Sifu Lloyd Fridenburg
Editorial
As you know, or will soon find out, creating your own Kung Fu form is a requirement to grade from Green to Blue at WKFA. To me, this has always been one of the easiest requirements in our Kung Fu program and yet we constantly see students stressing over their homemade form. I say it’s easy because it’s yours! Aside from following the guidelines, you are making this form for yourself. It gives you a platform to express your own vision, creativity, and abilities, while demonstrating the Kung Fu skills you have acquired to date.
Your homemade form does not have to be the last form of your requirements. Why not make it your first? In fact, why not just consider it an extracurricular activity that is a work in progress. You can develop a basic outline for your form in a couple of hours and then take the next several months to modify, tweak, add, and delete components, until it truly becomes something you own.
Make your homemade form a labour of love; not just something you did because it was a requirement and you had to do it. We have seen some exceptional forms, created by some extremely passionate and creative martial artists, over the years, but the important thing is to make the form your own. Never make the mistake of setting the bar too high for your abilities; the only competition is with yourself.
Don’t incorporate techniques that you know you struggle with, unless the intent is to develop your form early and use the form as a motivator to perfect those techniques. If after months of practice you still can’t get the hang of something just take it out, or modify the move so it demonstrates your strength and not your weakness.
The minimum requirement is 40 moves, but if you begin counting at the start you miss the intent of the exercise. Don’t strive for the bare minimum! This is your form, be creative and enjoy your creation. Take the start of the Tiger form for example. Not including the bow, I would consider that everything from the beginning up to the dragon stance would be a total of 4 moves. However, the intent is to create a form and not to fixate on the number of moves. Think of the overall length of your Tiger form as a reference.
So remember:
- Start early!
- Make it yours.
- Enjoy the process.
- Don’t compete with others.
- Don’t think about the count until you have things fleshed out.
- It should be your best form.
