DISCLAIMER: This message is NOT intended as a criticism of Shaolin Wuchu Kung Fu as a style, NOR is it a criticism of the arm-knocking technique. This is a criticism of a school and its questionable teaching ethic.

Last Friday a friend and I visited a Shaolin Wuchu Kung Fu school in Sydney's North Rocks. During the course of the evening, the final activity was something known as arm knocking, which is similar to Pi Gua, but this version was far more extreme -- to the point where it was dangerous.

For the benefit of those who may not know, these sort of techniques fundamentally involve two partners slamming their arms (or legs) against each other in order to build up the arm or leg's tolerance to a hit -- in otherwords, to build endurance and resistance. Now, I have nothing against this - in fact, I support it. There's no use in learning how to fight if you're going to be overwhelmed by pain when you get hit -- such exercises are designed to give you that sort of endurance that would allow you to absorb a hit and fight on without being overwhelmed by pain.

However, what went wrong last Friday was that the arm knocking was far too extreme. I'll admit that I'm not the most built nor athletic fellow in the world -- certainly not someone with a rugby player sort of build. But the fact is that the instructor/seniors of the class should be able to judge/evaluate what your level is, and train with you according to that.

Going to slow and easy may be boring for someone who's done endurance work before (not necessarily martial arts, footy players are usually rather durable people, since they get tackled on the field all the time) and so it makes the lesson more interesting if you go up a few "notches" to accompany the student's physical level.

However, the LIMIT of that student needs to be respected. Learning/teaching needs to be a gradual process.

Here's a few analogies to illustrate my point:

1. Say you're learning to high jump. It would be rather unreasonable to ask a student, on his/her first lesson, to jump over a 3m bar. Usually you learn to jump over, say a 1m bar, then 1.5m, then 2.5m and gradually working your way up to 3m or more. It's a _gradual_ process.

2. Medical students aren't allowed to do internships in hospitals until at least second year, and even then, it will be many more years until they are allowed to operate on a patient. You don't walk up to a first year med student, give him/her a scalpel and say, "go remove that blood clot from that patient's brain."

3. Teaching children to read is also a gradual process. In the English language, one is first taught the Roman Alphabet. Then you're taught how to string words and syllables together. Then how to form words into sentences, then compound sentences. Then paragraphs. Then a page. Eventually, you can read a small book, then a bigger book... you do NOT give a kindergartener a copy of War and Peace and say, "go nuts, kid."

4. Weight lifting: when working out at the gym for the very first time, your instructor would have to be a lunatic to get you working on a 90kg barbell. You usually start with light hand weights - maybe as small as 1-3kg, then work your way up from there.

And likewise, you simply do NOT go full ball on a newbie in your martial arts class -- NOT without some sort of basic evaluation at first. The first stage of this would be visual evaluation. You look at the person and ask yourself -- does this person look durable enough to absorb arm swings at maximum velocity?

And if a person says, "I've done Kung Fu before," still doesn't mean that they're ultra durable. They may have done something as simple as Tai Chi exercising in a park.

For instance, I'm a student teacher atm, and if a new kid were to come into my class and say, "I've studied some Japanese before," or "I've lived in Japan before," I'm not going to immediately upgrade them to HSC Background Speaker level. No. What would be the first thing I should do? That's right -- evaluate the student.

When I train martial arts with friends, I don't immediately go full force on them. I start of slowly and easily at first -- this helps me to gauge their level of fitness, strength and dexterity. Based on this initial evaluation, I can then either go "up" or "down" a notch, depending on how much my partner can handle.

This was NOT done at the place I went to last Friday. Sure, I told them that I'd done Northern Mantis before, but they did NOT do ANY evaluation to see how good or bad I am at my own art! I'll be the first to admit that I'm no Shaolin Monk when it comes to Kung Fu. And to presume that I was, is rather foolish.

