Amelia learns martial art (Shaolin Kung Fu) when she was 11 years old. She goes to the Shaolin Temple every day during the summer holiday. She loves sparring. She picked up the Kung Fu movements taught in class very fast. The Master encouraged her to join the Advanced Kids class. She was also welcome to join the Adults class after her kid’s session.

In the kids class, she sparred with the kids around her age. In the Adults class, she paired up with an adult when sparring. She was kind of the cool one there – the youngest fighter.

What is Shaolin Kung Fu?

Shaolin Kung Fu Ch’an is Shaolin Kung Fu and Ch’an Buddhist philosophy and there are indivisible. You have to learn both if you want to reach the highest level.

Stamina is really important. If you have no stamina then you cannot acquire the real Kung Fu.

Body flexibility is important too. If you are skilful but your body is not flexible when you meet an equally skilled more flexible opponent you will lose because they will have more options available to them.

Improving your fist, leg and footwork coordination gives speed and fluency to your movements and makes it easier to move closer and move away from your opponent, with good coordination you can use throws, punches and mixed skill combinations to trick, confuse and control your opponent.

Shaolin Kung Fu has powerful and useful fighting techniques that are valuable for actual combat. The footwork directions of Shaolin forms are linear, the punches are done with the appearance of straight arm, but the elbow never locked straight. Shaolin forms can be practised in a confined space.

Perseverance and hard training are essential if you want your martial art training to be successful. The best way to improve your martial art is to learn a few things and practice them thoroughly for a long time.

Understanding your body

Your external body – You should know where the roots, middle and the ends of your body.

Roots of the body are the legs.

• The roots of the legs are the hips.
• The middle of the legs are the knees
• The ends of the legs are the feet.

Middle of the body is the upper body.

• The roots of the upper body is the dantian.
• The middle of the upper body is the heart.
• The end of the upper body is the chest.

The end of the body are the arms

• The roots of the arms are the shoulders.
• The middle of the arms is the elbows.
• The ends of the arms are the hands.

Your internal body

The end of blood is the hair.
The end of bones is the teeth.
The end of tendons is the nails.
The end of muscles us the tongue.

Understanding your body would help to make a rapid improvement in martial art practice. When you practice forms and techniques send the qi through to the 4 ends of the internal body by pressing the tongue hard against the clenched teeth, clench the teeth like you want to break something, send the energy to the hair as if you push off a hat and clench your fist like the nails will pierce the palms.

Martial art grading at Shaolin Temple

Amelia practised the following at the Shaolin Temple and she has passed the preparation level of Shaolin Kung Fu on 24.11.2017. She moved on to the Foundation level.

Preparation level

Stamina (Nai li)
100 raise the knee running
20 press-up
30 squats
Repeat 3 times – last 6-8mins

Flexibility (Rendai)
Left leg, forward splits (Zuo shu cha)
Right leg forward splits (You shu cha)
Box/side splits (heng cha)
Movement should be correct

Kicks (tui fa)
Front (Zhen ti tui)
Cross (shi zi ti tui)
Side (ce ti tui)
Outside to inside (li he tui)
Inside to outside (wai bai tui)
Body, arms and legs must be kept straight

Balances ( Pin heng)
Kou Rui (stand on 1 leg with the other knee supported, balance to be held over 1 min).

Stances (bu fa)
Gong bu
Xie bu
Ma bu
Pu bu
Xu bu
Each stance must be correct and stable

Combinations (zu he)
Zuo you Kai gong shi
Ma bu jia da
Pu bu bian gong bu Chong quan
Should be smooth, stable and correct

Body movement (Shen fa)
Wu long panda – breathe and movement must be correct

Forms (Tao lu)
Wu bu quan
Mentally and physically alert with correctly synchronised breath and movement.

Foundation level

Breathing
Breathing is important in kung fu training because without the correct breathing you cannot improve internal and external kung fu techniques and forms. Using the correct breathing can help to make your kung fu movements easier, build up your combination skills and improve your internal power.

Calm
When practice Sanda you need to have a calm mind.

Coordination
Practising the form can improve your coordination, the continuous movements of the form help you improve breath control, in the form you can discover good techniques to help your Sanda skills. Shaolin traditional forms contain a lot of knowledge that can be passed onto the next generation.

Combinations
Combinations are advanced techniques that are superior to individual skills. Combinations are fast and don’t give the opponent time to react. Combination techniques contain good strategies.

Sanda
Before practising Sanda, you should have good stamina, flexibility and coordination. You should have learned some Sanda attack and counter-attack techniques. You should have improved your whole-body conditioning.

Stamina (Nai li)
Gao Tai Tui 100 raise the knee running
Fu Wo chen 30 press-ups
Ma bu dun qi 30 squats
San shou shi dun qi 15 squats (each side)
Tan tiao 30 jumps
Repeat one after another, 3 times each, last 6-8 mins

Flexibility (Rendai)
Left leg, forward splits (Zuo shu cha)
Right leg forward splits (You shu cha)
Box/side splits (heng cha)
Movement should be correct. Students need to be able to do or nearly do one of these.

Kicks (tui fa)
Front (Zhen ti tui)
Cross (shi zi ti tui)
Side (ce ti tui)
Outside to inside (li he tui)
Inside to outside (wai bai tui)
Body, arms and legs must be kept straight and able to kick high.

Combinations (Zu he)
a. Ce er pao 1.front leg steps forward 2. back leg steps forward
b. Ma bu jia da
Movement should be smooth, stable and powerful.

Body movement (Shen fa)
Pu bu chuan zhang
Stable and smooth movement

Qi gong
Ba duan jing qi gong
Students must know the movement and breath coordination

Balances ( Pin heng)
Kou Rui (stand on 1 leg with the other knee supported, balance to be held over 2 min).

Jumps (Teng Kong dong Zuo)
Dan cai jiao preparation (left/right)
Er qi jiao Jump kick(left/right)
Movement correct and sharp

Sanda ji ben gong
Sanda shi Stance (left/right)
Bu fa – Jin tui bu fa footwork(left/right)
Quan fa – zhi quan mixed punches
Tui fa 1. chaui tui 2. bian tui
All movements should be correct and smooth.

Forms (Tao lu)
Wu long panda – preparatory form
xiao hong quan (1st part)
students must be mentally and physically alert with correctly synchronized breath and movement.