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.