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by Sifu Charlie Romeo
Fu For You Winter 2024

The Kung Fu journey is a path filled with challenges, successes, and personal growth. However, there may come a time when you find yourself held back due to obstacles out of your control. Whether it be an injury, health complications, or other personal issues, it’s important to navigate these challenges with a positive mindset. Here are some strategies to help you stay motivated in your Kung Fu journey, even if you are faced with setbacks.

1. Reflect on Your Progress: Think back and assess how far you’ve come in your journey. Have you had a set back before? If so, what did you do to keep yourself motivated and push through? Reflect on the skills you’ve developed in these setbacks and use them to keep you focused.
2. Set New Goals: Perhaps your setback has prevented you from reaching a previously attainable goal, such as an upcoming grading. Rather than thinking about the unfairness of this setback, set new goals that will keep you focused on your Kung Fu journey. Be sure to set goals that are realistic and celebrate every small and large victory along the way!
3. Adapt and Modify: Kung Fu is a dynamic discipline, and sometimes setbacks can be opportunities for adaptation and modification. If you’re facing a physical injury, communicate this with your instructors and modify your training so you can continue your journey while avoiding further injury. Working through a setback not only keeps your body strong, but also strengthens your mind and improves your discipline – a crucial aspect of Kung Fu.
4. Embrace the Process: Understand that setbacks are an inherent part of the learning process. Learning Kung Fu takes time, dedication, and patience. Embrace the journey – the highs and the lows – as opportunities for personal growth. The setbacks you encounter today can become the steppingstones for future success.
5. Take Breaks When Needed: Recognize that taking a break is not an act of weakness. Sometimes, stepping back for a brief period can provide the mental and physical rest needed to return with renewed energy and determination. Rest does not equal failure; it’s a strategic pause to ensure sustainable progress.I recall a time where I was faced with the biggest setback of my journey at that point. For personal reasons, I was forced to miss a grading that I had been training for for many weeks. As a youth student at the time, this was very discouraging; not only was I disappointed that I would have to wait to test for my next rank, but I was also discouraged by my friends moving up to their next rank while I was not. It’s clear now that I had the wrong mindset – instead of being discouraged, I should have set new goals for myself and continued on my own personal journey. After all, even though Kung Fu is about working together, everybody’s journey is different and it’s important to move at a pace that makes sense for you.

Read more posts about patience.

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by Sifu D’arcy Langois
Fu For You Winter 2024

As instructors we can only do so much to move you along your Kung Fu journey. We can structure a class, consult with our peers to keep things fresh, and give you some coaching while you are directly under our gaze, but that’s it. There is much that needs to be done while we’re not looking, both inside and outside of the Kwoon. That brings us to our final Focus Point, Coach Yourself: Am I learning anything? Am I getting any Better?

Coaching yourself is another great way to bring your mind into the moment, and really think about what you are doing as you train. For this Focus Point, I will address two statements that instructors sometimes hear from their students, which are best solved through the act of self-coaching.

“No matter how hard I train, I don’t seem to be getting any better”

Admittedly, this is an extremely frustrating place to be in and can easily lead to a sense of despair that you will never get better at the art. To this I say: practice doesn’t make perfect, it makes permanent. If you are practicing something repeatedly, but are practicing it wrong, you will not see any improvements. It can be difficult to envision yourself as you train, to catch the details that you are trying to correct, but fortunately there are a couple of solutions. In the Kwoon, mirrors are a great resource, and they are there for this exact reason. Use them to correct your form (as per your Sifu’s instructions) and continue to watch yourself as you train in order to get it right.

When you do not have the mirrors, you can always film yourself and review the video of your training. The feedback won’t be as immediate as the mirror, but it is still an option. Keeping an eye on your form is a great way to see improvements in your technique and should help you realize those gains you are looking for.

“I don’t feel like I am being challenged enough in my classes”

This statement has a pretty simple answer. It is not the Sifus’ job to push you in a class, it is our job to structure the class to ensure you are learning your curriculum. It is your job to push yourself in the class. You can do this by giving 100% in everything you do, leaving it all out on the floor as they say. During open Kwoon time, you can run your forms or kicking sequences one after the other to push yourself to the limit of your cardio and challenge your memory while you are at it. The bottom line is all classes can be taxing classes, but you only get out of it what you put into it.

I do hope that you have found these last few articles to be insightful and have helped you to consider the mental side of our Kung Fu training. See you in the Kwoon!

Explore all of our Kung-Fu Focus Points.

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by Sije Veronica Sas
Fu For You Winter 2024

At the Waterloo Kung-Fu Academy your child has certain Rules and Etiquette they are expected to follow. There are also rules that we want parents to follow. As we’ve had a many new families join us in the last few years, I thought I would mention a few of them in this article.

Cell Phone Usage: Out of courtesy to others, please turn your phone to silent while in the Academy. If you need to take a call, please step outside to do so. Excessive noise is a distraction to students, instructors and other parents watching.

Front Entrance—Please Remove Your Shoes: We have always asked that outdoor shoes be removed when entering the Academy, except for the entrance portion of the lobby. Now that we are entering the winter months, please also stomp the snow and salt from your boots before entering. Most students train in bare feet, and we do not want them to accidentally bring water and salt into the Kwoon.

Only students are allowed past the wooden archway (onto the wooden floor area and beyond) and there should absolutely be no shoes in this area. Parents are asked to stay on the gray flooring and to not peek into the Kwoon from the doorway. The instructor may think that there is a problem and interrupt the class, so please stay back unless there is an emergency.  If your child is in the pre-class waiting room, you can use the window by the computer to look in on them, or to get their attention.

Parent Waiting Area—Please Do Not Stand at the Railing or Sit in the Hallway: When watching your child’s class, please do so in the Parent’s Waiting Room. Lately, there have been many parents watching classes from the railing at the top of the stairs. This causes a few problems. Most importantly it is a safety concern! It becomes difficult to go up and down the stairs or to access the change rooms. Would you want your child knocked down the stairs because of congestion at the railing?  Another issue is that the noise and movement from people at the top of the stairs can be a distraction for students and instructors during class. Students might not be focused on what their instructor is saying if they keep looking up.

Put Jackets in the Change Rooms: With the arrival colder weather, students will be wearing coats. These must be hung neatly in the change room.  The shelves in the Kwoon are reserved for equipment bags only.

Proper Uniforms and Equipment: Students are asked to keep their uniforms clean and their gear in good repair. Depending on the age of your child, this might be difficult for them to do alone. If you notice your child’s sparing gear, or uniform, is starting to rip or is getting too small, it is time to replace it. The instructor might not let your child spar if they deem their gear will not protect them properly.  If your kids have outgrown their school clothes, they have likely outgrown their Kung Fu uniform as well.

Adherence to these simple rules will help ensure a clean, safe learning environment for all students.

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