 Shifu Heng Wei with student Oskar Gawron, SENI 2010 gold medal winner.
We are delighted to announce that
yet again Oskar Gawron won a gold medal at SENI. This time
it was in the Traditional Forms Category for a great demonstration
of the Black Tiger form. Well done Oskar.
The Army fitness guys were also there at SENI on the day and
running a competition to see who could do the most push ups.
The top adult score was 180 in two minutes. Oskar decided
to have a go at this too and did 90 in two minutes winning
him the prize for the best children’s score. Not to
be out done by his brother Maciek Gawron (aged 5) decided
to try too and he did 70 in two minutes! The judges were amazed.
Well done boys.
Despite the cold we braved the elements
and headed off to the Little Bay restaurant in Belsize Road.
It’'s a cozy place with quirky decor but most importantly
fantastic food and very good sized portions. One thing about
training is it means you can eat what you want and we all
have great appetites. It was lovely to see everyone
out of their training gear and dress up. Clean plates
all round, full bellies and smiling faces. Great night by
any standards.
Shaolin Kung Fu is not just about the
fighting aspect. It is quite spiritual and the most
important thing for us is to be able to give a little something
back to those less fortunate. It’'s not just about
Karma, it’'s about doing what's right. So we decided
that we as school would sponsor a child in China. That means
a little bit of everyone's fees goes toward the cost of care
for this baby girl.
We have done this through an agency called Cocoac which stands
for Care of China's Orphaned and Abandoned Children. Heng
Yan is only a couple of months old and has been taken from
a state run orphanage to this organisations centre in Hunan
where she is receiving great care.
So a big thank you to everyone. She is our youngest member
of Team Shaolin  .
We are hoping that we will be able to do more in the future.
It was good to see this show back in the
UK as it hadn't been here for quite a few years. I thought
it might be good to organise a night out to see the show as
many students had never seen it live. In the end there were
72 of us! It was very enjoyable, especially for the younger
students who then realised exactly what Shifu Heng Wei has
been teaching them. There were lots of excitement and promises
to train hard and become like these amazing Shaolin Warriors.
The funniest thing was when we were trying to take pictures
of our group outside the Theatre, when a bunch of other theatre
goers thought it would be good fun to get in on the act, that
was until i explained that who we were and they were standing
next to Shifu. Their faces were a picture. We all had a good
laugh and let them be in the photos anyway.
Shifu Heng Wei is very good friends with
the head teacher from the school in Henan where these great
masters come from. As our students are going to be training
with them next year we thought it would be a good idea to
have a workshop where the Masters could teach our students
one of their forms. They chose the Seven Star Form and gave
a fabulous two and a half hour workshop.
It was a great experience for our Students to have had the
opportunity to be trained by these guys as it is only something
that many dream of.
Some of our students bit the bullet and
went off to China by themselves. Shifu had set up a
training holiday for them to attend Ba Ji school in Bo Ai.
You won't find it in any of the tourist guides and we had
told the guys that they would be the only Westeners there.
The Ba Ji school's head teacher is a direct decendant from
the originator of this explosive form and they are absolutely
passionate about it. The guys had an absolutely fantastic
time and have many great memories. They loved it so much they
are going back to see them again next year!
Mark (one of the students who bravely ventured on the trip)
kept a diary of his experience. Click
here to read excerpts from his journal.
After the shocking and devastating news
about the earthquake in China we decided that we would like
to do something to help. The response from the students was
amazing. In the space of two weeks we had raised over £500
just from donations. We were concerned about putting the money
into a fund here in the UK as we wanted to make sure the money
went directly to where it was needed. As Shifu and I
were returning to China at the end of May we took it with
us and we donated the money directly to the Chinese Red Cross. They
were amazed and delighted as once the money had been changed
into Chinese currency it amounted to almost 7500 yuan!
To date we have raised just over £750 for the appeal.
We were asked to perform at SENI so together
with the other schools that make up Team Shaolin our guys
put on a great performance, which everyone seemed to enjoy.
The atmosphere was fun and friendly and we met many other
great martial arts practitioners there. The event was also
attended by Linda Lee as the organisers had a special Bruce
Lee Memorial Section which contained unseen photos and some
personal objects.
For us the highlight of the day was Oskar Garon
(aged 9) winning bronze medal for his 56 part form Chen Style
Tai Chi. It's hard enough at the best of times but he
was competing against adults!
Well done too to Andy Lang (fellow Team Shaolin member from
the Shaolin Culture school) who came second. |
