5 Tips to Learning Kung Fu

As students join Kung Fu and begin their training they will find the amount of information that needs to be picked up to be overwhelming. Not only is there a huge amount of information to remember, there is also a correct way to perform everything. Here are a few pointers to help in your training.

1. Practice, practice, practice. The only way to get better at your techniques is to repeat them until they are natural body movements for you. Not only do you need to practice, you need to practice correctly. Yes, you will often be doing something wrong without realizing it until an instructor corrects you but try your best to do it as you feel is correct. Remember that practice does not have to take place in class.
   
2. Learn the corrections. You will be corrected by instructors. When this happens make sure you execute the corrections as soon as possible and find a way to maintain the corrections moving forward. By not keeping the corrections, you are choosing to waste your time because you will be corrected again in the future.
3. Don't get caught up in the little details....yet. You are just learning a technique and are probably not performing it perfectly yet. Why question the use of the technique or debate the different ways to defend against the technique? Get it down first....ask questions later if needed. Often an answer becomes clear when you move further in your training.
4. Basics such as stances, blocks and strikes need constant work. Don't forget about your basic forms just because you have learned your newer, cooler techniques. Everything begins with strong basics and builds from there.
5. Be patient. Working on a single form or technique even after you have become comfortable with it is a good thing. When you are bored of them, you will probably be able to mentally discover alternate uses for the techniques. The instructors want you to progress just as much as you do but you need to be ready. Resist the urge to ask any question that starts with "When do I get to..."

As you can see, all of these things are within the control of the individual student. The student must find the self discipline to execute.

Another Silly Kung Fu School

I have to start by saying I did not find this article. It was posted on a forum and being discussed. A new type of martial arts for the BVI - Christian Gung-Fu is an article about a school. Of course this forced me to respond.

Here is my response in the forum:
I have nothing against Christian Kung Fu, especially since one of the most active schools in my area is the Christian Wushu Fellowship, a Kung Fu school with a pretty impressive group of students.

I do find it odd that someone studied Judo, TKD and JJ and believes they can create their own Kung Fu style. Not only do they create their own Chinese style out of their training in non-Chinese styles, they also claim that their style is the best: "Sifu Hewlett also explained what makes this new style unique and more effective than any other"....interesting.

My opinion is if this person really is a Sifu, he would have discussed his training in Kung Fu, not the other styles. If he really knows as many styles as he claims to incorporate into his style, he is probably not an expert in any of them and at best probably knows the basics of these styles. If he is a real martial artist he would have some respect for other styles instead of just claiming that his "chop suey" style is the best.

Yes, I am a grouchy dude to begin with but this type of stuff just frustrates the heck out of me. AAARRGH!!!!

Get The Facts Straight - Or Don't Try to be a Kung Fu Historian!!!

It's finally time for me to rant about this website in Australia which is magically making up some details about the Fut Gar Style. This guy would have had the same degree of accuracy if he went on YouTube and randomly chose some forms and listed them as forms taught in the Fut Gar style.

Their site says:

There are now ten empty-hand forms starting with a hard, almost karate-like form, all the way to an internal form similar to taiji quan. The forms are:
· Seah Ying Diu Sau (Snake Form)
· Tai Ji Kuen (Prince's Form)
· Bak Mok (White Hair)
· Lohan Kuen (Monk's Fist)
· Dai Lin Wan (Large Connection)
· Dai Gum Gong (Big Solid Body)
· Chut Yup Bo (Out In Step)
· Maang Fu Ha San (Fierce Tiger Descending the Mountain)
· Tien Jaang (Complete Elbow)

First of all this guy can't count....he has listed 9 forms when he says there are ten. Secondly there are 11 hand forms in the Fut Gar system but the last form was traditionally only taught to the most senior, loyal students of the style...don't worry, all my students will have the opportunity to learn the form at some time :) Thirdly only 4 of the forms listed were actually Fut Gar forms.

So...why do I care?
Reason #1: As someone that has been asked to continue the lineage of Leung Tin Chiu's Fut Gar Kung Fu, I like to see as much information as possible available to the world but it would be nice if the information were correct.

Reason #2: This person basically scraped my school's website for any mention of form names and included them in his site...it is clear from our website that although we focus on Fut Gar, we also teach Lama and Choy Li Fut at our school so we list some of those forms on our site. The list of forms are all forms that are listed on my site and definitely are not a combination of forms that are taught anywhere else...it is impossible to "acquire" the list from anywhere else.

Reason #3: No attempt was made to contact us for clarification that the information they were quoting was correct. I am happy to help with appropriate information when asked and would definitely have clarified.

How do I know that the information was scraped from my site? Since he linked to my site, I know he has read my site.

So then they talk about weapons:

The nine original weapons were staff, spear, straight sword, broadsword, butterfly swords, kwan do, tiger fork, three-sectional staff, and the monk's spade. Some of Fut Gar weapons’ forms include:
· Hak Loong Dao (Black Dragon Broadsword)
· Fook Fu Gwun (Tiger Taming Staff)
· Ng Ma Quite Show (Five Horses Returning to the Feeding Post Staff)
· Loong Chien Gim (Dragon Well Sword)

Nice try again.....but only 2 of the forms listed are Fut Gar forms. Once again, these forms are taken off of my site and an assumption was made that they are Fut Gar. On top of that, in our branch Fut Gar Kung Fu there were not nine original weapons. Not sure where this information came from....could it be from some pictures on the website? To be clear, Fut Gar focuses on hand forms, staff forms and has one straight sword form....that is it.

To be fair, they did includes some other information that seems correct and I appreciate the attempt by this person/people to create some sort of background on Fut Gar for the benefit of their students but truly believe that they would have been better off telling the truth when it came to some of the things I have mentioned....they just don't know!!!