Doing Kung Fu... In Public... In China

[SimonM]

I had been practicing in my appartment but it's JUST TOO SMALL. So the last time I had students over to visit I broached the subject of finding somewhere to practice. I told them I was slightly embarrassed to be practicing martial arts, in my flawed way, in the country from which my arts originated.

The students responded: Oh no! Dont be embarrassed! Go, practice outside!

So I did.

By the end of my brief practice session I had an audience consisting of most of the tiny children and toothless senior citizens in the University. The seniors were all grinning their heads off (look at the laowai, he's doing gong fu) the kids (all under 3 ft) were either watching amazed or trying to follow along (albeit from a safe distance) and then in the background a few of the actual students at the school had taken a break from their basketball game to watch - though from ****her away than anyone else. No angry faces, no laughs, none of what I feared. Now that I have gotten it over with I don't know what I was so worried about. At least I now know that I don't have to be constantly worrying about kicking out a wall as I go through Tiger and Crane!

Also, you never know, I might get lucky and find someone else who "plays" gong fu which would be a great boon!

[Innocence]

first thing that came to mind was...careful not to get arrested or anything haha~

[SimonM]

Are you kidding? The security guards at the school love me! I'm one of the few people who bothers saying hello to them. The only time I have been in a cop car was when somebody who owned one (don't know if he was a cop... I tought he was a store owner) took me to a tea store to buy tea on my second day here. Plus with only two foreigners in town I enjoy a certain "rock-star status". Now I'm the fat laowai who works at the teachers college and does gongfu!

It's quite funny, I'll be walking down the street and some random 20 something will cheerfully shout "hey laowai!" and when I actually respond (usually with "hello" "hey" or "ni hao") they will grin like a sucker and then realize that they have exhausted their english!

[WanderingMonk]

By the end of my brief practice session I had an audience consisting of most of the tiny children and toothless senior citizens in the University. The seniors were all grinning their heads off (look at the laowai, he's doing gong fu) the kids (all under 3 ft) were either watching amazed or trying to follow along (albeit from a safe distance)

the grass is always greener on the other side of the fense.

hey, you might start a small cma revival all by yourself in shanxi. yeah, make all those little kids disciples. you can open your own branch of hung gar. imagine, an canadien in china accidentally revive cma to counter the emergence of mma in china.

the simonM hung gar branch in shanxi. you can be like wong fei hong, but canadien, and in shanxi.

[cerebus]

LOL! Yeah, 100 years from now those little kids' grandchildren will be listening all wide-eyed to stories of the "Round-eyed master from the West" and his incredible Gung Fu abilities...

[SimonM]

Funny; very funny.

[g0pher]

Congrats on the courage. I don't know too many people (including myself) that would train outdoors in public. Perhaps because i'm afraid people will challenge me to some sort of strong man beer muscle competition or just laugh and pull out various weapons and say I wonder if his hands are faster than this?
But in China?! Say what you will about where CMA is going in that country, but you're bound to run into some guy who has been training for 35 years in the wilderness more often than in America. Good job

[Samurai Jack]

Several teachers I've practiced with only taught out in the open at parks and such. You just had to deal with it. It always struck me odd when crowds of Asian people would gather in Golden Gate Park to watch us train. They'd all giggle when Sifu would shout at someone for breaking a posture or some other minor infraction. Most of the time Sifu would ignore them, but once in awhile he'd shout something in Chinese at the spectators and they'd all laugh harder. At first I thought he was ridiculing us, but later I learned from one of the Chinese speaking students that he was saying, "If you can do better, why don't you join us!"

I really liked those classes.

[wall]

I find that people in China love nothing better than other people, including foreigners, liking their culture and traditions ... MA included.
They really appreciate foreigners doing MA, no matter how poorly; they gather in crowds, look, give advice, giggle, mimic, but overall it's all in good spirit and they get all happy about it.
Then if you can actually display some skil their level of respect can be almost overwhealming: I was the subject of an early morning photo-session at Shaolin and did a few stances and then the splits ... I ended up being followed for the whole morning by several groups of hyper-excited tourists from various chinese provinces, all wanting to take photos with me (!) and asking for autographs (!!).
Funny enough there must be a good 30-40 Shaolin holiday photo albums around China with happy locals smiling next to a white-shaolin-robed-tourist-doing-wushu

W

[SimonM]

Very cool story Wall.

[Shaolinlueb]

its weird like that over there simon. me and my friends went to this varietry show in china. we were the only white people there. people were taking pictures with us and stuff and at one part stopped the show and put the spot lights on us to welcome us to china and stuff. it is fun.

[SimonM]

Most of the practice I have been doing in the evenings here has been bare hand. This afternoon the campus was much less crowded so I decided to practice with my Jian a bit.

I still had an audience but - you want to talk about discreet distance, three students were watching from around a corner and the ever-present teeny tots (who seem to have formed a bit of a fan club, when I finish they usually follow me back to the front door of my appartment; I think they are hoping to see me do a bit more Gong Fu on the way) were all keeping right to the edges of the open space I practice in.

One (who is one of the most regular audience members ) snuck around the edge and parked himself BETWEEN two pine trees so that he could watch in from in front rather than the side while still being well away from the flashing sword. And even wushu steel does sparkle nicely in the noontime sunlight here. There is so much sunlight to sparkle in after all. It's 非常明 here!

[monkeyfoot]

I was travelling through china/hongkong and then over to thailand for 4 months with my girlfriend.

I had only been doing kung fu for a year but it was too long a time not to do any training.
I remember that we were in a random temple in mid china practicing some wingchun routines in the corner of a garden. I felt embarrassed like mad at first.

Another time we were in guillin and we went to a huge park and just went through some praying mantis forms in the middle of a field. At first I was really intimidated by people, thinking that everyone was this crazy martial artist with loads of skill. Once you relax and get into your training you tend to forget about it and actually dont mind people watching as they walk by. In the end a lot of chinese people have just as much a clue about martial arts as that of a westerner so they are just as impressed/happy to watch when they see even your 'mildly correct attempt' of a form.

craig

ps: LMAO at the shaolin photos.....I kept getting my picture taken with random chinese people all around the henan province.....it seems that the henan guys have never seen a foriegner before.....highly unlikely though.

[SimonM]

It's really the opposite. Very few people know martial arts here in China. I have had some trouble finding sparring partners and if the school I work for didn't offer Gong Fu through the PE department I'd be pretty much SOL.

Some of my English Students think I should teach Gong Fu. I told them no, talk to me in 10 years. I will provide details of the encounter tomorow night when I write my next blog entry. I am waiting until tomorow because I have some important stuff happening tomorow.

[SPJ]

In the old time and even today;

Kung Fu practice and learning are considered "privilaged".

No matter how good or how bad you are, if you are practicing in the public park, you will always attract a crowd.

And yes, you inspired yet another generation of kids.

Once upon in the 1960's, I was among the 6 year kids inspired by teachers and students practicing Tan Tui in the Taipei New Park.