Looking Back on 2012
2012 has been another big year for Cambridge Kung Fu. For me it marks a decade of teaching Wing Chun professionally in Cambridge and we have come a long way since those early days both personally and professionally. On a personal level I became a Daddy this year. It has been an amazing experience so far and I am looking forward to so much more. Our little boy’s name is Zachary Tiger Sargent, his middle name marks our relationship as a family to Cambridge Kung Fu. As many of you will know, our class for 4-6 year old children is the Tiny Tigers, and I am very excited for my little Tiger to become a Tiny Tiger in a few years; he’s already on the waiting list!
On a professional level, Cambridge Kung Fu continues to grow and this year we have started a couple of successful new classes. We now have a Youth Kung Fu class on Saturday mornings, which has really hit the ground running. We really appreciate all the students and parents who let us know how much they wanted this class, and everyone seems to be really enjoying it! Perhaps our biggest landmark this year has been the introduction of a brand new class; the Snow Leopards, a Kung Fu class for children who need some extra help and attention. This class has been pushed forward by Si Hing Neil and Si Ji Emily and we are very excited to see how this programme will grow. In January 2013 we will be restarting our Mini Monkeys class for children aged 2-3 years and an accompanying adult. We will also be starting a couple of new regular classes in Circular Strength Training, so if you are interested in getting stronger, fitter, leaner and healthier in 2013 then come along and check out this cutting edge system of physical conditioning and personal development.
Also this year, we had some of our advanced adults members pushing forwards and setting new standards for the rest of the Cambridge Kung Fu community; my cofounder Col has achieved his 2nd Technician Grade in Wing Chun, this is equivalent to a 2nd degree black belt. We also had two students who achieved their 1st Technician Grade (black belt standard) this year – they did a great job as this is an extremely tough test of courage as well as technical ability! March of this year was a big month as I gave my first professional talk at TEDx Granta on ‘Mindful Movement’ and Col and myself also gave a demonstration, and you can watch them here:
I am a big fan of the TV show Dragons Den and it is often mentioned on there how most businesses fail in the first couple of years. After a decade I feel we are approaching becoming something of an institution in Cambridge and one that is aligned to the innovative spirit that runs through this city. We are very proud of the business that we have built over the last decade. When I quit my PhD to do this in 2001 I wasn’t too popular in certain quarters, I still meet confused faces when I say I teach martial arts for a living! But we now have six full time members of staff, over twenty part-time and volunteer instructors, and we teach over 500 members every week! I feel it is the alignment to a set of three principles that Cambridge Kung Fu lives by that has set us apart and allowed us to grow and create the successful classes that we have over the last ten years.
The first of these principles is the capacity to feel love. To feel and express love is to be who we truly are, this takes courage; the courage to “face your fears and do it anyway,” and our aim is to teach this in every single Cambridge Kung Fu class. Kindness and respect are sometimes called ‘love in a suit’, they are the ‘professional’ face of love. In my opinion martial arts were created to give an individual a systematic approach to overcoming challenges of any sort, whether that’s a school yard bully, a drunken idiot, or our own minds. When we move along this path we show love, kindness and respect for ourselves and this is expressed in all that we do. To live your life in an open and ‘unprotected way’ takes huge courage. When you feel confident in your ability to deal with confrontation and anger you no longer have to put up barriers and fronts. This is what we are aiming to achieve for ourselves and our students.
The second is the ability to consciously choose where we focus our attention. Through the sophistication of the relationship between our mind and body we can learn how to focus our attention where we want it to be and not be distracted by unhelpful thoughts. To be successful at anything in life takes purposeful practise and martial arts training has, throughout history, been one of the best ways to train our ability to focus and to maintain discipline to the task at which we want to be successful. Being able to take our attention away from thoughts that make us suffer, goes hand in hand with this. The ability to choose where we focus our attention is truly one of the most important lessons anyone can learn.
The last principle is the ability to bounce back from setbacks in a useful way that allows us to learn from mistakes. Agility and resilience are two of the buzzwords in business right now and they will become vital life skills for the children of today to learn and embody. Recent history has shown us that we have very little idea what the world will look like in 10-20 years and beyond. Teaching the life skills of adaptation and change have never been more important than they are today.
The second and third principles have been important for us this year. In the first half of the year we felt that we really needed to focus our attention on our children’s classes as we sensed that we were not doing as great a job as we would have liked. The result is that right now I feel our children’s classes are the best they’ve ever been and in 2013 they are only going to get better with new innovative ideas being developed from our research into cutting edge psychology, and educational and movement science, not to mention the ongoing development of our team of amazing instructors!
We have also invested significant time into making sure our business is organisationally optimised. We have worked very hard behind the scenes to turn Cambridge Kung Fu into a smoothly run and efficient organisation, we still have lots to do but we’re getting there for sure. This twin focus had led us to drop the ball somewhat in our advanced Wing Chun classes, but after some really useful feedback from our hardworking and loyal senior students we are on track to creating a really great progression from beginner student to advanced student and beyond.
No one likes to feel parts of their business are under-performing and so at times this has been a tough and uncomfortable year for Cambridge Kung Fu, particularly as we strive so hard to be the best we can be. However we feel we have learned some important lessons from these experiences and we have now become acutely aware of the need to be able to narrow our focus to a specific task whilst simultaneously maintaining a breadth of awareness. On our wall we have one of the poems from the Tao Te Ching (the Chinese classic of Taoist philosophy) it says, “Prepare for the difficult while it is still easy, deal with the big while it is still small,” Lao Tzu. This is the lesson that we hope we have learned more than any other in 2012, and this will hopefully allow us to create an incredible 2013 for the whole Cambridge Kung Fu community.
We hope you have a great Christmas break and New Years celebration! We look forward to seeing you back and full of energy in January, ready to grow and learn, and have fun with us!
Sifu Ross