Featured Student of the Month - Tabea

September 2011

Tabea studied Kung Fu at Wu Dao for one year. During that time, Tabea was promoted to Level 2 (Yellow Belt) in Adult Kung Fu. Having just completed a year-long internship at Novartis in Cambridge, she recently returned to her native Switzerland. Wu Dao staff followed up with Tabea to learn about what she thought of her one year’s time spent in Boston and training at Wu Dao:

Wu Dao: Where are you from and what brought you to Boston?

Tabea: I am from the Swiss-German speaking part of Switzerland. After an apprenticeship as a lab technician, I got the opportunity for a one-year internship at Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge.

Wu Dao: What initially attracted you to Kung Fu? How long had you been training in Kung Fu before you came to Boston?

Tabea: From my youth I was interested in martial arts: I did judo for a short period of time as a child, and later I was playing with the thought of starting karate. I found shaolin Kung Fu two and a half years ago, and I was impressed. There was something about it. I loved going to Kung Fu classes. During the lesson, I would not think about anything else. I had been training in Shaolin Kung Fu for one and a half years before I came to Boston.

Wu Dao: Why did you decide to train at

Wu Dao versus other schools?

Tabea: In my first week in Boston I did a lot of research on the internet and found a couple schools. Some of them promised to teach traditional Kung Fu. I decided to try Wu Dao first because it was pretty convenient to get there. Wu Dao was the first and only school I visited for a free lesson. The school looked well organized and I felt welcome, so I signed up for the whole year.

Wu Dao: What was your perception of Kung Fu before you started at Wu Dao? What was your expectation when you came to Wu Dao?

Tabea: Kung Fu meant to me: hard training or hard work and great moves. To be honest I was a little disappointed in my first two months, when I just did the hard work, meaning only basics, but no great moves. But that changed after I started having fun learning the basics because I could actually feel the progress I was making. And Shifu told me around that time that my basics got a lot better than in the beginning.

Wu Dao: Has training at Wu Dao changed any of your perceptions of Kung Fu? What have you learned through training at Wu Dao?

Tabea: That’s how I realized that there is no good Kung Fu with poor and sloppy basics. I also learned to question the background of every move, so that I could understand what is important about each move. You can only be great if you break down every single move and actually study and practice it.

Wu Dao: What is your favorite thing in your Kung Fu training? What is your least favorite?

Tabea: My favorite thing is to practice a floor drill or self-defense move till I get the A-Ha effect, which means I start understanding and feeling better and better about doing this particular move. My least favorite thing is the opposite, practicing something that Shifu maybe considers as easy, and me having the feeling that I would never get it.

Wu Dao: What is the most memorable event or anecdote from your training at Wu Dao?

Tabea: One of them is when I attended a class with Shifu Shi De Cheng: we were only four students and I was the only white belt. It was great to meet such an interesting, wise and happy person.

Wu Dao: Do you plan to continue to train in Kung Fu when you return home? What are some elements from your Wu Dao training that you plan to keep with you for your future training?

Tabea: Yes, I am planning on continuing my Kung Fu training. I will go back to my old school and I might try to get our school here in Basel a little more organized. I will talk about the classes with my Shifu and hope that he will pay more attention to correcting moves and basics. I will try to keep as much of what I have learned at Wu Dao in mind.

Wu Dao: What are some parting thoughts that you wish to share with the community?

Tabea: I just wanted to thank everyone I met during this year. It was a pleasure to train and suffer with you during classes. It was hard for me to leave the school behind. I wanted to thank Shifu, Sissi, Melvin and Julius for teaching me and believing in me. ☺ Keep it up, you have a great school! And finally I want thank Robyn, because we spent so many hours training together during this year. We motivated each other over and over again. And I am really impressed about her progress during this year. I am going to miss you all!

