Sifu Freddie Lee Safe Sparring Kung Fu Demo
http://www.FreddiesModernKungFu.com
Email: FreddiesModernKungFu@live.com
Blog: http://freddiesmodernkungfu.blogspot.com
In this video I am sparring Oli. When I made this video, Oli was training with me for close to 6 months. He doesn’t speak English too well but he follows along the best he can in class. He has great endurance and is a soccer player. I tested him in the mile run, he completed it in 5 min. 55 seconds, which is very impressive. He also is in his 20’s, so his body is young and recovers fast. He can do over 15 pulls ups. His bench press strength, he can do a few repetitions of 135 lbs. He has good flexibility, he has fast legs and fast hands. Overall his body type is built for speed and he’s not afraid of a little contact.
Normally I don’t go so hard on beginners, but when I made this video I felt like going harder to see what happens. I went hard on him and 2 other students, and what happened is that I felt I lost the other 2 students because I went too hard on them. But for Oli, I had to ask him a few times if he was ok with medium contact sparring, after having a translator help communicate, he ended up saying that I was going too hard and that he enjoys sparring with the other students who don’t go too hard but with me it’s too much. So ever since then, I never sparred with him again.
After hearing that and after losing the 2 other students, I came to understand that I will not be able to conduct medium contact sparring with any students unless they are truly athletically, combatively, and spiritually ready for such type of training. Over the years I have made so many no contact and light contact sparring demo’s that I am just fed up with it. I decided that if I am to engage in any sparring, it will only be either light contact or medium contact, but all other no contact or touch contact type of sparring I will leave for my beginning students to engage in amongst themselves.
I would rather put my energies on the wooden dummy and hit it as hard as I would like. I want to demonstrate a higher advanced level of contact sparring in FMK but without the students who are ready and capable to engage in that sort of training, the demo’s will have to wait.
But I have come to see that I cannot sacrifice my business by going too hard in sparring. Constantly I am working with beginning students and I am teaching them the basics as they engage amongst each other. Many people don’t have the patience, loyalty, and dedication to develop beyond the basics in the Martial Arts. I have come to accept this and see that if I am to develop myself further in the combative aspect of the Martial Arts, I will have to focus my energies on the Wooden Dummy, whom never complains about too much contact.
