[China] Travelling to China

[jcasey01]

Hi,



I'm a complete newbie to martial arts but I want to travel to China and learn some form of martial arts



Ideally what I would like to do is to travel to China and learn the basics of some form of internal martial arts very well so when I leave I could continue practicing myself.



It does'nt matter to me if I'm in a school or getting one to one training, but I want to learn authentic martial arts not the edited wushu versions. Also I would like to try ad learn mandarin and some aspect of TCM

I've been looking into places to study using the internet and travel books and have found four places

1) Shaolins.com; Martial Arts Academy located in Ye He Ancient Castle.Si Ping Ji Lin P R China. This school looks to be official and also offers language courses, but I'm weary of paying large sums of money as many of the travel books say many schools claim to teach authentic stuff when in fact it could be more official wushu type teaching

2) Shaolin Si in yellow river, this area seems to be a bit of a tourist trap as far as reports go

3) Taoist wudang boxing in the wudang shan region

4) Budi Zhen martial art school in Yangshuo in the Guangxi and Guizhou which teaches a combo of shaoln and wudang kung fu. It comes highly recommended but recently I heard that they are no teaching wushu versions

If you've heard about any of the schools (if there authentic, if there teaching is good)?
If you know of other places that would have the patience to deal with a complete novice?

Any advice about travelling to China for the first time



Thanks a lot

[Prons]

I'm a big noob so if this sounds dumb, don't pay me any mind, but isn't Wu Shu what they teach in China these days mainly? Was I misled to think that?

Also if you haven't already, learning chinese = good idea :)

[Spinal]

It all depends on what style you want, but these names come up often.

Beijing:
- Sanda style (as used by the red army), Master Chen Chow
- Strangely enough, you will find alot of the best Kung Fu artists at Bei Pu Tua Movie studios. Altought most will practice "Wire Fu", the moves (and masters) come from more traditional forms of Kung Fu. Yang Chong Yu, though young, is a famous name in this circle.

Ju Yong Guan (80 miles north of Beijing, on the wall):
- Wing Chun style, Master Wang Zhi Peng (decendent of

Kaifeng:
- Police Kung Fu Style, any Red Army training officer. This style is quite brutal, and contains a smaller inner component, thus probably not for you.

Dengfeng (new Kaifeng) the 'capital' of Kung Fu:
- Sanda style, Master Ma Feng. He teaches in the largest school in the city, the name escapes me.

Hunan Province, E. China
- Shaolin Temple, presided by Shi Yong Xin. Xin's school is one of the best, if not the best, if you are interested in the internal forms of Kung Fu. The temple traces it's external Kung Fu styles all the way back Bodhidharma (the Indian monk who brought the external form of Kung Fu to the monks).

M.

[Infrazael]

Go to HONG KONG mate! Lots of hardcore Souther teachers there. Old school grueling training, fighting, conditioning. Plus HK has all the goods! Hot girls, good nightlife, the works.

[jcasey01]

Thanks a lot Spinal,

That was a very useful message, gave me a few places to have a look at.

Infrazael,
Thanks I never thought about hong kong at all. Do you have any more specific details on teachers or places to train down there

[slipthejab]

http://www.kungfuwan.com/

Here's a guy with a good local reputation.

if you're coming to HK... bring a lot of cash.. it ain't cheap. If you're going to China bring a lot of cash until your bullshizz meter is up to par and you get some mainland street smarts about you. Go with an open mind and just enjoy it... if you go with a list to tick off... you will go home disappointed. HK is not the best place to learn Mandarin... in fact it's terrible for it. But if you're keen to pick up Cantonese it's great. Beware many local teacher are not keen on 1 or 2 month students. They're not going to impart massive knowledge down to you in such a short amount of time. Same goes for the mainland. That you are from the west they will tend to view you as a cash cow. How effective your BS meter works will determine how much you ultimately end up paying. Good luck.