Looking Back on 2014

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to the whole Cambridge Kung Fu family!

It has become something of a tradition for me to write a (little!) something at the end of year so below you can read all about what we’ve been up to in 2014 and what we hope to be doing in 2015. Here goes….

This year I have been so fortunate to see two of my top students achieve their Technician Grade in Wing Chun Kung Fu; this is the black belt standard in our system and it is a real achievement. One of those students is my little brother; for nearly seven years I have watched him develop his skills as a Kung Fu practitioner and instructor and this year it culminated in him being awarded the Technician Grade from my teacher Sifu Benno Westra. I feel very lucky to have seen how far he has come through his practice. When your boss is also your teacher that can be tough but when that person is also your big brother it poses unique challenges which (Si Hing) Steve has successfully overcome. This is what Kung Fu means, ‘achievement through hard work’. 

Also taking his Technician exam, alongside Steve, was Keith James. Keith is a less well known figure within the wider Cambridge Kung Fu family but in many ways he has overcome even greater challenges to achieve his Technician Grade. Keith has been a member of Cambridge Kung Fu for the best part of a decade and his journey has been a long one due to serious back problems which have caused periods of his life to be extremely tough. At times in his life Keith could hardly move, however he is now in his forties and ‘younger’ than he has been since he was a child! Through his intelligence and perseverance Keith has passed the tests he was set. He has had to work exceptionally hard to be this strong and mobile and now his physical and mental fitness stands out amongst all of our members.

I could write much more about these guys but I should move on or this could take a while! The main message I want everyone to understand is that it’s never easy, no matter how ‘talented’ you are, true achievement only comes from walking one path, and that path is practice; hard work.

Continuing with the theme of recognising hard work; Snow Leopards Lead Instructor Neil Kirkland received an award at the first Martial Arts Illustrated, Hall of Fame ‘Fighters Night’. The nomination was as a result of his continued work and commitment in the field of martial arts; in particular the hard work he has put into establishing the Cambridge Kung Fu Snow Leopards programme and the organisation he founded, ‘Adaptive Martial Arts UK and Ireland’. Neil and the Snow Leopards team are doing pioneering work, so this was richly deserved! Grandmaster Brian Jones also received a ‘Lifetime Achievement’ award from Martial Arts Illustrated so 2014 has been a great year for us in the wider martial arts community.

Mindfulness has burst into the public domain this year, which is fantastic news. We first started teaching mindfulness in 2004 when we developed ‘Silent Masters’ as an integral part of our children’s classes. This year Col and myself got to teach Mindfulness and Mindful Movement to some future primary school teachers graduating from the University of Cambridge. It was an amazing feeling to get to teach what we are most passionate about at this prestigious institution and hopefully it will inspire those teachers to share this practice with all of the thousands of students whose lives they will influence in the decades to come.

In 2015 we will be getting another great opportunity to introduce Mindful Movement to a group of people who we believe will hugely benefit from this practice. This year we have been working with the Mum of one of our students who is a Clinical Psychologist working at the Cambridge Centre for Paediatric Neuropsychological Rehabilitation. In the new year we will be running a pilot study into whether our Kids Kung Fu classes can help the recovery process of children who have suffered brain injuries. We have developed/will be developing some new resources for this class and if they are successful we will integrate these enhancements into all of our classes.

We are very fortunate to have just added our own Psychologist to our team. Although my wife, (Si Ji) Laura Hoppitt, has been involved with Cambridge Kung Fu since 2002, first as a student and then as a co-creator and instructor of our kids classes, from the new year she will be bringing her skills (including those as an academic and Cognitive Scientist) to Cambridge Kung Fu in an even larger role as Programme Manager.

I’d like to conclude with a passage on what we aim to do at Cambridge Kung Fu; we train four fundamental skills: Awareness, Focus, Resilience, and Integration. Awareness so that we can discover new things about ourselves and the Universe we live in. Focus so that we can choose to place our attention on the thoughts and actions we wish to grow, and away from the thoughts and actions that we do not want to grow. Resilience, because no matter how focussed you are on your goals there will always be challenges and setbacks and if you can bounce back from these efficiently and effectively it will often determine your success. Integration, which is the application of these skills into all areas of our lives. We recently received a card from one of our ex-students who moved back to the Netherlands after training with us for several years that perfectly illustrates what I mean by integration; 

“Hi all, 
A little card to let you know we became the proud parents of a Dutch CKF baby 🙂 He, as well as we, are doing well. Funny thing was that I thought of our pressure tests during delivery, which helped me to relax. Never thought your lessons were so widely usable!”

The skills we teach can be practised in any way and at any time, you don’t have to be doing Kung Fu, it’s just that Kung Fu was designed to provide a framework for this growth so it lends itself to this more than most activities. We encourage our students to look for opportunities everyday to practise these skills inside and outside of class. If you, like us, feel these skills are really important and you would like to build upon them and/or role model them, then I have a suggestion for your New Year’s resolution! Spend some time thinking about Awareness, Focus, Resilience and Integration and work out/feel which one is currently your strongest and enjoy that! Then work out which is weakest and choose to make the nurturing of this skill your 2015 resolution. You simply have to look for everyday opportunities to practise this skill. If you can’t work it out, I suggest starting with integration; look for examples of where you are really good at something in one area of your life but perhaps not so good at it in other areas of your life and see if you can work out why this is and how you can develop it. If you’d like a hand on how to start nurturing this skill, the first step is going to be practising mindfulness. In 2014 I worked on my resilience and in 2015 my goal is to work on my focus, good luck with yours!

Finally, thank you so much for your continued support of Cambridge Kung Fu! We want to be exceptional, if you ever feel we are not, please let us know. If you feel we are, please let us know that also! Knowing our weaknesses and our strengths are vital for our growth and development. When we are told what we are doing well and what we need to improve upon, we learn. Our ‘Big 3’ survey (for Kids and Adults/Parents) is out now, it’s just three quick questions, so please take a couple of minutes to fill it out as we would very much appreciate your kind honesty.

If you’ve made it this far, thank you, and sorry I wrote so much! I’d like to write more but I know time is precious, especially at this time of year, so thank you for taking the time to read this message and I hope you’ve found it useful.

All the best and see you in 2015!
Sifu Ross