14 months February 2006 – April 2007

Jason Gani

I have spent the last 14 months learning shaolin kung fu in the academy, and during this time I have learned a tremendous amount of skills and abilities. I learned 16 forms in total: 1 ba ji form, 1 internal shaolin form, several shaolin fist forms, several weapon forms including staff, sword, spear, short staff and 3 section staff forms. Besides learning those forms, I also learned many jumps, acrobatics and various stretching methods. They include jumping front kick, whirlwind kick, cartwheel, jumping side kick, jumping split kick, front handspring, lotus kick, butterfly, back flip, back handspring, front roll, back roll, various fall down techniques, kick up, and many more. We also learned various punches, kicks, and take down techniques in san da (Chinese kickboxing) class.
Besides learning those kung fu skills, staying here also exposed me and taught me how to interact better with people who come from different countries. During my stay here in the academy, I met people from England, U.S. Netherlands, South Africa, Vietnam, France, Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Malaysia, Canada, Germany, Peru, Mexico, Yugoslavia, Denmark, Australia, Iceland, Italy, and many, many more. I can’t remember many of them because I met at least 100 people here. Most of the students are nice, and most of the time we get along very well. Sometimes you will meet student who is very good at other martial art. While I was here there was a guy who has done wing chun for many years and it’s nice because you’ll have a chance to talk about other martial art with other students There was also another guy who was very good at acrobatics and sometimes we practiced acrobatics together on the weekend.
I really appreciate the time I spent here in the academy, and I am very grateful to be able to learn shaolin kung fu and other kung fu like Mantis and Baji from the Master here. All of the Shaolin Masters at the academy have spent many years training in Shaolin Temple, and as far as I know, they all have done many performances and competitions while staying in the temple which means that they’re among the best monks in the temple at the time. The other Masters like the Mantis Master, BaJi Masters, and Chi Gong Masters have also practiced their kung fu for many years. It is also nice that now every time we have the test, one of the Master will also perform something for the students.?
To end my story, the last 14 months has been very valuable to me. Although sometimes it is very tough to stay here that long (without family and friends, seeing many people who live with you come and go almost every week, live in a small village- far from the cities, and the difficult training we have to endure), I’m glad that I got a chance to learn all those skills I have learnt, be able to do some of those tricks that you see on the kung fu movie,? live a simple life which teach me how nice it is back home, appreciate all the people around you even for such a short time. I’m also very grateful to be able to join the kung fu competition 2007 in lian yun gang, xu zou, in China just before I finish my training here. It’s a good opportunity for me to interact with and watch other Chinese kids performing their kung fu skills while also gaining experience in performing my own skills in front of hundreds audiences.