Kung Fu Take Tu!

(I’m sorry)

In case you missed the memo at the top of the page, I figured I’d talk about Kung Fu again today. The class I’m in right now is coming to a renewal date and I’ve found myself pondering my options once again. The current Kung Fu class is primarily good for working out – last time I spoke of it the post was me just finally beginning to feel comfortable using the things I’ve learned in the class for self defense. That was after several months of doing the work and from that alone it shouldn’t be hard to infer that the class doesn’t focus entirely on the practical fighting side of things. That really isn’t the problem though; I like getting a good work out and the cardio you get from doing several hundred kicks in an hour is note worthy. No, the class has succeeded in giving me what I initially wanted, it’s just my wants have expanded a tad.

I’ve grown to wonder about more about the traditional side of Kung Fu as well. We’ve been taught the bare basics about how to do a variety of moves, but frankly I’d have a hard time naming more than a couple of them. Everything is starting to turn into “that kick, like this” or “no, the other punch”, maybe “that grapple thing we really can’t do” - which leaves me feel like I’m missing an opportunity here; to learn. I know, it’s not exactly the most common of gripes, but it’s mine.

I do my best learning through practical work. A lot of people are built this way; it’s not exceptionally unique or anything. It’s just that if I have a hands-on portion of whatever I’m learning to occupy my mind I tend to absorb the rest of it more readily. This means I’m sitting there in classes with my brain so open it’s liable to invert, eagerly waiting for traditions and facts about the martial art we’re futzing about with. At the end of the class after several hundred takes on old kicks and learning a new one later I’m left with barely a single factoid to ponder on the way home. This isn’t to say the class has completely abandoned it’s roots; the teacher is still called (I’m going to mangle the spelling of all of these, by the by) Shi-fu – to the point I don’t know if he has another name, they consider the art the mix of Praying mantis Kung Fu and Shoalin boxing, and we have our little bow in at the start and end of every session. That’s it however, there’s no background or additional detail. I can’t blame the course for this; such things are obviously not what they had in mind when they marketed it. It’s simply to get you fit and teach you the art in as straight forward of a manner as possible. It does mean I’d like to find something like incorporates everything though.

Thus I begin my search anew. I’m looking for a place with a more historic feel to it, that’ll embrace any traditions I may still be ignorant of. If I be proven to be utterly wrong in this and all the Kung Fu places (Dojos? Is it dojo for Kung fu? Whatever) follow more or less these guidelines I don’t stand to lose anything. Most places are willing to run things on a month by month basis so I don’t need to invest any large amount of money, and I can always go back to the Algonquin course. It might end up being a bit of a fruitless search however – we went through a half dozen of the highest recommended places around where I live before we found this course we’re currently in. They varied only in precisely how terribly expensive they were and didn’t seem to offer any more tradition pass forcing everyone to wear white uniforms.

There is one bonus to a couple of them though; they offered the chance to go to a class or two to see what it was like before any money changed hands. One even offered a full month’s access (limited time) to check it out before you decided. It’s through those offers that I hope to see what the competition is. I suspect I’ll even stay on at Algonquin while I test the others. After all, signing up for three months for the Algonquin course was hardly more than only one month for a few other dojos.

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Oh, side note here before I end this. First pod cast is complete, going to post it shortly. Ideas for future pod-casts are rolling in, and we may see a few presentations on the long abandoned you-tube channel. We’ll have to see how well hitting people with the encouragement-stick works.