Tag: martial arts

Celebrating Our Teachers

John Winkelman

Yesterday Master Lee and his students celebrated Sifu Day. Sifu is the Chinese translation of “teacher”, in the sense of one who imparts knowledge and/or wisdom. Sifu day is a national holiday in China (and possibly else where) which takes place on the anniversary of the birthday of Guan Gong .

Guan Gong was honored for his integrity and sense of justice – admirable traits to be had in a teacher. He was a warrior, and any teaching he did was more by example than by rote. When he died he was deified.

We held a simple celebration, everyone lit incense for Guan Gong, and Master Lee said a brief Buddhist prayer. Then we had food, then (my favorite part) the picture-taking.

Kung Fu Fighting

John Winkelman

The tournament on Saturday was a lot of fun. Six people competed and we brought home nine medals. Photos are here , and a writeup will be following shortly.

Yes, that is the Flash photo application I created a couple of weeks ago. It still has some rough spots but it works. You will need the latest version of the Flash 6 player to use it.

Sifu Chung, the event host and organizer, told us a few weeks ago that there would be a Praying Mantis sifu at the tournament who had studied with Master Lee ‘s instructor Chiu Chuk Kai (hereafter referred to as Sigong). This instructor, Sifu Tony Chuy, studied with Sigong in Hong Kong after Master Lee came to America. All the time he was a student he had heard stories about Master Lee but had never met him.

Before the tournament started we noticed someone we didn’t recognize but who was wearing the crest of our style of Kung Fu. He was obviously looking for someone, so when he got close, Rick said “Are you from New York?”

“Yes.”

“This is Sifu Lee.”

Sifu Chuy said “Okay”, then he flinched and and his jaw hit the floor when he realized that the person he had been waiting for 25 years to meet was right in front of him.

As fun as the rest of the day was, that was the best moment.

We don’t have a lot of contact with other schools, so it is easy to forget how big the world of martial arts really is. For instance, on Saturday I watched people performing Tai Chi Praying Mantis kung fu, Seven Star Praying Mantis kung fu, Wing Chun, Jow Gar, Pak Mei and Kempo. I saw Jeung, Wu, Yang and Chen style Tai Chi,and I participated in an Iron Shirt Chi Kung demonstration. All of this at a small (though highly respected) martial arts tournament in Midland.

It is good to be reminded that we are part of such an extraordinary world.

People (I Tell Ya!)

John Winkelman

There is this guy who has stopped into the kung fu class a couple of times to observe. The first time, he just stood by the door and every time someone from the class wandered near, he would ask questions like “How does this style compare to Tiger Crane?” or “Have you ever taken karate?” This time he stood by the door and asked questions like “Have you ever heard of Leopard Style?” and “That roll you did looked like an aikido roll.” He also wanted to know if he would lose 130 pounds if he joined the class.

My answers to these questions were, in order, the following: Don’t know. Yes. No. Ah. Maybe.

Regarding the aikido question, for which he seemed genuinely interested in an answer, I told him something I picked up from the Bruce Lee interview in the Gold edition of Enter the Dragon:

As long as people have two arms and two legs, there will only be a certain number of movements which are applicable to the martial arts. Of course there will be similarities. there are very few useful ways to do a dive roll. All of the less-than-useful ways have been weeded out by attrition. There are not certain styles which are better than other styles. Whether or not it works depends on the instructor and the student. Why did you come to this class if you want to know about Tiger, Leopard, Hamster, etc.?

So I don’t know if the answers he received yesterday helped him, but he sat quietly and watched most of the class. Time will tell.

Today, down at the river, Scott and I watched a guy with a three-pronged grappling hook (like ninjas use to climb walls) dredge a section of the river just below the dam. Naturally, this caused some speculation:

“Is he hunting for a body?” “Do you think he lost his fishing pole?” “Do you think he meant to get his grapple caught under the rocks over in that deep part?” “Maybe he’s trying to snag a fish…”

The reality was much more prosaic: He was clearing the area of old cast-off fish lines and boat ropes.

Today’s reason why Internet Explorer 5 Should Be Covered in Honey and Staked Out Over an Anthill is the following:

Say you are building a fully CSS-bases website. No tables anywhere. Say the navigation requires that you have elements (anchor tags) FLOATed right. No problem so far. Now you put images inside those anchors for to create a nifty rollover effect. Looks good everywhere. Works perfectly everywhere.

??? Waitaminnit….

IE5.0 on the PC. Having an image inside a FLOATed anchor causes the image to block the mouseover event on the anchor. In other words, when the anchor is moused over, the image swaps just like it should, but the anchor is no longer an anchor. The CSS border picks up the presence of the mouse. The border (1 pixel) can be clicked on, but the area covered by the image cannot. And using document.getElementById(“nav”). getElementsByTagName(“a”)[0]. onmouseover = function() {} doesn’t work because… because… because IE5 is stupid and outdated and people who refuse to upgrade DESERVE to see broken things.

