Beginner at the Beach

I was practicing Kung Fu at a beach in Quincy while watching my kids. The stones really made me think that, yeah okay, I'm not saying a fight here wouldn't go to the ground. But ideally, if it did, you would just make the other person roll on the uncomfortable rocks while you remained on top.

I got down into a really low stance and did Sup Ji, the first form. Then I did it left handed because Sifu Ed Woodruff had mentioned that in Hung Gar they actually required you to do one of the forms left handed. While this was something mentioned in my training, it wasn't required in order to move on to the next forms. In fact, I ended up skipping a punches of forms and filling them in later.

 I don't know if I'm just much worse than I was, or if I usually didn't get down so low or what. But man I was pooped doing these forms... and I know that people looking at me would think I was a beginner.

I recalled doing this form in Highschool and how whenever smeone looked at me, I would do my form fancier and faster so that I wouldn't look like I sucked.

Now, years later, I was looking like a nube doing the same form. But I was enjoying it. And I realized that it's not like you really need to teach a lot of Kung Fu to an individual necessarily.

I also thought, as I was getting tired, of a conversation I had in the playground with a woman who had doen Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. She had talked about stopping the practice for a month and then going back to it and being totally worn out. I thought, Of course martial arts is better done in pairs against someone. But the forms are something you can do on your own. Maybe people saw that certain people who did forms were able to become pretty good and so that was how the forms became the main focus of the practice. After all you look at Rickson Gracie in "Choke" and he is doing Yoga and flexibilty drills and all sorts of other stuff on his own. Now in group of jiu jitsu practitioners where everyone is equal but he stands out, they may look at that aspect and say 'That's why he is better.' and so that becomes the focus of the practice.

Also, rolling aroun don the ground is how children fight. So when all kids do this as a base, and then they start to learn Kung Fu and things change a little, the ground fighting will sort of be taken out of the Martial arts side of the practice.

Of course there was a Hakka form of Kung Fu that was all Ground fighting. In fact it started out on the ground. Though I believe they must have been fast moving too and not lying on their back they way you saw the Gracie's do in some of the fights where Sakuraba just wailed on them.  That is not a good strategy, especially if there are many people. However, that doesn't mean you can't fight multiple people fro the ground with other techniques.

All this went through my head. As well as the fact that the beach is a fun place to practice. And the environment can teach you about your form by being rocky or smooth or by the water providing resistance.

I only practiced a little, not a lot, because after all my purpose for being there was to be with my children.