The advantage of choosing Kung Fu as an avenue for fitness is that it is all-encompassing. It requires strength, power, endurance, balance, flexibility, coordination, and focus. Trying to juggle all these elements into a comprehensive and sustainable training program to consistently progress across your lifetime, however, can be challenging. That is where I come in as your instructor: as a National Strength and Conditioning Association Certified Personal Trainer and a 3rd degree black belt in Shaolin Kung Fu, I have carefully considered all the factors in play to create your training routine.
If you follow our program, you’ll achieve health and well-being in every area, and learn some fantastic skills to give you a point of focus for your training along the way.
The Kung Fu and Fitness program is the core of what we do. Any kind of martial art is impossible without a solid fitness foundation, so each month we train ourselves with a different focus—such as endurance, strength, or balance—while also maintaining the progress we’ve made in other areas. Afterwards we cool down with some stretching and meditation, before proceeding onto Kung Fu skills training. This is in equal parts time for us to stretch all the major muscle groups in our body, focus for a moment on our mental health, and recover for the next part of our conditioning. Our skills training involves not just drilling motions and forms, but also time for us to comprehend techniques and practice our skills in sparring. This is imperative for our training in class to translate into real-world fighting ability.
Everything is done by working with each person at their current physical fitness and skill level, while also challenging them to improve those levels over time. I will never ask you to do something you’re very uncomfortable doing. My goal is instead to develop your confidence and abilities to become comfortable in situations that may have previously seemed impossible for you.
The Yoga and Tai Chi program helps to further our development of somatic awareness—or being present in our bodies, along with knowing exactly where our bodies are in space and time. It also further improves our focus, balance, coordination, and flexibility, and allows us to fine-tune the motion of both our bodies and minds. These improvements ultimately translate to better overall fitness, and martial ability.
Our Shaolin Weapons program helps further train strength and coordination by using a steel mace for conditioning. This assists us with developing the necessary power to utilize other weapons, which in turn further develops our physical fitness and fighting ability. The extra consideration of a weapon in our hands further exercises and extends our mind-body awareness. Additionally, many of the motions that are utilized with weapons are easily translated to empty-handed fighting techniques, and vice versa.
Finally, the Martial Arts and Philosophy program focuses on encouraging everyone to develop a deeper understanding of themselves, the Universe at large, and their unique place in it. Independent thinking is highly encouraged; I simply hope to provide some insight and prompts for development along the way.
Together this training routine is designed to produce a fit and well-balanced martial artist and human being. My ultimate goal is to build a community that works together to create the best possible versions of themselves for their own good, and for the good of the world.
While students may participate in as much or as little of the training program as they’d like. I highly encourage everyone to view it as a complete academy for Kung Fu, health, and fitness, and not simply as a disparate group of classes that have little to do with one another. The more types of classes and times you can make, the faster your journey to personal growth in health, fitness, and martial arts will be.
Having said that, I also do my best to make myself available for personal training when schedules are in conflict. I am happy to create and help guide you through parts of the program you may have missed, or work on some of your own more personal goals, if need be.
I am here for you in anyway I can be, because this academy and its goals are my life’s purpose.