| Unacceptable | | Si-Fu's Blog
| By Si- Fu onThursday, July 29, 2010 | |
| Good afternoon. Before I speak about the grading that took place at the Summer Seminar, I wish to write further about the Technician Re-grading. It does not please me to write this post; however, it is highly pertinent to students of all levels and I would suggest taking careful note of the following... Out of 5 students that took the examination only 1 was successful. Knowing the students, and having been briefed by the teachers on the effort of these students over the last 8 months, this was not particularly surprising. However, the manner in which this happened was unexpected. With over 40 beginners watching on in earnest, I was frankly embarrassed; so bad were most of the performances that I curtailed the exam with not even a ¼ of the exam completed. | |
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| Quality check | | Si-Fu's Blog
| By Si- Fu onMonday, July 12, 2010 | |
| Good morning. I will write shortly about the recent examination that took place. However, before I do so, the forthcoming Technician re-grading requires a mention. This takes place at 8pm on this Thursday (15th July) in the Dulwich School. This is an important occasion for learning; there will be no classes in either School on that day and every student, regardless of level, is strongly recommended to attend. The essence of the Technician re-grading is to ensure that 6 months after a student passes any Technician Level exam the ability of that student is still of a sufficiently high level. This second exam is a serious one: should a student fail s/he will have to retake the whole examination process again (i.e. retake both exams), which wi ... |  | |
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| Knowledge and application... | | Si-Fu's Blog
| By Si- Fu onSunday, July 04, 2010 | |
| Good afternoon. The unique atmosphere of seminars has always held a particular attraction for me as both a teacher and a student; the combination of intense learning with intense training is hard to surpass. The Summer Seminar had all this and more; the mixture of outstanding progression by the students, along with dynamic Wing Tsun material was simply compelling. Even the teachers remarked that is hard to remember a seminar that developed the level of the students so fast in only 5 days. Unless you attended it is hard to accurately describe the seminar’s ambience. Even on a day when England (woefully!) played Germany in the Football World Cup there was a room full eager students, just waiting to learn. Combine this with soaring temperatures outside and there wa ... | | |
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| A microcosm of life... | | Si-Fu's Blog
| By Si- Fu onMonday, June 28, 2010 | |
| Late into the night the Summer Seminar drew to a close. Reluctantly those contented kung fu brothers and sister dispersed for the night. Unable to linger any longer, they bid a short farewell to the place that had become their home for the last five days, to begin their journey to the ‘other life’ that awaited them. As the echoes of the last footsteps slowly died away, silence descended on the kwoon, punctuated only by the continual ticking of the clock on the wall. However, if you paused and listened ever so carefully you could almost still hear the distinctive sounds; shuffling of feet, regulated breathing and persistent beating of fists continued to pervade the atmosphere, refusing to leave with the participants... This seminar was more than just an event practising martial art techniques; in many ways it was a small intense journey in another lifetime. For five days, the world look ... | | |
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| Summer Seminar | | Si-Fu's Blog
| By Si- Fu onWednesday, June 23, 2010 | |
| Good morning. Later today the popular Summer Seminar commences. Within the classes you can sense the ‘buzz’ leading up to this; indeed, for quite a number of years now this has been the highest attended training event of the year. Last year’s occasion will be a particularly hard one to follow, being the very first tuition to take place in the new Bromley Kwoon. However, I have a feeling that this one will also be cherished…  The Summer Seminar tends to be well-liked for a number of reasons. Firstly it is a 5 day seminar, which not only offers extensive training opportunities but a chance to intensely ‘push up’ ... | | |
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| 7 days in the life of a Wing Tsun school... | | Si-Fu's Blog
| By Si- Fu onMonday, June 21, 2010 | |
| Good afternoon. This last seven days have been interesting for the schools. In addition to the normal hustle and bustle of our rather rigorous teaching schedule, this week saw training for the forthcoming student exams taking place on this Sunday at the end of the Summer Seminar. Exams period always requires extra preparation as every single student needs to be personally checked to review their current level, ability and knowledge. While giving all students an excellent insight, this is not an insignificant task for the teachers and assistants. Although we are strict in limiting the number of students permitted to join the school, there are still a substantial number of students attending on a weekly basis. Indeed, we recently opened more classes in Dulwich as ... | | |
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| Deep into the nervous system… | | Si-Fu's Blog
| By Si- Fu onWednesday, June 02, 2010 | |
| Good morning. It has now been 5 weeks since the world record attempt took place and the students are gradually beginning to recuperate fully from the training. Whilst this may seem surprisingly long time, it is not all together unexpected. This kind of serious, concentrated training goes deep into the nervous system and affects the whole body. The recovery time is, of course, smaller when a complete rest is taken, but that would defeat the whole object of training so hard… The balance between rest and maximum training is a hard one, and for professional athletes it is a fine line that takes many years to find. Despite, inevitability, having a numbness in muscles, training is in many ways the best thing for the body after such an event, but only if you can ensure ... | | |
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