Teaching martial arts I believe is an art itself and I wondered for those who teach or those with experience who can talk about their teachers, what are the core elements it takes to make someone’s Kung Fu strong.
This is not a set routine but rather a guideline of what I find important for teaching Kung Fu:
Basics- The absolute foundation that must be taught. I consider basics the tools and mechanics for everything. When teaching a punch, kick, block, throw, counter, ect., one should break this technique down in an A to Z fashion so that the student understands the what and why of what they are doing.
Stance Training- Always get disagreements on this, but stance training, both stagnant and transitional, are essential to a student’s foundation and rooting, which is a requisite for strong Kung Fu. Footwork, dropping the weight, counter sinking, sweeping, throwing, all come from good stance work and strong rooted legs.
Bag Work- Working the heavy bag is something that is essential to build power, speed, and timing. There is nothing wrong with doing basics in line and throwing techniques in the air to learn and refine form, however, if a student never hits anything, how do they learn the true mechanics of it? Absolute requirement.
Mitt Work- Seperate yet equally important to bag work, mitt work refines technique, builds speed and power, and increases and improves accuracy. I hold mitts often for my students and do set techniques as well as freestyle movement. I believe kicks are best practiced on mitts and have them partner up and do kicks such as front snap, side snap, crescents, hooks, roundhouses, and spinning for the more advanced. We hold Thai Mitts to work power roundhouses, knees, and push kicks. We kick body shields with front thust kicks, side thrust kicks, and roundhouses. This refines.
Two Person Drills- Step sparring to give students the mechanics and know how to do certain techniques and combinations. It could be something as simple as jab, cross, roundhouse to advanced sticky hand drills, jamming and bridging, or clinch. Very essential in my opinion.
Sparring- The absolute necissity for good Kung Fu, sparring can be done at different levels but what is required is freestyle movement and reactionary techniques. I have my students spar in three manners
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Hard Sparring- Full Equipment (Head Gear, Boxing Gloves, Shin Guards) Heavy Contact with protection for minimal injury, let’s them go without much fear of injury.
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Refined Sparring-MMA or Fingerless Gloves, Less contact but more focus on technique and open hand strikes, clinch, and grabbing and sticky techniques.
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San Shou- Same as Hard Sparring but with throws, ground work, ground strikes, submissions, ect. Often you can mix this with refined sparring moreso for subs due to the inability with boxing gloves.
Throwing/Shuai Training/Submissions/Chin Na- Can fall into the basics category but freestyle and randori must be done for best results.
Iron Training- Bang arms, bang shins, kick ribcage, kick legs, and overall make the body a piece of steel. I have begun to implement much more of this into my teaching routine as it was a huge part when I was coming up through.
Forms- Set patterns which define the system you teach. I also include Chi Kung and meditation into this area. While I do not feel these have as important of a role as others I mentioned, they are a part of Kung Fu and have their place within the system being taught.
Please feel free to tell of your teaching method or of the teaching method that you learned with. I feel as an instructor nothing in Kung Fu should be stagnant and we should always be trying to teaching and training methods.
