Survey Course

The administrators at Winterhaven School were kind enough to give us the opportunity to teach a Kung Fu Elective this semester for grades 6-8.

My understanding of the system is that the students get to choose from several options (the ones I know of for this semester were miniature painting, Google earth, model plane construction, outdoor games and Kung Fu) then get five classes at 1 hour each. All of the other courses are run by volunteer parents.

With only five classes, I exposed the students to as diverse a palette as I could manage. My hope was that between forms, striking, blocking and conditioning everyone got a good feel for what Mo Duk Pai has to offer.

For the last class, I taught the students three basic boxing strikes, straight punch, hook and uppercut. With these punches and some focus pads, I let them explore the joy of hitting things. For a finale (pictured above) I let them explore the limits of their conditioning by seeing how many rounds of 5 overhead presses, 10 leg claps and 15 lunges they could do in seven minutes. One student got 12 rounds.

Leg claps are new to me, so I thought I’d share the joy. You lay flat on your back, lift your straightened legs six inches off the ground, then scissor them together and apart with control. One clap equals one rep.