Starting up again

[Omar]

Hello everyone, I've decided to post my question in this part of the forum as it is both a question on chi kung and kung fu, hope thats ok.

I have recently recovered from being ill and wish to restart my chi kung practise as well as my kungfu. However, the only club practising kungfu available here practises a non internal form of kungfu. By this I mean that there is no chi kung and zen aspects, when breaking wood or stone it is done with muscular force from hard training of physical strenght and control, I have seen pictures and clips of the practitioners performing and their faces are alwas tensed and grimaced, and the movements seems more like some of the straight hard movements from karate rather then the seemingly soft and effortless of shaolin kungfu. The "free sparring" performed is also kickboxing like, there is not much focus on stances and spacing in the fights nor repetition of combat application of techniques besides the kuyen's and what you do on your own.

Although it is not genuine shaolin kungfu, the master and instructors are very competent and involved in what they do, and me joining the kwoon will undoubtly make me able to regain my former physcal shape and also meet many friendly people and have a lot of fun among the sweat & tears

My question is, I wish to prioritize on shaolin chi kung and one day hopefully be able to train genuine shaolin kungfu, can me practising this sort of "face contorting" (blocking chi) kungfu somehow negatively affect my chi kung training and progress? Where I started walking my kungfu path although the fasade and gross part of our training was on the physical, my old master also placed greath worth in meditation and chi cultivation as well as yoga.

I am competent enough to continue what I learned there on my own to keep myself limber and fit, but it would be inspiring to join a group of people to train again. However if this somehow can affect my chi kung training I will not join and continue on my own. Any viewpoints and advice would be most welcome.

Thanks for reading this far if you did!

[Andrew]

I wish to prioritize on shaolin chi kung and one day hopefully be able to train genuine shaolin kungfu

Then please read the rest of your own post again and I think you will find you answer your own question.

If you have defined clear aims and objectives for your practice, it should be realtively simple to define whether or not a path, practice, art, etc. will help or hinder you to achieve those set targets.

[Andrew]

Just a quick P.S. There are some great opportunities to learn from Sifu Wong personally in the next couple of months -- for example the UK summer camp and, of course, the regional courses (Kung Fu and Chi Kung) here in Switzerland. Taking any of these courses will help you to "train smart" to achieve your targets.

[Omar]

Thank you for the reply Andrew, you were much right in me finding my answer in my own words. I could probably shortened my question to; I know practising chi kung will help small normally unnoticed injuries and enhance my training should I take up this sort of physical only conditioning for combat and breaking, what I am wondering is, can this sort of training slow down and/or diminish my chi kung progress?

I' dont think it would be right to approach the master stating I wish to train with you, but I will not accept your whole repertoaire as it might conflict with something else I do. If the conflict is there it will be better to not approach at all.

I would love to attend the courses in the UK, but I got myself a new job just today, (yay ) and there will be some work to be done now in june while july will be a empty month workwise until restart in august, so unfortunately my finances will still be limited for a while longer. If lucky there will be more to do in june then what it looks like now so I might be able to become finacially mobile in july for the courses. I'm not in a rush tho, even if I after midnight today cannot count myself among those halfway to fifty. I break that barrier tonight

Hope you all have as wonderful summer days as we have here in Norway, the heat record from 1877 was smashed this week, its mediterranean here now.

[Andrew]

can this sort of training slow down and/or diminish my chi kung progress?

Straight question = straight answer. Yes it can.

[Omar]

Thanks, thats all I wanted to know.