Kung Fu Assistant Instructor Trainee
Kickboxing Assistant Instructor Trainee
Haywards Heath
“I’m continually amazed with the power of tai chi and the positive effect it has on the mind and body. After practising it for a short while only, you will begin to notice how it improves your balance and increases your ability to control and refine your movements in everyday life.”
Training within all the disciplines of White Crane Academy has taught me many things. One of them is: everyone can do martial arts – we don’t need to be van Damme or Bruce Lee to reap the immense benefits the White Crane training give us. Which leads me to the second thing I’ve learnt: everyone should do martial arts. The White Crane disciplines at White Crane Academy offer something for anyone regardless of age, gender, ability, and previous experience.
Tai Chi
I’m continually amazed with the power of tai chi and the positive effect it has on the mind and body. After practising it for a short while only, you will begin to notice how it improves your balance and increases your ability to control and refine your movements in everyday life. Soon after starting practising tai chi, the moves become part of you and the mindfulness that follow in the wake of that process is something you will carry with you. Just a few minutes of tai chi or qigong every day will make a huge positive impact on your life.
Kung Fu
We then have the self-defence and uniqueness of White Crane kung fu. Not only is it a great way to stay fit and have fun at the same time, but it is teaching you an utmost important skill: self-defence. White Crane kung fu with its focus on self-discipline and swift accurate martial arts techniques in conjunction with the grappling workshops, which are offered several times a year, gives you a clear understanding of how to defend yourself or get out of a difficult situation especially if you are smaller than your opponent.
Kickboxing adds yet again another layer to the White Crane training. High intensity training mixed with pad work and techniques and if you’re feeling up for it join in with the sparring!
Finally, going to class is fun! Everyone I meet at WCA is very warm and welcoming and I hope that everyone that joins our classes feel the same.
Sometimes joining a class isn’t possible. It could be for many reasons – busy lives, disability, logistics. Therefore, WCA offer online tai chi lessons where you in the comfort of your own home can achieve the same benefits from learning qigong and the full White Crane tai chi form plus many other things.
How it Started
Fighting and wrestling on the kitchen floor of my best friend’s house when I was ten, shouting out ‘Matté!’ in surrender and exhaling fiercely through my nose impersonating a battle-ready Jean Claude van Damme, was probably the first inkling that martial arts was something residing deeply in my heart. Or perhaps it was when I hit my sister on the top of her head with a hairbrush when I was two, begging for a sparring match (although she probably thought I was just misbehaving!). Or my deep fascination of the Monkey King on TV! In any event, martial arts have throughout my life never been far away from my thoughts, but it wasn’t until my late teens I had my first real taste of it when I joined a Capoeira club. It was rather amazing.
Many years and three children later (to whom I repeatedly said, ‘we need to do some martial arts’), I got a flyer through the door that said: Kung Fu family classes with White Crane Academy. Our time had come!
Even though, I started my kung fu journey later in life, I always knew it was a path I would one day wander down. And after attending that first kung fu class with my children, our mouths didn’t stand still for a second. We were all enthused with excitement of the class. How varied it was, how nice everyone was, how new and exciting!
Training with my children have not only benefited us in the obvious ways in terms of health and fitness, but it has strengthened our relationship with each other – being active and doing something together, having goals individually and together, and being able to encourage and support each other in our martial arts journey.
Today, I am proud to be a tai chi apprentice, as well as training to be a kung fu and kickboxing assistant instructor with White Crane Academy. I am also excited to be designing and administering the White Crane Academy website and am looking forward to sharing with everyone the immense benefits that come from training in the White Crane disciplines.
I hope to see you in class!
Karina
