When I stepped into the class of about thirty, I had no expectations and kept an open mind. Wing Tsun Kung Fu (WT) is a martial art based on natural flowing body movements. The main objective of Wing Tsun is to be a realistic system of self-defense, but does not focus on fighting “techniques”, instead relying on fighting and energy principles to be followed at all times.

On the both of the two days I spent in class we started off by moving fluidly through the fundamental building blocks known as the Siu Nim Tao. These are the movements that give a foundation to balance and body structure. I found that the movements help to release the mind from the body and drift your focus on making the movements flow as naturally as possible. From here the class was split into their respective groups in order of experience and placed with a partner.

Throughout the remainder of the class, Sifu Ralph Haenel took us through seven hypothetical situations of what an attacker might and more importantly what we could do as a reactionary measure in order to protect ourselves. All of the movements made sense and did not require much thinking. One of the greatest things about this class is the fact that everyone is there to train at their own pace and encourage each other. Not to mention getting a rigorous workout.

To be continued on September 12th, 2007.