Kung Fu kicks butt, takes names and gets you trim

Kung Fu: The name conjures up images of flying fists, Bruce Lee and badly dubbed movies, but for a small group of students at JHU, Wing Chun-style Kung Fu has become part of their weekly, even daily lives.

Lead by Sifu (teacher) Julian Sawyer, of the Wing Chun School of Maryland, the club practices two hours a night on Monday and Thursdays at the new recreational center. Sifu Sawyer has been a student of Wing Chun for close to 20 years and practices Kung Fu an average of four hours a day.

So what makes Wing Chun Kung Fu different for Tae Kwon Do, Karate or any of the more popular martial arts? Wing Chun is "completely different" from other martial arts, like Tae Kwondo, says freshman Jabez Park. The difference is that Wing Chun was designed to be the easiest to learn, and most effective combat art ever. "Wing Chun simplifies so many [techniques]," according to Park. Every move, every form of Wing Chun is designed to make the student a better fighter.

Because Wing Chun is focused only on combat, it is rooted in basic principles that appeal to common sense and scientific knowledge. One of these principles is to always guard your centerline, or the middle of your body, because a straight line is the shortest distance between two points. Guarding your centerline forces your opponent to take a longer path, which can be more easily interrupted and controlled. Another core idea of Wing Chun is that a Wing Chun fighter should never fight force with force. Because of this principle Wing Chun has no "blocks" per se, but rather it has defectors that allow the fighter to redirect their opponents force in a manner similar to aikido.

Wing Chun is an especially good martial art for women because of this emphasis on not fighting force with force. Sifu Sawyer constantly exhorts the males in the class to take a lesson from the females and relax more during exercises. A Wing Chun fighter should "relax and explode" according to Sifu Sawyer.

Wing Chun is a powerful combat art because of the tumultuous period of China's history in which it was born. The Ching Dynasty period of 250 years ago was one were the primary cultural group of China, the Hons, were ruled by a minority group named the Manchus. Because the Shaolin Buddhist temples were some of the few bastions of Hon cultural that the Manchus didn't regulate, they became a place for the revolutionaries of the time.

The dissidents in the Shaolin Shil Lim temple brought together the grandmasters of five different Kung Fu disciplines to design an effective combat art that could be learned faster than traditional Kung Fu, which could take 15 to 20 years to master. The result, Wing Chun, could be mastered in five to seven years.

The Shil Lim Temple was destroyed by Manchus before the system of Wing Chun could be completed. The system was further developed by the nun Ng Mui, who escaped the destruction. The art of Wing Chun was then passed down through various practitioners to Yip Man, who instructed current Grandmaster William Cheung and Bruce Lee.

Bruce Lee, a Kung Fu practitioner and actor, had his initial training in Wing Chun, but only completed about 60 percent of the system according to Sifu Sawyer. Because of the holes in his training, Bruce Lee was forced to invent his own art of Jeet Kune Do by pulling from diverse disciplines to create a signature martial art.

Like most martial arts, Wing Chun has a philosophy behind it. The philosophy of Wing Chun encompasses several ideas, one of the most important of which is "one who excels in fighting is never aroused in anger" according to William Cheung's website at http://www.cheungswingchun.com. Wing Chun, like many fighting arts, is not just about martial power, but also about refining mental attributes such as concentration and commitment.

The benefits of Wing Chun to its practitioners are manifold. Kung Fu is an excellent workout, improves concentration and increases confidence.

Anyone interested in joining the JHU Kung Fu Club should email Charles Huang at westside@jhu.edu.