by Sifu D’arcy Langois
Fu For You Summer 2024

As Martial Artists, we tend to be more physically active than the average person in our community. Within the Adult program, we are encouraged to attend three classes per week, giving us a solid three hours of guaranteed workout (not counting personal training). There is even a solid number of people in the student body who blow that three class average out of the water; training four, five, six or more times per week, and that is incredible! It’s great seeing a group of people so interested in, and dedicated to the art that they are willing to make that much time in their busy schedule to attend so many classes. That amount of training, however, does come with a cost; one usually paid in torn muscles, loose joints, and an overall feeling of fatigue. So here is a friendly reminder: DON’T SKIP RECOVERY DAYS!

For those of you that know me, this may seem a little bit ironic coming from me, but that’s why I felt the need to emphasize this point. Your body and your mind both need time to recover. As always, a recovery day can mean different things to different people, so what I say here isn’t a catch-all. This is meant to get you thinking about the concept of recovery days, and why you should be weaving them into your training regime.

Experts recommend taking at least one day off per week in your daily workout routine, to help build your strength and prevent injuries. What does that look like? That’s completely up to you, but it should be a break from your normal workout pattern (so yes, it may mean not attending a class on a day). Taking a day off of our strenuous, anaerobic style of activity, and instead doing light cardio (e.g. jogging, swimming, or a bike ride), or mobility focused activities (e.g. yoga, or stretching) is a great way to promote healing, while keeping your body moving.

On top of taking that important recovery day to heal, cooldown stretching after every strenuous workout should be a priority. A handful of minutes performing some static stretching (focused on the muscle groups you just abused) can go a long way to making your day after the workout more pleasant. Stretching eases the muscle fibres, helps work some of that lactic acid build up out, and promotes the healing process to keep you feeling fit the next day. Making this a priority can also reduce the number of recovery days you are forced to take.

Finally, sometimes your brain just needs a break. If you find yourself getting frustrated over and over in class, it might be a good idea to miss a class or two to re-center yourself. Take those recovery days to help reset your mind, before coming back focused (hopefully), and ready to continue your Kung Fu journey.

Don’t skip recovery days! And see you in the Kwoon!

The post Don’t Skip Recovery Days appeared first on Waterloo Kung-Fu Academy.

by Sifu D’arcy Langois
Fu For You Spring 2024

With the turn of the year behind us (in two calendars no less), now is a great time to look back on the year that was, as you prepare to focus on the year to come. Those of you that have followed my articles over the past year know that I’ve taken a deeper look into the mental side of our Kung Fu training. Surprise! This is what it was all leading toward: an accurate and honest self-reflection of your Kung Fu journey during the last calendar year. Before continuing on, I encourage you to create a quick list for yourself focusing on the following:

1. Three things you are proud to have accomplished in your Kung Fu journey.
2. Three things that you feel you could have done better.
3. Three ways in which you improved the most as a Martial Artist.

You’ve got your list? Excellent! That’s a great start, but obviously there is a larger list lurking somewhere within you. Hopefully the nine things you’ve written down are a good summation of your year. I also hope that in looking at those points, you feel a sense of accomplishment that helps inspire you to continue along the path this coming year.

The Academy celebrates the turn of the year with an outing designed to bring the student body together and enjoy a night of community. This event, officially labelled the Awards Party, is the night the Academy collectively looks back on the year that was. We do this with great food, great company, great demonstrations, and a handful of awards recognizing some few members of the student body. Is winning an award exciting? Yes! Is it an honour? Definitely! Is winning an award the driving force behind your training? It shouldn’t be. The recognition of your hard work in the form of an award is great, but it shouldn’t be the defining moment of your Kung Fu journey. Lao Tzu says, “Care about what other people think, and you will always be their prisoner”, and remember awards are granted from the outside, not by your own self. It all comes back to your mental training, and the only person you should be vying against is your previous self (hint: the Focus Points are a great measuring stick).

So now we find ourselves at the beginning of a new year, with a clean slate of opportunities ahead of us.  In your year of training to come, I’ve got something for you to try: Think about an Award from our party that you would most like to give yourself. You’d like to be the Most Dedicated? That’s amazing! Try to find more time to attend classes at the academy than you did in the previous year. Most Improved? Find more time to train than the previous year, thereby improving more as a Martial Artist.

Be honest with yourself and use the Focus Points to keep your mental training active and see if you can win the award against your previous self.

Explore all of our Kung-Fu Focus Points.

The post Reflecting on the Year that Was to Prepare for the Year to Come appeared first on Waterloo Kung-Fu Academy.

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 Sifu D’arcy Langois
Fu For You Fall 2023

At its core Kung Fu stems from an incredibly practical place, a need to defend oneself. It is important to remember that every movement we practice while training has some real-world application. This idea brings us to the third Focus Point found above the mirrors in the Kwoon: Train as if it is real.

Continuing the concept of mental training, this Focus Point urges you to consider how you approach training the various techniques that we work on. There are three questions to ask yourself as you home in on this point: What am I doing, where am I, and is it real? Seeing as our Adult curriculum is broadly divided into four main categories, let’s take a look at some ways to apply this Focus Point across each of them.

Self Defence

Likely the curriculum with closest link to real life application, self defence is best learned with a touch of reality. Caution: this does not mean performing all releases at full power and speed. Some movements (Chin Na, for example) can result in severe damage to your partner if applied too quickly. Reality, in this instance, is applied by properly applying the attacks to your partner. Choke hold attacks are required to threaten your airway, so a correctly applied choke hold should do this. This grants you experience in two important ways: one, the releases only work on a true choke hold; and two, you then get to experience what it feels like in a controlled environment, which may ease the shock of experiencing it somewhere else.