Now, here's where legal complications step in. As far as I know (and correct me if I'm wrong), all martial arts instructors must abide by the sports coaching regulations of the AIS (Australian Institute of Sport) - which also specifies, under safety regulations, what an instructor can and cannot do to students.

A teacher of ANYTHING (sports, martial arts, Japanese, maths, geography, economics etc) has duty of care of his/her students whom they are teaching. While in their CLASS (and this is why martial arts training sessions are legally defined as "classes") the welfare of the students is a responsibility of the instructor(s).

Even if I sign an indemnity form (which, incidentally, I didn't last Friday), this does not waver my rights. NOBODY can legally waver his/her own rights (e.g.: you can not sell yourself to slavery, even if you and your potential master wanted to -- no person is able to waver their rights). They are NOT permitted to take a course of action that would sustain injury upon me.

Now, some of you may be thinking, "but you're doing a martial art, you'd have to be a fairy idiot not to expect some injury." This is true. If you do any form of physical training - be it sport or martial art, a reasonable level of injury can be expected. However, here's what happened last Friday -- we started doing the arm knocking, and I said, "Oww, this is painful, stop it!" in which one other student merely mocked me for "not being strong" (duh, excuse me for disliking extreme pain) and the seniors who were instructing me argued that this was beneficial for me. So here's some more legal factors:

* I'd already pointed out that the exercise was painful and that I wanted to stop.
* I was told that the exercise was beneficial and coerced to continue.

Some might say that *I* always had the option to just stop. But the fact is that a student tends to put some level of faith in the teacher.

I was there to learn. Therefore, I was willing to do what the instructor told me to do. However, the instructor has a responsibility (duty of care) to instruct me in a safe and proper manner as humanly possible.

When a student starts saying, "this hurts and I wanna stop," it's a bloody good sign that there's something wrong.

Another thing that they could have done to better evaluate if I could have performed the arm knocking at that level or not is practising the move in the air. Almost ALL martial arts I've participated in - Wing Chun, Aikido/Taijutsu, Karate etc. (even TKD!!), practice this. You get taught a move. You practice it a few times on your own, then you do it with a partner -- and even then, you tend to go easy the first few times, and then you begin to accelerate as you both become more adept at the move (but never faster/stronger than you can handle).

As a result of what seems like legal negligence (and just downright stupidity - what other purpose could the seniors have, other than pumping their egos, to go full ball at me? I can NOT learn something if you show me the result of what you want me to learn, without leading me through the stages of getting there! Just as a person can NOT learn how to perform maths, if s/he's not first taught how to count!) I know have internal muscle bruising - which isn't so bad. It's more of a nuisance if anything, because I can't really do anything /w my arms (it really hurts just to type all this!). Thank goodness I'm on holidays atm -- if this happened during a prac block, I'd be stuffed (kinda hard to write on a whiteboard when your arms are buggered). And it would be even worse if I was working full time atm, <u>especially</u> if I was a manual labourer, where my arms are my livelyhood. What excuse can the school offer to such people? They need to realise that this is the 21st Century -- people have jobs and lives outside of Kung Fu and would require the use of their limbs!

And even from an ultra hardcore martial artist perspective -- what's the use of learning a technique, if it leaves you unable to fight for a week or so? What if someone attacks you while you're on the way home from training? If someone attacked you while your arms are recovering, you would be at a significant disadvantage in the fight!!

Again, please note my disclaimer; this message is NOT a flame on Shaolin Wuchu KF, nor is it a criticism of the arm knocking technique. It's simply a criticism of the teaching ethic of the school I went to last Friday.

PS: My friend who came along seems to have suffered more damage, as he said that he heard something in his arm snap when they hit him. We are now waiting for some medical examination results to see just how extensive the damage is to his arms. This person has almost NO experience with martial arts or much sport activities. He came along to see what martial arts are like, and I'm sad to say that last Friday's experience has put him off Southern Kung Fu for quite some time.

PPS: Another newbie in the class was a TONGAN. Even *he* was complaining about the pain!

"Wit is educated insolence." - Aristotle (284-322 BC)