Animal Day training

Right now our Midtown location is all buzzing about "Animal Day" and the 12-week challenge.  It's so encouraging to see so many of our students training so hard on an almost daily basis.  Our WT-Fit class is packed and even in the off-hours it's easy to find CWT students doing high-intensity rounds on the heavy bag as well as other little cardio gems of mine.

The reason for all of this is training for the upcoming Animal Day in May.  Animal Day is a special test of will and fighting skill for those in my Dynamic WT fighting program.  Basically Animal Day is a 68-minute (yes you read that right) test of WT-fighting, chi sau sparring and of WT ground-fighting.  The genius of this grueling training is not my own, it is a training formula created by my HK-based WT brother Sifu Chris Collins.  Throughout the sets there are only short minute long breaks.  Most "rounds" last 7-9 minutes with no break.  It is in fact longer and more grueling than even a title MMA bout.

Now, is this necessary for practical self-defense?  Of course not! This is overkill.  But for the fighting freaks of my Dynamic class, they wanted to do this challenge pretty much as soon as I told them about it.  Since the conditioning required is so heavy, I decided to set up a 12-week training camp, just like a professional fighter would have.  In fact I took a professional MMA fighter's 12-week training camp and modified all the movements for WT.

Since only a small percentage of my students are qualified & crazy enough to do this, I wanted to find a way to get the whole school involved.  So what I did was open the 12-week training camp to all the students so that they could use it to get in amazing shape, even if they are not going to do the grueling Animal Day.  So every week the students are given their workout assignment.  The workout is getting a little nastier every week and we are only in Week 3!

I am also taking part in the challenge as well as I previously stated.  Cant wait to see the before and after photos!

Review week this week...

Attention Basic students - it's review week again!  This means attendance is a must so that your instructors can check all your requirements off the list and determine whether you are ready for this week's graduation.  As graduation is a learning experience whether you are testing or not, I suggest all students go.  

I always pick a special topic and these topics will make a huge difference in the quality of your WT, especially for the critical foundation laid in the Basic Levels (1-3).  This week's topic is single arm chi sau (dan chi).  In addition to teaching and reviewing the standard forms of dan chi, I will also show some variations I learned both in Europe and Hong Kong.  But more importantly I will be imparting the concepts and training methodology necessary to get the most out of single arm chi sau training.  Junior and seniors are encouraged to come!

German EWTO visitors & other goings on @CWT

We have had a busy last few weeks preparing for a very eventful coming months.  In addition to the regular students coming and training at our schools we have had a few WT students from the EWTO and other associations come visit us recently.  I taught a number of private lessons to these instructors who visited.  Always fun to make people's eyes pop when then see the fantastic benefits of the Hong Kong WT style.

Additionally we are setting up two big seminars with two high ranking WT instructors.  Stay tuned for that!

I'm also really looking forward to seeing my San Antonio student Ram here in NYC.  He is coming up for a couple weeks of training which will include getting him started on the long pole.  Shortly after that I will be in San Antonio myself to teach my guys and meet with Sifu Carson Lau for the first time in a while.

We also have two new video projects for YouTube in the works produced and shot by my good friend and wundertalent Brady Hall.

So there is no dearth of projects to keep me occupied!  Anyone want an intern job?  Help!

A Chinese opinion on titles like "master", etc...

It seems that some westerners severely misuse titles that aren't part of the Chinese martial arts tradition.  They misinterpret ranking and titles and at the end of the day they look silly and degrade the value of Chinese martial arts to the public.  I recently came across this in an interview with the late Sifu Brendan Lai of the Praying Mantis style.  He explained it so clearly and I could not have said it better myself.  All highlights and italics are mine.  Enjoy!

Question: What is you opinion about the ranking system in the West?

Sifu Brendan Lai: "That's a very difficult and touchy question to answer because there are different answers.  I have seen people promote themselves to an exceptionally high rank, and I must say that is very harmful for the art.  I have never seen as many "masters" in the Orient as there are in the West.  I grew up in a society where the title "sifu" had to be earned, and the title "grandmaster" was even more difficult to earn.  It had to be awarded by those in the kung-fu circle and also recognized by the public.  Usually they need to fulfill these requirements:  he must be the head of his system; he must be of senior age; he must be exceptional in his kung-fu abilities as recognized by those in the circle; he must have contributed a great deal to the promotion of the art; and above everything else he must be recognized as one who acheived high standard in moral character, thereby having great influence on the next generation by his good behavior.  By the code of humbleness, those whose sifus are still living can never be addressed as "masters," and those who themselves are addressed as "masters" by others will never introduce themselves as such in speech or writing.  But in the Western world, unfortunately, things are different.  As if the title of "sifu" is too low a rank, many simply promoted themsevels to "masters."  When there are too many masters, which cheapened the title, many advanced themselves to "grandmasters," and then to "great grandmasters," and "super grandmasters."  This stupid competition for a better title goes on and on and sometimes I wonder where this spiral will end.  This behavior is certainly damaging to the image of kung-fu around the world.  Students are striving for vanity instead of pursuing the essence of the art.  This attitude not only shows a lack of humbleness, but also shows a lack of understanding of the Chinese terms and Chinese culture.  As I look back to all these years in which the popularity of kung-fu rose and fell in cycles, I can't help but ask whether we who brought the art into the Western world have done a good job in promoting it.  The anser is an apparent "no," for if we did, te abovie title inflation could not have existed."

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This is precisely why CWT has done away with these silly titles that degrade the art.  Wing Tsun needs a shift in consciousness to remain cutting-edge and relevant.  These kinds of titles and political nonsense destroy Wing Tsun from the inside out.  The paradigm shift is the first hurdle, good training is the rest.

The 12-Week Challenge is ON!

This is not news in my school, but the 12-week fitness and endurance challenge is into its second week now.  Basically this is a 12-week training camp, similar to what professional fighters go through.  I have modified an MMA training camp for WT movements, conditioning and needs.   Initially this was only going to be for my fighters in the Dynamic WT class as preparation for the grueling 68-minutes test of guts and fighting skill known as Animal Day.  Many of the students who were not participating in Animal Day still wanted to go through the training camp and take it as a fitness challenge.   I therefore opened up the 12-week training camp to all the students.  The conditions are that they sign up with a partner for accountability and complete all the required workouts. Any missed workouts and they are out! 

At the end of the 12-week challenge we will post before and after shots as well as results of the Animal Day.

Stay tuned!

By the way, I'm also participating in the 12-week training camp as well.  I would never make the students do something that I can't or haven't done myself!  Sifu's should lead by example :)