The following are my top ten things I learned from Kung Fu. Feel free to add to or make your own list:

1. Stance training is emphasized more in CMA and is becoming a forgotten treasure.

2. Basics are the heart and soul of any good martial artist and should be practiced daily regardless of skill level. Kung Fu established this for me.

3. Internal and external are interchangeable and are the yin and yang of Kung Fu, one cannot exist without the other.

4. A return to the beginning is a new journey with old knowledge.

5. No matter what one masters, one will never glow like Leroy from "The Last Dragon".

6. Kung Fu, by it's very definition, is a skill of anything. True Kung Fu practioners realize that cross training is simply improving one's Kung Fu, not disrespecting it.

7. A true master is one who opens their mind, heart, and soul to all possibilities, not just the ones that exist in their own sphere.

8. MMA gyms could learn more from Kung Fu and other traditional arts than many think.

9. Kung Fu and other traditional arts could learn more from MMA gyms than many think.

10. I still believe very much in Bruce Lee's philosophies:

I saw a poster here recently who had in their sig a very true to life statement, that Bruce advocated cross training, weight training, hard sparring, and using what is useful and discarding what is not. Unfortunately very few people listened to him because they kept doing things in a stagnant and unevolving matter, yet still hung posters of him in their schools and called him a hero of Kung Fu.

That which does not evolve dies and becomes stagnant. Water in a pool that sits becomes stagnant and filthy, but water that flows stays pure and is always evolving, always changing, always adapting. Be like water, my friends.

Happy New Year to all you Kung Fu Weenies!! May you grow and prosper in 2010.