Interview with Zhou Zhen Dong

[xiao yao]

http://studymartialarts.wordpress.com/2014/04/03/interview-with-zhou-zhen-dong-of-taiji-mantis/

A more in depth interview with my shifu, Zhou Zhen Dong. enjoy :)

[mooyingmantis]

Very interesting! Thank you for sharing this with us!

[Pete]

Nowadays due to higher living standards and especially the “one child policy”, Chinese people are afraid of “eating bitter”. This means to endure hardship. This is especially the case in the cities. If you look in the big kung fu schools, the kids are all from poor rural areas. City kids will learn piano, English, dance etc. a lot of old masters have nobody to teach, their arts die with them. A lot of westerners come to China, train hard, respect and love the art; of course a teacher will want to pass their art onto them. Before, a lot of old masters were persecuted, killed, we learnt in secret, we couldn’t open a school or openly teach people.

Anyway, a lot of old styles are being lost. In fact, I believe, in 20-30 years, if Chinese want to revive our arts; we will have to go to the west to learn kung fu. Kids aren’t interested, parents don’t want their kids to learn.

woah that bit sounded exactly like my shifu xD