Kingdom Warrior Academy

August 13, 2010

Animal “style” vs Animal “form”

Filed under: Misc. musing — Tags: , , , — Hailstorm @ 12:27 pm

When people think of kung fu, the average person who even knows what kung fu is thinks of the animal styles.  And why not?  They are fascinating and unique systems.  But people often don’t recognize a clear distinction between animal styles and animal forms.

I just got off the phone with an inquiring individual who just assumed that because I teach kung fu I teach animals, and he wasn’t wrong because I teach 12 of them.  But he falsely assumed it to be animal styles.

I teach Xing Yi Quan, an internal style from a Biblical foundation.  Xing Yi has 12 animal forms, but isn’t an animal style.

“What is the difference” You ask?

An animal style is a complete system modeled after the unique movements, mannerisms, and mindsets of one or more animals.  The animal serves as the foundation of the style.

An animal form is a single choreographed set of movements (xing, or kata) that are based on a animals unique movements, mannerisms, or mindset.  It’s a matter of scope really.  A form is a small piece of a system, not the foundation of the system.

The foundation of Xing Yi Quan is the internal principles, and the 5 elements. The 12 animals provide variety and diversity of application for the 5 elements.

August 11, 2010

Demo Talk in St. Joe

Filed under: Misc. musing — Hailstorm @ 4:24 pm

On Aug. 29th, 2010 I will be doing a demo talk in the morning service at New Life Bible Church.

What is a Demo Talk?  Well, it is a special kind of presentation.  I do a brief Q&A session followed by a short demonstration of some specific kung fu concept/technique followed by a talk with a spiritual point.

It is a very specialized object lesson.  Live in the St. Joe area?  You should stop by!!! It would be great to have there.

December 1, 2009

How Kung-Fu has Helped Me Grow more Spiritual

As an extra credit assignment for his green sash test I asked my student Logan Urbeck to write a small essay detailing how his martial training has aided him in his spiritual growth.  I told him to be honest, and to not worry about length.  He had it to me in 7 days, and it is provided for your reading pleasure here with permission.  Bear in mind, Logan is 13.  I was very impressed and am very proud of him.  Enjoy!!!

How Kung-Fu has Helped Me Grow more Spiritual

by Logan Urbeck, October 2009

Kung-fu has helped me to grow more spiritual because kung-fu has taught me how hard it is to do some things. Reading your Bible and practicing kung-fu on a daily basis will probably never be easy so, in a sense, you could call it hard work. Kung-fu has to do with helping your body to become healthier and stronger. While the Bible helps you to grow in a healthy relationship with God and become strongly rooted in Scripture. Being physically healthy and spiritually healthy is hard work. The tian gan exercises are exercises that help keep the body healthy is hard enough but trying to find time in between school, chores, piano, family, and God makes it even harder, but I try my best to fit them in my daily schedule. It is about the same thing with God and his Word although I try my best to put Him first, it doesn’t always happen how you want it to. On the other hand I do go to a Christian school so this point is a little easier for me, but not a lot, I still have to find time in between everything to read, study, and absorb what God is saying in His Word. So I guess I could say kung-fu has helped me figure out how to always set aside some time for just me and God.

The second point is dedication. You have to have dedication to sort of give you a little push to practice kung-fu and read your Bible. Laoshr Read told me a lot of people quit kung-fu when they hit green. My guess is that about half of them didn’t want to dedicate the time for it. And it is necessary for you to dedicate your time and your life to God and for you to read the Bible and pray. Shrfu Mark Kimzey had to have dedicated much time to practice kung-fu to fix whatever he did wrong or he got something mixed up. That is probably why he’s one of the highest ranking persons in the association and knows that he has to dedicate that much time or he’ll mix it up the next time he does it or he’ll forget. In the Bible, Moses dedicated many months to freeing the Israelites. Moses knew that if he would keep coming back to the Pharaoh and dedicating himself to God and the Pharaoh would let his people go. Then later on in the story God sent plagues to Egypt and finally after the tenth plague the Pharaoh finally let his people go. So I feel that dedication does play into both kung-fu and Scripture because they are both hard work, and in order to do hard work you have to be dedicated to the fullest extent.

The third point to my paper is patience. You have to have patience in everything you do, but you have to have a little more patience with the things you’re dedicated to. In kung-fu you have to have patience because you may not get a form or exercise right away you just have to be patient, and constantly work at it. For me ba lien shou six and eight are a couple of the forms that gave me a hard time. In Scripture it talks about being patient like in James 5:7 “Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and have long patience for it until he receive the early and latter rain.” (KJV) The Scripture talks about patience, but you also have to have patience when praying. God may not answer your prayer that very next day, month, or even next year. God has a purpose for answering your prayer when he does whether you like it or not He’ll answer it when he feels he should or shouldn’t. So kung-fu has taught me to be dedicated to something you need to do like praying doing hard work like reading the Bible. Plus being patient Because God will always do what is the best thing for you all you have to is just be patient and pray.


November 26, 2008

Monday, 11-24-08, class comments

Filed under: Misc. musing — Hailstorm @ 12:56 am

We had a great class tonight, it was a med. sized class for us so far with just Josh, Conner, Mindy, Dylan and myself.

we worked on basic self defense against blunt objects (primarily the baseball bat)

I really enjoy the class dynamic that we have going on here and want to say how glad I am to have the students that I have.

I also want to give a shout out to Jeremy Rhoades who hosts this website and has done all the design for it. He does a great job, and I really appreciate what all the hard work he does.

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