My Kung Fu Journey – Day One

A few days ago, I discussed what brought me into a Kung Fu school this past weekend. Today, I’d like to begin chronicling my journey through learning Kung Fu, and my thoughts and impressions as I go along.

Despite having a pretty terrible day yesterday, I decided at the last minute to suck it up and go to class. I’d spent the last couple of days thinking about Kung Fu and Tai Chi, and it seemed like a waste to not show up the first chance I got.

As I pulled up to the school, I found the social anxiety creeping in. I didn’t have my wife to lean on this time around, but I took a deep breath, and headed inside, not 100% sure what to expect. Luckily, after just a few moments of standing around awkwardly, another student struck up a conversation with me and it led to me discussing my past martial arts experience. It turns out this student, along with her husband, trained at the same school my mom did, and they knew my mom. I guess, I shouldn’t be too surprised considering how much time my mom spent in the Tae Kwon Do circles in this town, but it was a nice way to connect with strangers, and it immediately made me feel more comfortable.

The first class up was Tai Chi, and this class was triple the size it was on Saturday. After a short warm up, we went through the first part of the 24 Combined Form, which just slightly surpassed what I learned on Saturday. After a few walkthroughs, myself and another new student were placed with another instructor who helped us work through the form, along with improving our stances and hand movements.

Something I noticed on Saturday is that my mind is way more ridged than it once was. Learning these choreographed moves is a bit of a struggle for me, since I haven’t challenged my brain to memorize something in quite some time, let alone while moving my body. I cannot express how difficult this is right now, and it’s something I really didn’t think would be an issue.

But it’s challenging in a good way. I know I’m building new neuropathways and that’s only good for my brain. That’s the type of behavior that helps keep the brain pliable and wards off dementia. So, unlike how I’ve spent a good portion of my adult life, I’m not going to shy away from this challenge. I’m just going to keep pushing through, even if I progress much slower than I would like.

At the end of our Tai Chi class, there was a short break, before the Kung Fu class begun. Some students left, but more students showed up, so once more there was a very healthy number of people in the class. After a somewhat unexpected intense warm up, I was split off from the group with the same instructor. Luckily for me, the one-on-one time was amazing, and he was a wealth of knowledge. We worked through Se Meng T’ao Lian, the first form I am required to learn to advance. On Saturday, I’d worked through just a few parts of the form, but by the end of class yesterday, I had walked through the entire form multiple times.

I will say, I find it a bit of a struggle to learn both the Se Meng T’ao Lian and the 24 Combined Form from Tai Chi, and I’ve considered taking just one class at a time, but for now I’m going to press forward and see if I can’t learn both at the same time.

There are only so many times you can go through a form before your brain starts to grow tired, and thankfully my instructor noticed this and so we pivoted to learning the first five sparring techniques.

1. Reverse Punch
2. Cat stance triple hit
3. Jump side thrust, front kick, reverse punch
4. Jump front sweep, side thrust, reverse punch
5. Double reverse punch, jump front kick with block

Despite having drilled various sparring techniques in Krav Maga and Tae Kwon Do all those years ago, the sparring techniques in Kung Fu were quite different. The stance you hold, the way punches are thrown, and the way blocks are given, are all in opposite of years of my training. Thankfully, I had a good instructor and after just a few minutes I was able to adjust and I felt pretty confident with the first four techniques, although my flexibility, balance, and dominate side all played a factor in how well I executed. It wasn’t pretty, that is for sure, but I felt relatively confident in my performance up until the fifth technique that killed me.

I’m sure the long day, not to mention the social anxiety, and learning all the new forms factored in, but I struggled big time. Thankfully, I’ve learned not to be too hard on myself, and I understood my limits and knew it was something I wasn’t going to master in one night.

Overall, I say my first night of classes was really productive and I left feeling confident and good about myself. The people were nice and although this is going to be difficult, I’m looking forward to the challenge.

The only negative about my experience thus far is, I aggravated my plantar fasciitis big time. I woke up this morning limping and it’s clear I overloaded my foot once more. I’m hoping I haven’t undone the healing that had been taking place, and this definitely could hinder my progress. I may have to take it easy on the more aggressive moves, which is frustrating, but I also can’t hurt myself or I won’t want to show up for class. So, this is something I’m going to have to take rather slowly and maybe even talk with Sifu to see how to proceed.

I’ve always been fond of the Buddhist parable of emptying the cup. If you’ve never heard it before it goes something like this:

A professor came to visit a Zen monk to learn more about Zen. Before the monk could even speak, the professor began telling the monk all about his studies, his opinions, and it was clear he just wanted to impress the monk. The monk listened patiently, and then suggested they have tea.

The monk sat an empty cup in front of the professor, and he began filling the cup with tea. The tea began to reach the lip of the cup, and the monk kept pouring as tea spilled all over the table. The professor watched in confusion before finally blurting out, “Stop, the cup is full. No more will go in!”

The monk smiled. “Like this cup, you are full of your own opinions. How can I teach you Zen unless you first empty the cup?”

This story is something I need to keep in mind as I proceed in my practice. Much of what I’ve learned in the past is very much the opposite of what Kung Fu teaches, and I need to be sure to empty my cup before each class, so I can get the most out of this experience.