by Gaz
Week of Martial Arts: Tuesday Shaolin Kung Fu
1:14 pm in Martial Arts by Gaz
Last night was the second night of my Week of Martial Arts, where I attend a different martial arts class at my nearby Gloucester GL1 Leisure Centre every night this week, and then pick my favourite to devote 6 months of study to. According to the GL1 Events Schedule I was expecting to join a White Dragon Tai Chi class at 8pm, but according to their website that class is now held on Monday at 7pm, in the Christchurch Hall just behind GL1. Instead, I caught the second half of a Qi Shi Shaolin Kung Fu class, and I was unfortunately too late to join in.
Training Times
The Gloucester class runs for 90 minutes starting at 7pm, every Tuesday and comprises a mixed ability class including both children and adults. New starters are given 3 or 4 lessons to decide whether they wish to continue before being asked to join.
Lesson Structure
I’m sure the 40 minutes I was able to observe is not representative of a typical lesson, but during that short time students appeared to be working alone or in pairs on their forms. Everyone practiced a short sequence of moves from their grade form with the instructor working his way around the hall offering advice and correcting poor posture, spending a minute or two at each station before moving on. With 10 or so stations to visit, students each received only two or three visits each from the instructor during the time I was there, and were left to their own devices between visits.
Students and Instructor
I wasn’t able to interact with many of the students, although a senior student welcomed me into the hall and kindly offered to answer any questions, before returning to one of the two stations he seemed to be instructing. The class instructor was dressed in jeans and sweater, which was rather surprising, but spent a few minutes explaining the virtues and pedigree of his instructor; his own experience of 23 years; the traditional teaching methods he employed; and how mastery of a martial art is imperative to survival in today’s ever more violent world.
Style and Techniques
With more than 20 years experience in hard (mostly Japanese) styles, to my eye the movements looked contrived and awkward. While performing a low grade form on the matts with the aid of another group of similar grades, one student went through each move of the form as one of his partners performed the technique being defended against. In some ways, I can see the practicality of how this helps one to visualise exactly what is happening at that point in a form, but I also feel that the focusing on the classical interpretations of form movements closes one’s mind to the hidden techniques inside that form. Being a Shaolin animals style, each of the forms takes inspiration from one of crane, snake, tiger, monkey, eagle, preying mantis or dragon which can make the movements seem rather comical at times to my eye.
Much as I am searching for something entirely different to my current experience, I was a little put off by the overly casual demeanor of the instructor. At the end of the class he then explained that Grand Master David Bircher would be teaching basic self defence for 6 weeks starting in April, with fees reduced to £5 for non-students in order to help build membership. This means that the poor martial arts students will not be being taught their style, any yet will still be paying their usual £7.50 for the pleasure.
I mean no disrespect to the club in particular nor Qi Shi Kung Fu in general, and I appreciate that I can’t expect to gain any insight into either in only 40 minutes; but, this club isn’t for me.
