Sifu Alex Richter's Blog & City WingTsun News

Just to remind all students of City WT Midtown and East Village that we will be closed for holiday break from Thursday, December 24th until January 1st.  Classes will resume on Saturday Jan. 2nd.  The new schedule for 2010 will be available on this website shortly, so please stay tuned for updates.  Saturday, January 2nd we will be on our new schedule which means that the Dynamic WingTsun Fighter Class will be at 12pm, the Recap Class will be from 2pm - 3pm, and the Chi Sau Practice Class from 3pm - 4:30pm. 

Next year we have a bunch of exciting workshops and new classes lined up!  I'm going to be very busy traveling, teaching and training next year.  I'm going everywhere from California, North Carolina, Texas, Hong Kong all the way to the very exotic Connecticut :)  We are also starting our kids class in February and also a WT Youth class.  Details coming soon!

2010 will be a big year for City WingTsun!

Happy holidays!

Sifu Alex Richter

Last Friday my good friend, filmmaker Brady Hall came to City WingTsun to shoot some videos for Princess Diaries author Meg Cabot.  The school was transformed into a movie studio with green screen and lights for the shoot (a shoot within a shoot).  There was even some incredible stuntwork done my City WT's most dependable stuntman.  It was a great honor to have Brady doing his amazing work at my school - you can check out more of his work at his website www.imagesofbafus.com.  Meg even wrote about it in her blog.  Check it out here!

Congratulations to Sifu Szell Gabor on earning the 6th Level Practician (Master) degree in WingTsun!  Sifu Szell is a fantastic instructor and specialist in teaching WT to the Hungarian military.  Good work!

For those of you who have not seen this yet, here is a music video from a Hungarian hip-hop artist featuring WingTsun kung fu and Sifu Maday Norbert.  Enjoy!

Oh and here is one more video which is pretty damn cool!

The response to my first blog about Shaolin martial arts has been extremely positive.  My goal is to simply open people's minds to alternative explanations of kung-fu's origins.  It is often said that the "mind is like a parachute - it only works when it is open".  Hardly anyone would disagree with this statement, however most people swallow so-called historian's "research" wholesale.  As in my first Shaolin myth entry, I'm not trying to offer my own version of history.  I'm not a historian and I have too much respect for people who actually hold the profession of historian.  I simply want people to be open to new ideas and to think critically and logically of stories that are being spread, both new and old.

The first part of my blog was to think critically about the statement that all Chinese martial arts come from Shaolin.  There is just too much actual history and information that shows us that martial arts, including many styles now know as Shaolin actual pre-date the existence of the Shaolin Temple altogether.  Therefore it is not really possible to say that all Chinese martial arts come from Shaolin.  Perhaps, many martial artists hid in the temple much later in its history while hiding from the government.  This is most likely why Shaolin gets it's real connection with martial arts (we'll discuss this later).  However, it's simply not true that Chinese martial arts began or were even developed in the Shaolin Temple.  Remember the burden of proof is not on those who don't believe the Shaolin myth!

Despite this fact, there are many who just simply must believe that Chinese martial arts must have come from the Buddhist temple of Shaolin.  But this leads one to a very important and often forgotten point - that is that violence, in any form, is completely against Buddhist doctrine!  Why is that so many Chinese martial arts need to justify their origins to a temple that should have completely abhorred violence?

To quote a Buddhist sutra:

"Even if thieves carve you limb from limb with a double-handed saw, if you make your mind hostile you are not following my teaching."
Kamcupamasutta, Majjhima-Nikkaya I ~ 28-29

Another quote:

"Victory creates hatred. Defeat creates suffering. The wise ones desire neither victory nor defeat... Anger creates anger... He who kills will be killed. He who wins will be defeated... Revenge can only be overcome by abandoning revenge... The wise seek neither victory nor defeat."

So with these very fundamental doctrines we are forced to believe that in the monks freetime they were creating war-arts?  I'm going to let the reader make up their own mind on this.  Like I said, I'm not offering my own history, only trying to help the reader think critically.  Does it make sense that the monks themselves would be preoccupied with fighting?

Think about it for yourself - free from the binds of 1000 Shaw Brothers films and similarly scripted kung fu histories!

Hmmm, I'm thinking maybe we should expand our CT WingTsun schools to Danbury.  Perhaps on a certain Henry Street?  Seems like there are some tough guys there who would love to learn! :)