Part 1 Meeting Sifu Meng
Red! Blue! Green! Black!
Pink and Yellow,
they’ve come back!
Normal humans came together to harness the power of the dinosaurs. Their bodies covered from head to toe in a shimmering suit. It lay tight on their skin, yet flexible enough for even the highest of kicks. These guys were known as the power rangers. It was here that my martial arts journey would begin.
I, like many children of my day, watched it as if it was my religion. Everyday after school the first thing to turn on was the TV. I couldn’t miss a single episode. It was too incredible to miss out on. Rerun’s weren’t too bad either. In fact, reruns were a thousand times better then whatever my sister liked to watch. Yeah, we had to fight for the television set and even the remote at times. She wanted to watch her silly soaps and dramas, but my persistence earned me victory. I now had the right to watch my daily helping of kick ass fiesta. It wasn’t long before I began throwing round houses and side kicks in the living room.
It Would Be a number of year later before I ever set foot in a kung fu school. At the time I was older and much more mature. I didn’t watch power rangers anymore but I still did the occasional round house kick when no one was looking.
Ironically, it wasn’t until my Uncle saw me do the kicks was I referred to go see the near kung fu school. He asked me, “You want to learn Kung fu?” I had no doubts about it and immediately said yes.
The next day, I met Sifu Meng.
Actually, I met his portrait first. His school was closed at the time, but thats ok because his Martial Arts Resume was on display. Collages of pictures were stacked on a rainbow colored background. None of them had captions and none of them needed any. The message of each picture was more then clear--Sifu Meng was a kung fu master and Movie Star.
There was a picture of him delivering a side kick to someone. His posture was perfect; his kick was fully extended and you could clearly see that his body weight was behind it. Any one can kick, but not many people can project the intensity of a kick on to a static picture. [Click here to see the picture]
In his other picture he wore a suit like an army General. He was built! Compared to his side kick picture, it looked like this thicker, larger version could stuff him in a high school locker. I suppose it fits the role. After all, the General should be bigger meaner and stronger then any of his soldiers.
Lastly, there was one pose that I would never forget. It was a pose that could only be achieved after a long dedication to training. This was another side kick, but instead of aiming towards an opponent, it shot out straight up into the sky. Can you imagine my envy, awe, and amazement? He wasn’t just holding up his leg in the sky, he was kicking with intensity. How does a static unchanging picture move you? This was clearly a mark of a master. How many years did it take him to get that flexible? How many years did it take to make it strong? Deep down inside I wanted to achieve this feat. I wanted to be fast, I wanted to be strong. It would be this very picture that would motivate me to put my full effort into training.
I came back later that day, in the evening. It looked like it had just opened. The school was mostly empty and I saw only two people. I didn’t have to ask for Sifu Meng cause he was already there right in front of me and I recognized him from the photos. He greeted me with a smile and a hand shake and reminded me to take off my shoes before entering. How very asian of him. It was then I met his Star Student at the time. His name was Tommy. He was a Purple belt and he would lead me through my first wushu kicks.
Part 2 Wushu Kicks
Wushu Kicks. They are the most fundamental aspect of Contemporary Wushu training. (Stances such as the horse stance are also fundamental, but they are static and thus train you in something different then say a dynamic kick.] Without perfecting these fundamentals you will be more susceptible to getting injury’s.
The first few kicks require you to have at least one foot on the ground at any time. You should not be jumping yet. The next step is to jump in the air and kick. Sure, you might have the strength to jump up and kick, but if your body isn’t strong enough you will run into problems. You may experience knee pain. This usually comes from overworking and straining the joints and tendons in the area. However, given enough time you will become strong enough to handle the next step. You will be able to transition from a well rooted kick to a jump kick without any adverse effects.
So Sifu Meng told me to follow Tommy through the wushu kicks. I lined up behind him and waited for the next command.
“ONE!......PUSH!....Front Stretch Kick!”
I really didn’t know what to do, so I looked at Tommy and saw that he had out stretched his arms such that this body was in the shape of a letter ‘t.' He kicked straight up in the air and brought his foot back to its starting place. He took a step and repeated the process with his other leg. It didn’t seem that complicated so I spread my arms and followed along. I couldn’t kick quite as high or quite as fast as Tommy, but it was okay, I was a beginner. The next kick was called outside crescent kick. It was the same as the one earlier except instead of kicking in one line, you would make a big outward circle.
Sifu Meng grabbed a red kicking pad and tossed it to Tommy. The first thing I had to do was something called ‘two kicks’. This was basically a roundhouse followed by a wheel kick. The next one was rather interesting. It was called ‘jump front kick’ and it required that you start off with your left knee raised up to waist level and following it up with a jump and a kick from the standing leg. Bullet Proof Monk came to my mind. I recalled the part where the monk says that solid, liquid and vapor were all one in the same and you can step off a brick of vapor as if it was a solid. So I imagined stepping up a brick, jumping up of it and following it with a kick.
The next kick surprised Sifu. In this school they called it the ‘Jump Inside Crescent Kick’. Some call it 540. Some call it the ‘Super Sexy Awesome Tooooooooornado Kick!’ . Just kidding, but no matter what name it is given, they are all the same thing. I happened to learn this kick from my cousin and boy, it was confusing at first. He kept drilling me through it until I got it and once I got it, he held up a pillow and told me to kick it.
He looked like he didn’t expect me to pull it off, but I did. So Sifu asked me again whether I had done kung fu or any other martial art. I told him once again,”no.”
Tommy showed me two more things before I ended my try out: “Hand fighting” and “Basic Bo Staff.” The hand fighting was a bit weird ‘cause it started off with Tommy punching with his right hand and me blocking from the inside gate with my right arm. It didn’t really make sense to me since it still looked like he could hit me. We kicked and blocked with our hands. This didn’t really make much sense either, but I figured that since it was all choreographed it didn’t really matter.
The show had to go on. After a few rounds Tommy grabbed two staffs and handed me one. He tried to teach me this one move where you rotate the stick around your right side and around your left side and you keep rotating it in the same direction. It was complicated and intriguing.
When I got home I was still thinking about how to do that Bo Staff trick. I wasn’t able to do it at the try out but my mind kept the image fresh in my mind and I continued to view it and view it in my mind until it made logical sense. I found the Generic Pledge duster mop handle thing we had at home and used it as a Staff. I really wanted to get this cause it looked so cool!
This type of interest was what kept me going. It kept me hooked. Kung fu and Wushu are complex arts and the moves are challenging, but the satisfaction you gain from finally being able to do it right, is absolutely worth the time and effort put in to it.
Work hard and Train hard and Never give up.
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