Kung Fu Haiku

By David Mandeix
Dave is a Level 4(Green) student at Wu Dao

One for each of the Ji Ben Gong:

1)Oh! So many forms
My limbs will not stop aching
We must go again

2)Classes every night
Floor Drills, Forms, and Self Defense
These make up my life

3)Kungfu means hard work
Repetition is the key
We refine ourselves

4)Kungfu on the brain
What did I do before this?
Probably ached less

5)No Kungfu tonight
Instead- dinner and laundry
Life gets in the way

6)I can kick the bag
But I can not re-chamber
Bad habits die hard

7)Yesterday I ate
A heaping plate of bitter
Same again today

8) Shi-fu grunts “Not bad”
It’s the highest form of praise
Don’t get used to it

9)I am dripping sweat
And the warm-up is not done
Its one of those nights

10)My hips do not stretch
As far as I’d like them to
What’s a guy to do?

11)I have bruises from
Star blocking with a partner
Curse my tender bones

12)Eighteen Ji-Ben-Gong
The monk makes them look easy
We still stumble through

13) How does the form go?
What’s that move for anyway?
These things escape me

14) I must learn the staff
I thought it would be easy
Now it makes me weep

15) Kicking high is fun
Sometimes we overreach, though
Then we pay the price

16) Sitting in horse stance
The way it makes my legs feel-
How much longer now?

17) Muscles sore again-
A feeling that has become
Like a dear old friend

18) At the end of class
Some water and a lie down
What more could you want?

No Greater Excuse

By Sissi Liu

Sissi Liu is the Yoga instructor and a Level 5 (Blue) student at Wu Dao

For my practice in asana-oriented yoga, primarily Ashtanga Yoga, I have taken classes at different studios and with various teachers. While I find inspiration in regular practice, through reading, and learning from my teachers, sometimes other students of a variety of types (see my categorization of the Western, modern "yogis" at the end of the blog) have served as my inspiration as well. When I hit a plateau in my practice, watching others with fascinated admiration helps me to believe that one day, with practice, I could do “that,” too.

One such moment came recently during a Mysore style Ashtanga Yoga class (practitioners do their own practice with the teacher coming around to make individual adjustments). While focused in the performance of a Sun Salutation, I heard the footsteps of someone passing in front of me—soft steps interrupted by low thump

s. I wondered if the person had a bad hip issue. Noticing my thoughts wandering, I tried to concentrate. The woman laid down her mat next to mine, near the corner of the studio room and proceeded to begin her practice.

It did not take me long to realize with unfeigned shock that a prosthetic foot peaked out of one of her pant legs, the foot flexing with her movements into upward dog and downward dog. Again, I tried to concentrate, but I could not help peering over from time to time. During some portions of the practice, she unbound the entire leg just so she could perform the postures. Each vinyasa (the flows that connect each posture) was performed by jumping back from a posture and then jumping through from downward dog into the next posture, without shortcuts. Towards the end of the series, she practiced her backbends just as the series prescribed. With the aid of the instructor who treated her no differently than any other student, she reached back to the floor from standing and came back up to standing again. She was by no means young or a natural. She did not have the typical yogi physique. And she did not use practice straps, blocks, or training implements.

Witnessing this and reflecting afterwards, I felt ashamed of my lack of consistency over the years. For a couple of years at a time since I began exploring yoga, I allowed myself to skip practice with excuses such as I’ve got too much to do, I’m tired, or my back’s sore, etc. My progress therefore suffered. If someone with only one leg could achieve what she has with the potential of achieving much more in the future, what better excuse could I come up with for not practicing?

We all tend to find rationale to let go of our training—in yoga, Kung Fu, Tai Chi, or fill in the blank—and blame the pressures of life, family, or work. We watch with awe at someone else's advancement and lament that given our lack of natural ability or hours in the day that we could never get there. Ultimately, for whatever reason we choose a practice, there is only one thing that will stop our progress—lack of consistency. We make a choice when we start something new and we have to commit to making the choice to stay with it. So, the formula is simple: to be good at anything, you just need to have faith in yourself and not let the next great excuse, even if you only have one leg, stop you!

Be The Technique

By Julius Anastasio

Julius is a Level 5 (Blue) student at Wu Dao

I used to have this one Aikido teacher - a really insightful guy - who threw out all the superfluous moves and had me practicing only a few essential, blatantly practical moves and throws. His theory behind stripping everything bare was that you shouldn't have to train for 20 years to finally have a style’s effective techniques revealed and taught to you. Why read War and Peace when you can just skim the CliffsNotes?