For the record, I am calling this one the “Floated Anchor/Image Mouseover Bug”.

Teaching and Learning

John Winkelman

As an addendum to the past few posts, a moment of strange synchronicity, I discovered that my high school wrestling coach works at the St. Julian winery branch in Parma, Michigan, just down the road from where I grew up.

I just returned from my last (for the moment) session teaching Tai Chi in Holland. Master Lee is due back in town tomorrow from his vacation in Vietnam, so I assume he will be resuming his teaching role. I enjoyed teaching out there. For the past four weeks I have had my own class; I have discovered what it is to be A Teacher. I am an assistant instructor in the classes here in Grand Rapids, but being assistant means there is someone above me who is watching as I teach. Out in Holland this past month I have been on my own. Any mistakes I have made will be painfully obvious in a week.

And it was great!

There is something to be said for taking a group of students and guiding them toward a particular ability, a particular understanding. A local college professor told me, when we were discussing the pros and cons of university professorship, that teaching can be addicting. It took a break in my instructor schedule, a group of new faces for the first time in five years, for me to understand what she meant. Teaching is as much an art as is sculpture or music or poetry. We take this great bundle of notions and instincts and reflexes, and tune it to a particular understanding. Then we step away and see if our instruction was sufficient to lead the student down the same path we explored those many years ago. If there are mis-steps or rough edges, we smooth them, redirect them, refine the recipients until they are ready to take on students of their own. No two students are alike. That is where the art comes in.

Raven Hill, A Novel About Kung Fu

John Winkelman

I have studied martial arts for 13 years; two bouncing around from school to school, and the last eleven as a student of Master Lee, Hoa Yen. Having studied one style for so long, I sometimes lose track of what else is out there, so now and then I will spend a few hours surfing, seeing what Google has to say about the state of the Martial Arts in America.

While surfing yesterday I rediscovered Raven Hill , a site which I first came across a couple of years ago. Back then, it was just a link to a story. Now it is a full-blown martial arts website, put together by someone who wields at least a little mojo.

I was delighted to find that the original story is still up, and has been added to significantly. Basically one of the students of this school sat down and wrote a historical/fantasy novel about a group of 17 young men who go off on their own to learn 17 different styles of kung fu, then from what they learn create a new style. Someone put a great deal of time and thought into these stories. The writing is decent; not Pulitzer material but better than most anything you will find on the New York Times rack at the local McBookstore. Where these stories truly shine is in the descriptions of the training these young men go through in the course of learning their kung fu. As a serious martial artist myself I can say that the methods used in the stories make good sense, and to utilize them for eight, ten, fourteen hours a day, as the characters do, would indeed create martial artists of the highest calibre.

So if you feel like being inspired to practice hard, read these stories. The first, Chu Jeng, can be accessed from the link above. The rest can be found linked to the resource page of the Raven Hill site.

Now, if you will excuse me, I need to go stand in horse stance for a few hours.

Poetic Justice, Kung Fu Style

John Winkelman

This past Saturday was the Midland Open Martial Arts Tournament, hosted by Sifu Henry Chung and his students. Eight of us from Master Lee’s class attended, and between us we brought home, I think, fifteen medals in forms and sparring.

During the past two tournaments Rick — our senior student– and I have been attempting to perform a Broadsword vs. Spear set, and for various reasons have not been able. Two years ago a mis-communication found me at lunch when the two-person forms event was held, and last year I zigged when I should have zagged and caught a spear in the eye.

So this year Rick and I sorted out all of the possible contingencies (if one of us loses a weapon segue to an empty handed form; if one of us is hurt that person determines if we continue or stop, based on number of limbs remaining; etc.). Well, it all worked, because not only did we take first place in our division, but about halfway through the form I chopped the tip off of the spear. The same spear which stuck me last year.

So, as Zathras said, at least there is symmetry.

The rest of the weekend found me wandering around trying to find the most comfortable patch of grass in town for a nap. I found a good one, but it is my secret.

Putting My Ducks In a Row

John Winkelman

So I realized on Tuesday that this weekend is Memorial Day weekend, which means I have a kung fu tournament to attend on Saturday. That means a lot of work, umm, today and tomorrow. This year will be the year I redeem myself for getting hurt last year and being at lunch during an event the year before.

Also, I have finished creating the Infinitely Extensible XML/XSL/XHTML Weblog Template System. Not all I need is a content mamagement screen or two and this puppy will be ready to bundle up and offer as freeware/something for my clients… should I ever have any clients… should my current job go sour…

Well, it was a spiffy thing to figure out, and undoubtedly the most useful thing I have created since I started in this line of work.

In two weeks is the BIG kung fu demonstration at the Grand Rapids Arts Festival 2002 (1:00pm on Saturday, June 8 at the adult involvement stage). The day after, I am off for a week of vacation in sunny Richmond, Virginia, in the care and keeping of a beautiful woman.

Sometimes life is goooooooood.