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The Future of Special Intensive Kungfu Courses

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  • #16
    Having spent many years in the martial arts before learning from Sifu, I can understand why a student might be concerned about learning too much material. In my former school, I had learned nearly 100 empty hand sets, and over 30 weapon sets. I was expected to remember them all, be able to perform any of them upon request, and know them all well enough to teach the movements and applications to students. Needless to say, I began to feel like an encyclopedia of sets.

    This was, in fact, the reason I ended up first learning from Sifu. After many years, and many sets, I felt as though I needed a core of information that I could practice every day. My plan was to take from my list of sets certain techniques to practice. I began to realize this wasn't going to be easy. After some time, I realized it was impossible. Outwardly, many of the sets were similiar, but there were no real connections between them. There were no common tactics, power generation methods (all external at the time), etc. This was when I started to realized that something (something vitally important) was missing.

    This is NOT the case when learning from Sifu. While the techniques, strategies, etc may be different from one set to another, what Sifu teaches is the essence! The importance of this may be glossed over by students that have only ever learned from Shaolin Wahnam. However, this is HUGE beyond explanation.

    Every single course I have taken with Sifu has given me new or greater skills. From my experience, courses with Sifu remove months and sometimes years (maybe even decades) of practice. I have never felt an immediate jump in skill level when learning from any other teacher.

    While the techniques, sets, and strategies are all excellent. I feel they are secondary to the skills Sifu passes on during the courses. With these skills, Sifu also gives us the ability (due to the Wahnam training) to use these skills with any of our kungfu that we have previously learned.

    As a side note, I have revisited some of my older kungfu sets for fun. All of them are better with the skills that Sifu has passed on to me. I have discovered chi kung that I never knew was there. Force where there was no force. Techniques that seemed silly, that come alive when backed with internal force.

    To be quite honest, the skills learned from Sifu in one course only, are enough for a lifetime of kungfu success. This is amazing. However, additional courses do not subtract from this, they add. Imagine, having 2, 3, or 4 lifetimes worth of skill. How about 10, 15, or 20?

    -Matt

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    • #17
      The aims of Shaolin Wahnam

      Thank you all for your contributions!


      Continuing the topic of aims and objectives, let's take a look at some general aims for practicing the Shaolin arts, and how they can be reached in the most direct and efficent way:


      Let's say a student in Shaolin Wahnam wants to achieve radiant health, vitality and longevity. What does he really need to practice?

      Chi flow.

      Perhaps one exercise to induce it, and then just constant, conscientious practice. Like Sifu has stated on numerous occasions - which can also be confirmed from our students' direct experience - this is all you really need.


      We can include internal force and spiritual cultivation to the list of aims. This, and much more, can be readily achieved by practicing just one exercise from Sinew Metamorphosis in the way it is taught in Shaolin Wahnam.

      In other words, the reality is that our methodology is so advanced that we only need one or two exercises - for example Lifting the Sky and Flicking Fingers - to cover all the benefits in all five categories of chi kung.

      So ask yourself: Why do we learn ten chi kung exercises even in our basic beginners course, and there are altogether several dozens in our chi kung syllabus?


      We can use the same perspective on the benefits of Shaolin Kungfu, which can be categorized as:
      • Health
      • Vitality and internal force
      • Personal development
      • Combat efficency
      • Spiritual cultivation


      Would we really need 16 combat sequences and several different force training methods to achieve these benefits?

      Hardly. Our syllabus could be simplified to include just one set, a few sequences, some fundamental force training and meditation, and it would easily cover all these benefits. In practical training, even just Black Tiger / Single Tiger would be enough for most people.

      So why does even our syllabus include over 16 sequences, classical sets, many different weapons, various force training methods, and much more?


      The answer to these questions is simple enough to find, if we stop to consider some of the aims of our school:
      • Shaolin Wahnam aims to preserve and transmit the Shaolin arts to deserving students
      • Shaolin Wahnam aims to restore the glory of kungfu
      • Shaolin Wahnam aims to train its students to the highest possible level in attainment



      Understanding and learning the richness of these arts provide us with not only the great honor to preserve their essence for future generations of practitioners, and the perspective to understand the scope of our training, but it also deepens the basics.

      This brings us to a common misconception regarding selective courses of different kungfu arts that have recently become available to us: Many seem to think that in daily kungfu training, we can choose only to either widen the scope or deepen the skill.

      This is not the case. As everyone who has attended the selective courses can tell, having access to many methods does not mean you have to scatter your attention at the expense of developing skills, but actually helps us achieve great depth and broad understanding simultaneously, at an accelerated rate.

      I'll provide a personal example: A year ago, I had the privilege of learning the Iron Wire set from Sifu. This multiplied my progress in kungfu application and force training many times over, including the basics. Last week, Sifu taught the Shaolin Flower Set in Finland, along with its formidable application of soft, flowing force. Now I've noticed that in application, I can switch between the hard force developed from Iron Wire, and the flowing force of Flower Set at will. This is something I previously thought I could attain only after decades of training.



      From the perspective of modern kungfu training, this is quite unbelievable.

      From the perspective of high-level heart-to-heart transmission, this is the expected result.



      Best wishes,
      Markus Kahila
      Shaolin Nordic Finland

      www.shaolin-nordic.com

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