At the time it made sense, and it's a very tempting approach, but it forgets to consider the concept that, as Shi-fu (and Kung Fu Panda) says, in martial arts "there are no secrets."

Lately, a lot of us have been attempting to apply some of the Shaolin techniques into sparring (while simultaneously tweaking them to avoid the limb-braking parts). One of the main problems I've come across is that it's just so darn hard. It’s very tempting to consider trashing all but a choice few Shaolin techniques that obviously show promise in the ring. You know, like the straight punch.

This is a terrible idea.

Having only a few moves at your disposal would have an extremely negative impact on how much of a style you actually internalize. Like many styles, Shaolin is explicitly made up of movements and forms that are designed to train your body to optimally execute effective fighting techniques. There’s not a single wasted movement in what we learn. The trick is figuring out what each (seemingly) superfluous section of a technique actually does. If you don't DO those sections, then you run the risk of severely limiting that technique's range of application. But, how do we figure out what those sections and techniques do?

We’ve all heard it a thousand times: "Do a technique 1,000 times, you know the technique. Do it 10,000 times, you ARE the technique."

While I might feel like I "know" how to do many of the techniques in Shaolin (at least passably), I certainly have not gotten to the stage where I feel like they're internalized.

I better go get training.

My First Tournament

By Hana C.
Hana is Youth Level 3 (Orange) student at Wu Dao and won first place in her division

About a month ago, I attended my first Kung Fu tournament, which took place in Boston, on a Saturday. I was signed up to compete in the forms division, and was working on Xiao Hong Quan at the time. The day of the tournament, I woke up at 9AM, which for me is an extremely early time to get up on a Saturday morning. After having a filling breakfast, I spent about an hour or so practicing the form on the porch, along with Shira, who was also entered in the same division. There were still a few moves that were far from perfect, and which I tended to trip up on. However, we didn't spend too much time going over the form that morning, because we had already been working on it for at least half a year, had already tested for the next belt, and did not want to get too tired of it before the actual tournament. After a quick lunch, we were lucky enough to get a ride to Boston.

The facility where the tournament held was surprisingly small. It was the first Kung Fu studio I had been in other than Wu Dao, and the small space emphasized how big and accommodating Wu Dao's training area is. I had been warned before hand that my form might move me outside the boundaries that had been set, and was prepared to have to take an awkward step back if that was the case. After filling out the required paperwork, we had a good amount of time before the teens were scheduled to perform the forms for the judges, and so we watched the two ongoing events, which at the time were push hands and the forms of the younger students. Many of the students there were from Wu Dao, and although I might be biased, I honestly thought that their forms and their performance were amazing. Our uniform also seemed to be the most "official", as a lot of other schools had the same pants, but required only a T-shirt. I was also proud to see Rom win his entire division with a very martial performance.

I had expected there not to be many people in our division, but it turned out that there were enough to split us into a boys group, and two girls groups based on experience. Three boys from other schools went first. Their forms were very sharp and quick, and I was impressed by their power and clean performance. Next, the three girls who had been training the longest went first. One of them performed a Karate-style form that involved a lot of hissing and not very much movement, as opposed to many of the other forms I had observed.

In my division, Shira and I were both performing the same form, and she went first. In my opinion, her form was almost perfect: it was executed cleanly and with more power than usual. Luckily, when I performed the form, there was enough room that I did not have to shuffle. I did mess up in a few places, but the momentum of the form made it easy to play off the mistakes and keep going with relative fluidity.

Overall, I learned a lot from this first tournament. It definitely confirmed that repetition is key; because of how many times I had done the form before, I wasn't completely thrown off when I made a mistake. I also felt that if I had practiced just a bit more, those mistakes could have been avoided. Hopefully, this experience will help me in future tournaments, which I definitely plan on attending.

