Tai Chi - Kung Fu School Evolving
Let me take a moment to thank all the students. You as a whole have
shown me how big a good family can be. Our kwoon (school) has evolved
and by the end of 2008 will more than double in space. It wasn't my
intention to have a larger school, but I realized on Sunday as went to
the school and did a 'mind-walk' that larger isn't just about space. As
all of our students know, we are a family school. I teach as close to
the way as I was taught as I can, beyond the technique of kungfu.
We have no contracts, and no uniforms. We come together to train and gain. It was in my mind in the beginning that if there were just enough students to pay the rent that would be fine, and after a while, we were there. We have no memberships drives, booths at a martial art expo, soliciting and signing on every interested face. We normally spend time getting to know someone prior to them entering the school. We don't even have a sign anywhere in the building. Potential new students have come and then left, saying that they couldn't find us. I believed it was the Tao's way of saying it wasn't time to find us yet. We have also had potential new students come by, who initially couldn't find us, but kept searching, looked for the fengshui signs (paqua's and windchimes) and have been with us for years now. Obviously it was their time to find us. Not a very profitable way to run a kung fu - tai chi school.
The family has grown from the initial 5 students to a larger group, yet the students are close and support one another. We come together after practices to cook and eat at the school. Most will take turns bringing food and drink. We cook rice, vegetables, make our special hot-lemon-pepper sauce (Thank you again Sifu Chin), and relax in community of one another.
We will be adding a large open classroom in the next couple of months that is the size of our entire school now. This will give us even more time to practice as a group, and to add more options for us in the future. We have also been discussing with several students about a Wednesday evening (perhaps Monday too) classes. There seems to be interest there, and the more I hear from you the better.
As a school we will let a few more students in that are looking for our tai chi and kung fu and can abide by our 3 primary guidelines, 1 - Come to practice and gain 2 - Help others gain by practice and creating a good atomsphere to practice 3 - Leave guilt at the door, it creates tension and gets in the way.
Tai Chi - Kung Fu School Evolving
Posted in Local
Posted on Monday, August 20, 2007 at 4:55 AM by Sifu Smith
Edited on: Tuesday, September 14, 2010 6:23 AM