Sparring

Our partner exercise of sparring offers some insight in how to use our techniques against a real live moving opponent. Caution: we are not trying to use techniques at full power in sparring, as we are not trying to put our partners on the ground. Instead, use this opportunity to assess the accuracy, range and timing of the techniques that we learn in Kung Fu. Using them against a moving opponent gives you an excellent chance to truly test how effective your techniques are.

Technique & Forms

These two categories belong together in this case, as our Forms are simply a set grouping of techniques that we learn at each rank. Looking at your current rank’s forms, and sequences, you will find they contain every technique in your syllabus. As you are often practicing your techniques in the open air, or with equipment designed to be hit, you can truly experiment with your power, speed, and accuracy. Caution: recognize the equipment being used and adjust your training to that (for example, focus mitts are not designed for full power techniques, whereas heavy bags are). The addition of movement, as in forms practice, opens up the opportunity to test your balance and stance work as you move through a variety of techniques.

Keep the real-life applications in mind to enhance your Kung Fu journey. Stay focused, and I’ll see you in the Kwoon!

Explore all of our Kung-Fu Focus Points.

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by Sifu D’arcy Langois

In our Spring newsletter, we explored Focus Point #1: “Is this the very best that I can do?” With an Adult gradings freshly behind us, now is the perfect time to think about the next Focus Point in line. While all our Focus Points require significant introspection regarding our training, the second Focus Point calls us to observe what our fellow classmates are up to. So with that, let’s take a look at Focus Point #2: The Concept of Healthy Competition—with yourself.

Despite what the title says, this point is not intended to pit your level of skill against that of your fellow classmates. The idea is not to look around and say “Gee, Tiger’s sidekicks are so much better than mine!”, that’s not constructive. We all have our strengths and weaknesses when it comes to technique in Kung Fu (as in life generally speaking), so comparing yourself to others in this manner isn’t helpful. Instead, consider the following question, “Is anybody trying harder than me?”

This is the point where I will reiterate that it is not about how smooth your forms are, or how high your kicks are, not even how fast you perform in class. We are a diverse academy, with folks from many different walks of life, different ages, and levels of fitness prior to beginning their Kung Fu journeys. Those factors all come into play when performing the techniques, and forms that we learn, and so, how skillful you are at doing something should be ignored when considering this Focus Point: just think about how hard you are trying.

With that idea, you can look down the floor at anyone, of any rank, at any time and consider your level of effort during a class compared to theirs. You can look around during a period of intense technique combinations and see if you are taking breaks, when someone else isn’t. When you break to work on your current forms, do you see your fellow classmates drilling their new moves while you stand around and wait to be seen by an instructor? Putting in the maximum amount of effort during your training is a quick way to make gains along your Kung Fu journey.

Early Training Session

To do this properly, you’ll need to really analyze how much effort you are putting in throughout a class, and decide if that is the best you can muster. At the same time, it trains you to be aware of your surroundings and the actions of others around you (a useful tool for self defence applications).

Next time you are in the Kwoon training, I encourage you to take a look down the floor and pick a few of your classmates. Choose someone of a higher rank, a lower rank, and the same rank, and over the course of the class do your best to match, or even exceed the effort level they are putting out. You’ll find you get more out of the class, and the Spirit of Healthy Competition will help elevate your training.

Explore all of our Kung-Fu Focus Points.

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by Sifu D’arcy Langois

Next time you are in the Kwoon, take a look at the wall above the mirrors where you will see four posters with the label, “Explore all of our Focus Points.” Kung Fu is undeniably a physical artform as we train our bodies to perform the various techniques in our curriculum. However, the physical side of martial arts is only one part of the picture, as martial artists are often encouraged to engage their minds in their training.

Enter our four Focus Points. Those posters are not just decorations meant to take up space on an otherwise empty wall, they are designed to encourage you to think about your Kung Fu training. With that in mind, let’s take a look at Focus Point #1: Rate Yourself on a Scale of 1-10.
“Is this the very best that I can do?” That is the question to consider when you think about Focus Point #1, but it shouldn’t just be a reflection of how you feel you are performing the techniques/forms, as there are many ways to rate yourself. Here are just a few that come to mind:

1. Keeping Focus: How well are you keeping yourself in the moment? At the start of each class we perform a simple form of meditation in an attempt to bring our minds into the present, and focus on our training. On a scale of 1 to 10, how well do you keep your mind locked in on the class?
2. Maintaining Intensity: How well can you maintain full intensity training throughout a class? Every activity we undertake during a class has some martial application to it, from training techniques, to holding stances. On that same scale, how well can you keep your intensity up through the course of a class?
3. Attention to Detail: While learning new movements (in forms or techniques), how well do you remember the specific details? Every movement from a simple punch to a complex form, share a host of specific details. On the scale, how well do you keep track of those details?
4. Flat-Out Trying: How well do you keep trying, particularly when things are getting difficult or repetitive? There are times in our training where you are being asked to do things that are extremely tough, or things that you have done before, and it can sometimes be hard to keep working at it. Again, on that scale, how well do you keep practicing the movements?

These are just a few things to consider when you are looking at Focus Point #1, and it is by no means a comprehensive list. I encourage you to rate yourself on a variety of scales, in a variety of classes, and to always try to be honest with yourself. Being able to keep your mind locked in on the question, “is this the best I can do?” is a great way to further the mental side of our Kung Fu training.

Explore all of our Kung-Fu Focus Points.

The post Focusing on Focus Points: #1 Rate Yourself on a Scale of 1-10 appeared first on Waterloo Kung-Fu Academy.