THE CURRENT COURSES ARE SIMPLY RIDICULOUS
Nick and Bart are engaged in sparring during the Intensive Shaolin Kungfu Course
Nick Rowson
Shaolin Wahnam UK
10th April 2011
Dear Family.
Greetings from sunny Penang.
It is the end of our first day of training at the Copthorne Hotel with Sigung Wong, a Grand Master of the Shaolin Arts.
It's a real struggle to find a state of gratitude worthy of receiving what we have had the unfathomable luck to receive.
1500 years of legacy, crystallized and passed down from master to master is hard enough to get my head around. Yet to receive it in such a sweet tasting tonic! Its unbelievable.
Sigung explained to us his teachings have softened some what.
On the drive back from a lovely welcome dinner I gazed at the Penang light life and attempted to get my head around it all. I had a little weep, as I sometimes do -- in a joyful, semi private manor, and a little giggle emerged as well. I’m not sure I will ever really be able to comprehend the enormity of this blessing -- to practise high level Shaolin arts, but I think I understand the need to practice gratitude now, and that like being humble, its something you must work on to improve.
It has been a really, really amazing day.
We spent much of the morning focusing on entering Zen and spent some time covering a little Shaolin philosophy. It was a simple and incredibly direct session. Sigung explained the importance of a Zen mind in combat, training and daily life as a beautiful warm transmission soaked into our being.
We then moved on to cover the basic stances, and experienced building internal force in Zhang Zhuan.
I enjoyed this session immensely.
After lunch we focused on using stances to move around and latter added some hand forms to practice kung fu patterns.
Form, flow, force was introduced.
Some personal highlights include:
A complete system for developing and improving our footwork.
Creating a kung fu set -- for fun.
Sigung spoke a little of the level of current courses, and the opportunity available to students of our wonderful school.
Here are a couple of quotes I really enjoyed:
"The current courses are simply ridiculous, even to the initiated.."
"How can you know what a mango tastes like, unless you have tasted a mango."
We are all looking forward to the next 4 days of training.
Thank you Sigung.
Thank you Past Masters.
Warm wishes to everyone.
Nick
The above discussion is reproduced from the thread Intensive Shaolin Kung fu, Penang 2011 in the Shaolin Wahnam Discussion Forum.
Nick throws attacks abount like an Aikido expert during the course
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