Kung Fu - Mastering yourself through hard work

Contrary to popular belief kung fu is not a single martial art, it is a largely Western term for a vast and bewildering array of styles and systems of combat that have developed in China (an area the size of Western Europe) over at least the last 1500 years and probably much longer. The term kung fu actually means mastery through hard work and perseverance but in the West has come to refer to the fighting arts of China.

The sheer range of those fighting arts is vast, much larger than, say the difference between cricket and soccer. Virtually any way you can imagine that a human being can be developed (and many ways you couldn't begin to imagine) will have been done at some point in one of the kung fu systems of China. Some of them focus on the purely physical, some on more internal or spiritual aspects of development but the goals remain largely the same - to discover man's capabilities, to enlighten ourselves as to our essential nature and place in the world and to learn to protect ourselves from ill health and those that would harm us.

Unfortunately much of China's great martial arts heritage is being lost. For many decades, due to war, famine and the cultural revolution, it was difficult, if not impossible for a person to study the martial arts. Many of the top masters left China and settled in Taiwan or the West. Many of the old secret ways that had been written down were destroyed or lost. What we have left now is a shadow of what once was. Luckily there are a few places where the genuine knowledge survived and the Jade Dragon School is one of these.

The teaching is first rate and our syllabus is very comprehensive. The lessons aren't padded out with irrelevant conditioning exercises to mask the lack of real content or driven by over inflated egos seeking to teach through fear, aggression or intimidation. We follow a well trodden pathway that has proven results for supreme martial skill as well as advanced personal development.