Within the vast realm of kung fu there are thousands of skills to learn and perfect. So much so that it would be impossible to learn them all even if you had several lifetimes to try. The task of learning any new skill is made even harder if you don’t have plan, a structure you can follow to enable you to learn the skill and be able to use it effectively. The structure that I teach on how to learn kung fu effectively is called MAP.
M is for Movement
The first step, of course, is to learn the basic movement. You learn the basic movement and through many thousands of repetitions you learn to do it more efficiently. The thousands of repetitions strengthen the muscles involved in doing the movement and by doing it to the point where it becomes very tiring you also learn to relax the muscles that aren’t involved.
All too often we use far more muscular tension in everything we do than we need to. We often tense up muscles that have little or nothing to do with the task in hand. Learning not to trigger this tension conserves energy, gives you more control over the movement and doesn’t trigger tension in muscles that might resist the movement.
Most movements involve, or should involve your whole body. Every part of you should become involved to either move your body or to stabilise it against the forces that are acting or may soon be acting upon it. If you are doing a tiger punch you’re not just throwing your fist out. The movement should start from the ground with your back leg drilling down to twist your hip forward. Then the force goes up your back, through your shoulders and arms and out through your fist. At the point of impact, or expected impact you should be in perfect balance and in a very stable position to minimise the return force. This is a large part of where the power comes from. It is important that all the force goes into moving your opponent and none of it comes back to move you.
So the first stage is to practice the movement over and over again using your whole body as dictated by the movement. Only through endless repetition will you ‘hardwire’ the moves into your bran so that they become the way you habitually move when under duress.
A is for Application
Don’t make the mistake of thinking each movement skill is teaching you a separate martial technique. It is way more than that. Each movement can be adapted so that it changes only slightly and can give you many different techniques. The yin circle for example can be a block followed by a strike, or a way of moving into a variety of wristlocks, an entry to a throw, a blocking of a kick followed by control of that leg through the knee joint and many other potential applications.
You learn to apply movement skills in stages. The first stage is against a non moving partner who just holds out an arm or leg for you to block or manipulate. This teaches you correct positioning and distance skills.Only if your body is in the right position relative to your partner can the technique succeed. So you apply the technique and strive to do so using as little effort as possible.
Wherever possible you should try the technique out on as many different people as possible. This is perhaps the main reason why going to a class is essential if you want to learn any martial art properly. This is important because everybody will react differently to your techniques so you need to learn to adapt them accordingly. Once you can do the movement successfully on a non moving partner then they can start to move, initially in a slow moving and predictable way but gradually they move faster and their attacks can become less predictable. Throughout this you need to continue to apply the principle of using as little effort as possible to make the movement work despite the increased pressure of the unpredictable attacks. Eventually you will be able to apply the movement in many different ways against a wide variety of attacks.
P is for Power
When you can do the basic movement and know some applications you need to start applying the principles that give the movement its power. Without power you can learn a thousand techniques but they will be virtually worthless to you. However, once you learn to use real, whole-body power almost anything you do becomes a highly effective combat skill.
Real power doesn’t come from big muscles. Real power comes from connecting your body together and rooting it firmly to the earth so that every move you make has the power of your whole body behind it. Much of this site is (or will be) about developing that whole body power and how to use it. To start with you need to find and develop your root and to do this you need to be on your legs.
So first learn to do the Movement, then learn some Applications and finally develop the Power. This is the MAP. This is how to learn kung fu. This is how it has been taught traditionally for centuries.