenybopper will try to answer these questions without going off on too many tangents ;)
I always loved martial arts, but for many reasons, just never did it...maybe because I thought I couldn’t, it wasn’t my time or it wasn’t possible. Then a few months before I moved to Toronto I tried Karate, liked it, and was really disappointed when I had to leave it behind.
When I finally got to Toronto, life was so busy working in the music industry and living that lifestyle, I never really thought about Martial Arts again. Shortly after, certain circumstances lead me to quit that industry and I went back to school for Acupuncture and TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) - a total 180. Slowly in our program we were learning Dao-Yin, TaiJi Quan and QiGong and that desire for Martial Arts came back, but it HAD to be Kung Fu.
So I contacted all the schools in downtown Toronto and even visited a couple…but one in particular never got back to me - the one I really wanted - The National Fut Gar Kung Fu Training Centre! Honestly, I was just about to give up on the whole Martial Arts thing again, since I wasn’t into the schools I visited. ‘Oh Amrit, maybe it wasn’t meant to be’ I told myself, secretly peeking on our school’s website to see, ‘Did I really read the information right? Does a school like this exist in Toronto? Did I get the right e-mail addy? Are these stories real? Are they not getting back to me because it’s some kind of special invite only school???’ So with no response, I was about to rip up the idea of Kung Fu and throw it away like a Grade School Valentine’s Day card, but then I got a response from Sifu.
So I went to try out a class with NO idea what to expect at all, because I never pictured myself doing Kung Fu, I just knew I needed to do it…and it was hard, especially for me – the one who haaates to work out. However, inside I felt like I didn’t have a choice – ‘Look Amrit you wanted Kung Fu, here it is, this is the only school you liked, it’s everything you wanted, now step up.’ So really in my mind, I didn’t have an option to stay or leave.
This school is amazing for so many reasons, the teaching style, dedication, environment, history, stories - it’s realness. Personally though, I know if it wasn’t for how nice, supportive, and understanding everyone in class is (yeah, okay, including you too Sifu!), I wouldn’t have stayed and then that would have been the end of Martial Arts and I, again.
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