24 Feb 2007 2015H

Starting training again

I feel undisciplined lately and I’m unhappy with the picture I have for my profile pic at work. And Spring is almost here. It’s time to whip the mind and body into shape! Therefore, this is going to be my first martial arts entry on this blog ever. At some point soon, I realize, I’m going to have to separate out the work blog entries from the life blog entries, so please bear with me in the meantime.

I’m a student of the Southern Chinese martial art tradition of hung kuen (洪拳), also known as hung gar kung fu (洪家功夫). I was originally interested in lion dance, one of our Cantonese traditional arts, but the foundation for that is martial arts, so I’ve studied on and off for a few years now. A year or so after I first started studying here in Chicago Chinatown, I undertook a kind of journey to understand what exactly the essence of the art actually was, and this entailed talking to many teachers and observing and entering that world we call the gongwu, the world of martial artists and other fringe elements, which traditionally includes the underworld, and which is reknowned for its eccentricity. At some point I realized the best talent was west, so, I stopped for a bit. I started taking classes with a new sifu, Andrew Kong, back a few years ago but as work ramped up I stopped practicing entirely. Now is the time to get back into practice. It will be difficult, since I’m on the road but this gives me, as I see it, some way to get disciplined about it. I keep saying this year after year, but, just as elimination of student debt was my last goal to take on, it’s done now, so this now is my next major goal.

What do I like about this martial art? To begin with, it’s a Southern Chinese tradition, not a northern one, so there is some provincial prejudice here, but it really does feel more “natural” to me than almost any other martial arts form, even other rival schools in Southern China. (Natural doesn’t mean comfortable though. It’s quite painful and frustratingly difficult.) Next, the teacher I study with is a good guy, which is really important to me, because teachers have to have good character. Finally, I sense, in a very real way — just about every time he hits me, which is pretty often — that our gung fu is genuine and the expression of physical power is well understood, controlled, and with practice I can understand how to express and control it as well. So. The first step is to start building strength and stamina, and to get reacquainted with the lessons of the past. Lots of forms practice on the way.

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