Learning Kung Fu vs, Teaching Kung Fu

It's nice to be a student. recently I started doing a cardio kickboxing class. Like I am the weird dude in socks next to old ladies type of kick boxing class. Okay its not all old ladies. there are some young people in it too. And I actually still have to pace myself and not through the kicks as fast as the instructor is. believe it or not, I never worked on the Bruce Lee side kicks as much after I started formally training in Kung Fu. Even now, I am really only doing it because of the class. It is fun and i am pouring sweat. Its fun to just listen to the music, follow instructions, not think and try to survive.

My kids are doing Wushu and sort of not enjoying it... but hey its not like we have to do this forever. I mean... I know Kung Fu... they can learn from me to.. if they chose to. In fact, they have learned a lot. They have forgotten a lot... but even what they have retained is ok.


We might check out an MMA place and I will probably be starting to learn some BJJ and Muay Thai with the kids this summer too. I am actually excited about this.

Does this mean I will stop doing Kung Fu? No. Kung Fu is part of my life.. in fact it is part of my home life. Learning something new doesn't mean you are throwing away something old.

Does it mean I will stop teaching Kung Fu? Of course not. Will I change the way I teach? Actually I have been changing the way i teach all along and have been thinking more about a way to simplify what I do and also having visited other schools and gyms, how I would want to approach everything if i were to open my own school.


The truth is, I am actually going back more and more to village way of teaching. Because if I were going to teach I would want my classes to be cheap, maybe even on a red envelope honor system type method. I know this is crazy.... but I think that's what I would want if I were in charge. Like you would pass by a lion head and feed that lion head your tuition or donation.

I also want eight stations, like the eight fold path.

Writing them out, I realized I sort of just created a repackaging of what I already do and that it really wasn't simple enough. Instead of the eight fold path being a linear progression, it is circular and each spoke of the wheel relies on the other. One could say there are levels to the path itself. Or maybe they could be like stations.

Chuen pow cup vs. Woo Ching's White Crane basics.

Side note: the deer from the last post lived!

Most people actually don't know much or even care much about martial arts, let alone Kung Fu or pre wushu kung fu.

But for a time in southern China it was all anyone cared about. Kung Fu was Goksuton, the country's art and 90% of the people in the South did Hung Gar or something like it.

In Taishan Stereotype for White Crane (although called other names and people like yo say Tibetan white crane to distinguish from Fujianese white crane, the truth is, everyone in the the area where my Sifu was from, where Chan Hak Fu was from. Knew bak hok was THAT white crane and everyone sort of knew white crane too. Or the basic, or sometimes the "secret" if white crane. The people calling it a secret are non white crane kung Fu practitioners.  And the basics or secret that was common knowledge was Chuen, pow, cup.

Basically a straight punch, a long range uppercut which can also be used as a block and a downward hammer fist. And an over the head haymaker that can be continuous and double sided.

I have battled. With how to teach the basics but Chuen pow cup has such a ring to it and is so simple that I feel like it holds a real essence there. Like it can be it's own stand alone system if fighting and it is also something so simple that you can put it on top of any Kung Fu or martial arts system. Ie BJJ with Chuen pow cup for striking. The movements also used to be very natural for kids. I feel that the smart phone has changed that. But conversely, these movements can also provide a yogic alignment type benefit.


I feel like three moves us easier yo use as your base than say 11 which is the number of basics my Sifu arranged as a way to convert Hung Gar practitioners to white crane. Those 11 moves are my household "basics"

And while like I said, 3 is a better number than 11, there are aspects important to development that kind of require the 11, even though every dude in Doushan worth his salt in a fight probably got by just fine with Chuen pow cup alone.

1: twisting waist turning body.


What happens if you start with a punch and tell people to turn? They end up not turning. Unless you break it down and hammer it in to people that they have to turn, like all the way, the will lean forward hunch in smart phone frog position and not turn. People hate this basic. But its necessary
2: spearing hand


Dude when would you really hurt with you fingers? Unless you have super hard fingers? Why not start with a punch?