My Experience at Wu Dao

By Omer Bartov
Omer Bartov is a Level 3 (Orange) Student at Wu Dao

I joined the Wu Dao School about two-and-a-half years ago. At the time I felt that although I was in pretty good physical shape for my age I was loosing flexibility, suffering from occasional backaches, and had at best deteriorating posture. Since walking through the doors of the school I have frankly become hooked. I cannot say that my progress was as rapid as some of my younger classmates. But I can say that the school has become a major part of my life, part of a routine that I do my best to maintain and a tremendous physical and mental addition to what is by all accounts a rather crowded schedule.

I have been training regularly, several times a week most of year. Initially I trained also in tai-chi, but for reasons of time I now focus on yoga and kung fu. Although I do yoga with Sissi only an hour per week, her careful guidance has been of considerable benefit. I have taken to doing yoga every morning at home, and now begin my long days much better prepared. My back pains have greatly diminished, my posture has improved, and I have regained flexibility that I have not enjoyed since my youth. In kung fu, shifu Tim has been an extraordinary teacher, combining strict discipline and insistence on detail with a sense of humor and a feeling of teamwork and camaraderie. Working hard, I have gradually advanced from white to yellow, and recently from yellow to orange belt. I will admit that I take pride in being (most of the time at least) the oldest member of our group of students but still keeping up. But beyond the sense of accomplishment, which is at least as satisfying and very different from anything in my own profession, I find the intense training sessions psychologically absolutely fantastic and for that reason also quite addictive. When I go to class, for the next 90 minutes I think of nothing else but kung fu (or yoga). I am entirely liberated from the pressures and worries of my work, and come out physically exhausted perhaps but also completely refreshed and mentally recharged. I am now 56 and feel better than I have in years. I hope that Wu Dao and I will continue working together for many years to come!

Fall Workshops with Shi De Cheng

Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Liesbeth is Level 2 (Yellow) Student at Wu Dao Kung Fu and Tai Chi

Anyone who has read up on the life and reputation of Shifu Shi de Cheng could surely understand the excitement I felt hearing that he would be back for the second time this year to teach us.

Before registering for the workshops, I fondly reminisced about Shifu's Chin Na (joint locking) workshop in spring—with ease, I was able to free myself from powerful grips of shovel-sized hands. Even though it was tempting to do only that one session again, I made a mental comparison with learning to paint—to be a good abstract painter, you would still need to study and master the basics of anatomy and perspective first. The decision to take the Ji ben Gong workshop was thus made. For dessert, I signed up for the Chin Na and Shui Jiao (throwing and falling) workshops as well.

As a quite flexible and somewhat "floppy" person, I felt very self-conscious about displaying myself to the graceful and skillful Shifu Shi De Cheng. When the moment came during the Ji Ben Gong class, that same grace was applied to painstakingly adjust and tweak my stances, posture, arms, or usually all of the aforementioned plus more. The Shuai Jiao class was a blast! The techniques were quite complicated. Through practice, I found my momentum and structure, and really enjoyed the apparent ease with which I could apply the throwing techniques on my more experienced, bigger and stronger opponent. In fact, I found falling and controlling my partner's fall to be the hardest part.

Not wanting him to miss out on the experience, I signed up my 6-year old son for the children's class with Shifu, too. I had been telling him a little bit about Shifu's background and had shown him some inspirational videos of Shifu performing forms on YouTube.
Logically, he felt somewhat intimidated at first, but Shifu's easygoing manner and perhaps the twinkle in his eyes made for a very fun session. As a spectator, I found myself paying very close attention to the slow-paced, step-by-step instructions the kids received, wondering if maybe I could try and sign myself up for the kids' classes next time. On asking my son for his opinion on the class afterwards, he answered, almost surprised, "He is just such a very, very nice person!"

My husband, lucky to be a native Mandarin speaker, found inspiration in talking to Shifu Shi De Cheng about the history of the Shaolin monastery and the hardships it went through during and after the Cultural Revolution. When asked about his impression of Shifu and the workshops, he made a surprising announcement: He is planning to visit Shifu's school in Deng Feng and enroll our son in classes there! In the meantime, he would explore the area and do some soul searching.