Sifu Jonathan Wang

[zhangxihuan]

first of all... to my opinion it is to expensive.

85 $ a month ?

You can find places that ask half of that and even less.

It looks a lot wushu-ish. And i think that is the reason why people can learn so much.

When you just have to learn some forms to say you 'know' the style makes it a bit easier.

Of course i do not train there but i can't get rid of the impression that it's just taolu.

And if its even modern stuff (even the traditional forms) it's not hard to learn. They do not concentrate on the essence of the form. Just on performance and speed.

(just my oppinion )

to be honest, if have never gone to a wushu class you have NO IDEA what you are talking about. "modern stuff" is not EASY to learn or "not hard to learn" as you put it. Most wushu schools will focus strictly on stances for a YEAR. TRY that at a traditional school- all the ones in the USA that i have visited don't even come close. I've cross trained in wushu and its not what the traditionalists make it out to be "just a flowery form." There are applications, you need a good teacher. And its NOT easy, in fact, I would argue that it is more difficult since the instructors usually make you repeat moves around 1,000 times before progressing (no lie). Also just because someone wears "silks" doesn't make them only "wushu" performers.....so dont judge a school by the pics...or what your instructor might have said about it.

I dont think 85 is too much. not in Los Angeles. Lots of schools in LA charge 150, 175, 100 etc... Its actually on the cheaper side to be honest.

[B-Rad]

Wushu isn't easy to learn, but I think I see his point. I think he's referring to the modern representations of the traditional styles a lot of modern wushu people learn. Where instead of going through the traditional curriculum for something, you might learn a few basics (if that) and one form. It's a lot easier than learning a traditional system, and probably the only way you could claim to know one of those styles well enough to teach it in less than a year. Of course rather than actually being an expert on that system, you're still basically doing chang quan with maybe a small hint of the traditional style you're imitating.

Looking at the curriculum though, it doesn't look anything like a proper modern wushu school to me, which would probably concentrate on jibengong & chang quan for at least 4 years, and a lot of the material listed just aren't contemporary forms. Though I see that there's a contemporary wushu certificate program listed at the bottom (which looks kind of rushed and incomplete to me). The whole thing seems kind of like a kungfu "crash course", with samples of kungfu systems but not teaching anything in its entirety. Could be fun, and they might teach good basics, but I'd like to see what some of their graduates are like. Doesn't look like a very good long term school though, based on what they list.

[B-Rad]

And yeah, $85 isn't that much at all. The average around here seems to be $80-$100/month, and I think it's much cheaper to live here in Ohio than out there.