Interestingly, boxers will practice "punching" with a loose or open hand. Also chap sauce helps to strengthen your fingers. Basically this one and the

3: Push hand tui jerng, stiff arm

Work to develop the muscle that help you to have a strong

4: Cheun kuen. Straight punch

The Chuen in Chuen pow cup.

All of the previous moves have their own legit combat applications. Elbowing. Eye poking, nose breaking, and those are used and taught in self defense classes and martial arts studios across systems.


But I am saying that the are also necessary in terms of development of the body. Almost like a physical therapy. In fact, these moves ARE used as physical therapy when treating patients.


The next two moves are hard to learn how to practice, which is why I often take them out of kids classes. I hate watching people practice the moves wrong and I cant get them to do the right move easily. For class I only need them because they feature both in the first form, Sup Ji, and on the fancier lion dance opening. And if done wrong, they don't look good. Done right they look real tough. But for whatever reason even kids practicing for many years will do it wrong.


Interestingly, I have talked to many non martial artists who just happened to use aspects of

5: chuen kuen hew siew hought kiew.

In a real self defense situation with no training. It's just a natural move. The follow up on the move has to be trained though.

6: Chuen kuen chang jerng hought kiew
Is used in many self defense police courses.

So they are useful.

I still hate them as a teacher.

7: ha wu Juen sun
Is probably the easiest basic and is just swinging your arms low. Would you believe  I accidentally used this move as a strike (illegally) in a boxing sparring match?

I never thought much of this move until then. But it came out because it was already in my body.
8 us pow kuen. The pow in chuen pow cup.

9 is cup.

10 is been ngau a back fist and hook which is similar to the drum move in Karate Kid 2.
But we actually turn our waist more that Daniel was turning. And we use it with a more boxing strategy. (Btw Tibetan white crane was mixed with western boxing
Like wayyyyy back. After all the Brits had a presence in Southern China for a long time and there was more exchange than you would think, especially among people trying to make money anyway possible, which included a lot of Westerners. When you think about it, it makes sense.


11 is Cheun kuen jaubyau hei bo. It introduces slipping and lifting the knee in preparation for kicking. It's also great cardio, develop a the look of the leg used in lion dance, and just has that classical Chinese Kung Fu look.

Then of course you do the first ten moves again walking....aiyaH too much to remember if you only do a class once a week....so should I go back to just doing Cheun pow cup?

My thing is. If you really want to practice, you wont care that you can't remember all the moves.....
Then again, maybe people would practice more if I started with just the churn pow cup and then added in the rest as a secret training method....food for thought.

Baby Deer

I little baby deer
a little body resting in the grass
injured and tired
blinking at me as I walk by.
My heart is not big enough to pick you up in my arms.
Instead I know I will leave you for the vultures
Because I have to go to work?
Because I have to get my kids to school?
These are things humans made up.
But life is sacred.
And yet I run away from real life toward the routine of the daily grind.
To do things that I hate to do.
Yell at my kids to brush there teeth.

Instead of you, I pick up my son in my arms,
because he is tired, and cannot move.

Not because he was struck by a car as you must have been.
But because he has slept a warm and comfortable night in a warm and comfortable bed.



If you were dead already, I would not feel bad.

I wouldn't even feel bad if I ate you.
But I don't even know how to prepare you to eat
because I was never taught.

Instead I will eat some processed bread and jelly for breakfast because my kids couldn't finish it in time, brush my teeth, and go to work.

Possible Lion Dances in June

Okay so we have a few possible Lion dances coming up next week.

June 8

At 11:30am we have a lion dance at Mid Jesrsey Chinese school.

Mei San Graduation.I thi k we perform at 1:30 but we will be there anyway.

4:30pm Teacher's appreciation dinner.


6:30 NJ Shaolin anniversary party.

Then June 9 is the opening of little movers Kiddie Gym also at NJ Shaolin. Gotta confirm the time for that.



 Maybe I should be taking pictures and posting on my personal blog like I used to in Boston, and writing more about what happened. The reason why I haven't been is an incorrect mentality and perception. I was viewing the Boston. Chinatown community as somehow more real to me or more worth writing about...  or maybe more interesting. Whatever the excuse, it was a false perception. My reality us NJ now and I feel like I am trying to build up something here. And I should be better about documenting that.