What Can A Kung Fu Student Do?

Every single student in a class progresses and improves...I guarantee that as long as you go to classes and put in some effort, you will improve.  The more important thing is how to maximize your training.  Each person learns at a different pace so here are some tips to help do your best.

1. Learn something every class - This does not mean that you need to learn a new technique or a new part of your form every class.  What I mean is that you need to listen to corrections from your instructor, discover a more effective way to execute a technique that you know, remember that move that you always get stuck on, etc.
2. Retain what you learn - Once you learn something in class, you need to ensure that you remember that for next class.  To progress you need to be able to retain your past learning and execute on them so you can focus on learning more instead of relearning something.
3. Find your capacity - How much can you learn and retain?  This is different in every person.  Some people can learn and retain one thing each class while others might be able to learn and retain more things.  Kung Fu is not a contest so don't worry about someone else's pace.  
4. Repeat - Repetition is the thing that will give your body the muscle memory to execute a technique or form.  Ensure that you are spending your time repeating what you learn.
5. Question yourself - Ask yourself if you are actually doing this correctly as you practice.  Ask yourself if you understand why you are doing something.  Ask yourself what you can work on to make your techniques better.
6. Listen - So many lessons are taught in our classes.  Instructors are teaching students, senior students are teaching junior students, fellow students are discussing techniques with each other, etc.  Listen to what is being taught and hopefully you will catch a few pieces of information that you may not have known before.
7. Show up physically - During my career as an instructor I have been fortunate enough to be in situations where I could almost always be available for classes.  The harder part is being in the habit of going to class on days when you are tired or would prefer to be doing something else.  
8. Show up mentally - Once you have arrived in class it is now time to prepare to focus.  Get yourself prepared to pay attention to the instructors and focus on the techniques you are working on.
9. Be proud of yourself - You work hard and continue to improve.  Martial arts training is a journey that can last a lifetime so be sure that you remind yourself that you have continued when hundreds, thousands or millions of others did not continue after starting.   

Learn A Bit At A Time

Learning Kung Fu is not an exact science.  Each student learns at a different pace and has different levels of natural ability, coordination, learning aptitude, focus and self motivation.  Everybody loves learning new techniques and forms but it is important to remember to take your tome to allow your body and mind to absorb the new material.  It is natural to think that you can absorb more than you were taught but it is best to channel that energy into repetitions of the things you learned in the current and past classes.  It is almost impossible to be correct without repeated execution.  Remember to take as much joy in improving as you do in learning new.  This will greatly increase your overall result over time.

When Should Kids Learn Kung Fu?

Although I don't teach a regular children's class at this time, I have often been asked what age is ideal for kids to begin Kung Fu training. The real answer is as soon as they are able to focus for an entire class and understand instructions.

My recommended earliest age for children to begin training is around age 5. Some kids are able to start younger if they show the maturity to stay mentally engaged throughout the class. The best situation is to have them training in a class designed specifically for kids instead of having them in with a group of adults but sometimes there is no choice.

Want to Move On? Demonstrate the Technique.

I thought I would share a discussion I had with an old traditional kung fu practitioner. We were discussing the attitudes we encounter here in Canada from eager students who want to progress through the ranks. This particular person spoke about the school where he trained in Asia. In traditional schools, it was not acceptable to demand progression from your instructors. It is understood that when you are ready to move on, you will move on. In the school we discussed, the students were taught at a slow pace to ensure that each technique or combination was correct before being allowed to move on. If a student every had the nerve to state that they were ready to learn more, the instructor would put them up on a stage with one of the senior students. The test was to show that you can execute the techniques you learned so far in a fighting situation. If you failed, the consequence was to start your training over from the beginning of the form. Of course it was almost impossible to be good enough to win with a short seriese of techniques so this was a very discouraging proposition. Although this may be the extreme, I do believe the basic lesson is correct. Your instructors are the judge of when you are "ready" to move ahead. It is great to have passion towards your training and natural to want to progress quickly but kung fu has no short cuts.

Combinations in Forms

As students of Kung Fu learn forms they must understand that it is very important to eventually understand where the combinations are in their forms. This goes back to the stages of learning a form:

1. Learning and executing the moves/techniques of the form - Every student begins learning a form by just trying to remember what the sequence of techniques are and how to properly execute these techniques.
   
2. Learning the combinations within the form - Once you know the individual techniques it is time to understand which techniques belong together because they are a combination. These need to flow together in the form.
   
3. Learning large sections of the form - For the sake of being able to practice your longer forms, it is often difficult to repeatedly perform the entire form as a method of practice. The forms can be broken up into sections of 1/3 or 1/4 of the form allowing the student to practice at full power/speed without burning out after a few runs through the form. This allows you to work on transitions between combinations.
   
4. Putting it all together to generate an entire form - This is the combination of all sections into one form that looks correct. The student must be able to maintain their flow, power and speed throughout the entire form.
   

The most difficult transition of all these stages may be going from executing individual techniques to combining techniques into a 3-5 move sequence that looks like there is purpose and belongs together. It should be clear when you have "finished the attack" on one opponent in your form and are moving to the next opponent.