Are there any styles of Kung Fu in San Diego? I'd like to see what they have to offer me if I am attending school down there.
There are a plethora of martial arts schools in San Diego. Choy Lee Fut: http://www.clfsd.com/ White Dragon: http://www.white-dragon.com/ To name a couple.
What style of Kung Fu are you looking for? What training do you currently have? If you don't know the style of kung fu, what characteristics interest you?
i'm looking for something that will give me a workout, but at the same time, a discipline that helps me focus on what i'm doing and gain health benefits. i'm currently in Sheng Hun Kung Fu. so far Sheng Hun works for me. but it's so new to the USA that there isn't a place for me to train in San Diego yet. Sheng Hun is probably going to be pretty different than other Kung Fu because Sheng Hun is meant for self defense, not for competitive uses.
Sheng Hun is very different from any Kung Fu I've ever seen. You're not gonna find another style that's like it, unfortunately. I would just shoot for a Kung Fu that has similar principles. More than likely though, you'll be stuck with chambering, :bang:
Do me a favor and send a PM to Sliver with your question. He's got the skinny on San Diego Kung Fu...and with over a decade experience, he's well-within the league of many instructors.
Lung Ying, a Hakka form. He's been around the block with all the San Diego kwoons, though, so he can steer you right.
Finding good Kung Fu in San Diego encounters the same problem you face finding good kung fu anywhere- far more frauds and quacks than real teachers. If you peruse the san diego yellow pages you find plenty of places that will be happy to take your money and pretend to teach you kung fu. Unfortunetly, you may as well just donate your money to charity, at least that might get you good karma, as the training they will give is entirely worthless. The following is the very short list of instructors around San Diego that I have personal experience with who can both teach you a legitimate style of kung fu and teach you how to fight using it (trust me the two are frequently strangers). Since I'm assuming you'll be living near SDSU I'll start with the schools closest to that location first. 1. Sifu Dwight Love at the Chinese Martial Arts Academey in La Mesa teaching Northern Green Dragon. www.chinesemai.com or 619-465-2914 2. Sojourn Past Martial Arts West (the school I go to) Teaching Lung Ying, a Hakka style. www.sojournpast.com The down side of training with us is you will be learning from Si Hing rather than Sifu- Steve the Sifu moved to AZ about a year an a half ago. He comes back to teach every three to four months, but most your material will come from people with only 4-10 years experience in the art rather than Steve's nearly 30 years. Also, class times are dificult for most as we practice 6am to 8am tuesday through friday and will be starting a weekend day class next month. Still, felt it was worth a mention. 3. Sifu Mike Desargio, in the North Park area teaching Northern Praying Mantis, www.mantisskills.com 4. Sifu Frank Promesius www.choilafut.com (I'll just let you guess what style he teaches there...) This makes up prety much the entire list of legitimate kung fu instructors I can vouch for in San Diego. The list may seem short, but in fact most cities have even less still. I'd reccomend trying all the schools and then deciding which one suits you. All of them of course have a free trial period, ranging from one day to one month. If none of the schools mentioned are to your taste and you are open to studying styles other than Kung Fu there are quite a large number of notable martial arts instructors around San Diego from various styles. People ranging from Fabio Santos (Rickson Gracie's first black belt) teaching Brazilian Jiu Jitsu to GM Sam Kuoha teaching Kara Ho Kempo to Chiba Sensi (one of Ushibas' original students) teaching Aikido. If none of the kung fu schools suit you it may be worth while to broaden your horizions and take tuition from some of these other excelent martial arts. Hope this helps, be well.
Hey guys, jumping in here. I'm a San Diego guy who's seen nearly ALL of the schools here. If you are looking for legitimate Kung Fu that is COMBAT oriented, all of the above mentioned schools are good, save White Dragon. I will shamelessly say that they are nothing more than commercialized BS. I also have my reservations about the way the Green Dragon crew does things, but I'm not here to crap on people. A couple of others others that were not mentioned: Five Element Martial Arts in Pacific Beach has a good N. Shaolin program, and an even better ZhaoBao Taiji program. You could say it's "real" Taiji. Worth a look, at the least. If you want internals (combat oriented, anyways), there is only one- called Internal Boxing Hsing-I, run by Mike Patterson's Senior Student, Alex Shpigel. Not crapping here, but you will not find better than this in San Diego.
Would have to second QJC's comment on White Dragon, probably worth passing over. Checked them out myself and was underwhealmed by the place.
i'll have to keep these in mind and i'll have to write them down when i do get down to SDSU. my instructors at school havent passed in their grades yet. grr!! this is really irritating me. i had a call today around 5pm from CSU Stanislaus, asking me what is going on. i explain to the rep. that i have to wait for grades to shop off to them and SDSU and that my last exam was today so... i'm a bit impatient w/ them bcuz i desperately need the grades ASAP for both SDSU and CSU Stanislaus.
