In August 24 - 25, 2019, There are three members (Ian Ly, Stephanie Ly, and Ethan Wong) of our school participated in the 2019 NTD Global Traditional Martial Arts Competition. In Saturday morning of August 24th, the preliminary round for all contestants from North America started. It went on until the afternoon, then they announced the list of Semi-Finalist to be eligible to continue to compete for the next day. Our three members made it through. In Sunday August 25th, all Semi-Finalist contestants from North America, Asia, and Europe competed together until early in the afternoon that day. The event then had a small break, and shortly after, they announced the Finalist contestants list to move on, and continue competed at 2:00pm in the afternoon. At the same time, they broadcast live world wide on NTDTV channel for these finalist contestants during their competition. Ian Ly from our school made his way through the finalist list with his Yin-Chi-Pai (double shield) weapon, and competed with three others in his division (Youth Armed division). At the end, he got Silver medal along with $1000 USD for this placement, and three other youths (two from Taiwan, one from Columbia) got Bronze medal with $800 USD for their placement. The NTDTV organization put together this type of competition every two years. It will be in year 2021 for the next one. Congratulation to Ethan Wong, and Stephanie Ly who had made to the Semi-Final of the competition, and Ian Ly for Silver medalist for global traditional martial arts competition.
If anyone want to watch the competition, below is the link. If the link can not open in your device for some reason, then open YouTube and search “2019 NTD International Chinese Traditional Martial Arts Competition Finals”. If you only would like to watch Ian’s perform, then move the timer at the bottom of the screen until it shows the time 1:23:13 at the bottom left corner.
On Saturday June 1st, 2019, the school will hold its 20th anniversary celebration. The time will be from 3:30 pm - 7:30 pm.
In August 8 - 13, 2018, eight youth members of our school participated in the "2nd International Youth Martial Arts Camp" at Chungju, Korea.
These members were:
Our team was honored to be selected by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), to represent Canada for this event.
The organization is the International Centre of Martial Arts (ICM) for Youth Development and Engagement under the auspices of UNESCO. ICM is the first and only category 2 centre that specializes in promotion of martial arts from around the world. They aim to contribute to youth development and engagement with its philosophy and values, positive attitudes, and the personal development characteristic it engenders and ultimately, aim for cultivation of a culture of peace and reconciliation.
Special thanks to Mr. Kim Si Hyun (Secretary General of the ICM), and his team members Mr. Lee Keun Euk (Chief, International Cooperation Team) who had visited our school in May 2018; and Mr. Choi Won (Chief, Research and Development Team) who is in charge of programs and events during the camp. Without them, this camp will not be successful, and the youth from foreign countries (Bulgaria, Singapore, Malaysia, China, and Canada) along with youth in Korea had a great time.
During the camp, they learnt team building; showcased their martial art from their country; learned martial arts from different countries and styles; played water sports; visited University of Martial Arts to see martial arts demos; site seeing Light World park, Korea ancient Folks village, Martial Art Museum, Palace, and highest tower in Seoul. Beside, everyone had also enjoyed the famous authentic dishes menu from Korea during the camp "Kim Chi".
On behalf of the Shaolin Kung Fu Centre, I want to thanks all those who participated in the event. You had made Canada proud by your demos at the opening ceremony, and also especially at the National group demo night. You had made Canada team the best team over among other countries. Keep up with your hard work!
Frank Ly
Grandmaster
Shaolin Kung Fu Centre
In July 27 -29, 2018 Our school participated in the 6th World Kuo Shu Championship Tournament that took place in Baltimore, Maryland U.S.A. There were eight members of our school who competed in this event.
Our school brought back excellent results. Beside several medalists from the school, there is one member (Ian Ly) had been selected for "The World Kuo Shu Hall Of Fame", and got an award plaque.
Below are the results of the medalists competed in their division:
Congratulation to all medalists! Keep up the hard work.
There are 8 members from our school competed at 2017 U.S. International Kuo Shu Championship Tournament. They won total of 19 medals back.
Congratulation to Alex (2 gold, 1 bronze), Ryan (2 gold, 1 silver), Ian (3 gold), Ethan (3 gold, 1 bronze), William (1 gold, 1 bronze), Carmen (1 gold, 1 bronze), Stephanie (1 silver), Justin (1 bronze).
Keep it up team!
Chinese martial arts, specially those of Northern styles was forged by the richness of the ancient Chinese civilization that was birthed in the region of the middle and downstream of the yellow River.
Northern styles are popular in the northern part of China and most of them have the characteristics of being elegant and confident, emphasizing movements with coordination and completeness, stylishness and power, clarity and rhythm, and strength and fluidity.
Other than Cha Chuan, Hua (flower) Chuan, Pao Chuan, Hong Chuan, Hoa Chuan and other Long fist styles, Northern styles of Chinese Martial Arts also include Ba Chi Chuan (Eight Extremes Fist), Tong Bei, Fanzi Chuan, Praying Mantis, Mian Chuan and Mui Fa (Plum Flower) Chuan, etc., each with its own unique characteristics. Shaolin Style has its own uniqueness in comparison to northern style, which are distinguished by the characteristics of "Southern Fist and Northern Kick".
Fanzi Chuan originally called Eight Sha Fa is a Chinese Martial Art style that has eight main techniques. Shan refers to the swiftness of movements that are like lightning. Fan refers to the movements being executed one after another in succession.
The Fanzi Chuan forms are usually short and concise. They are swift and foreceful with fist attacking as dense as a heavy rain, low stance moving like a flash, and movements executed in non-stop succession. Therefore, it also has a nickname "One Whip Fanzi". Fanzi Chuan emphasizes the sharpness, swiftness, power and recoiling of the movements.
Chinese Martial Arts Praying Mantis Fist belongs to the family of animal imitating styles. It is said that this Chinese Martial Arts style was founded by Wang Lang from Jimo, Shandong Province who lived during the end of the Ming to the beginning of the Qing Dynasty.
It was said that he was inspired by the techniques that a mantis uses to pray on a cicada and created this particular Chinese Martial Arts style. Chinese Martial Arts Praying Mantis Style was first spread in Jiaodong - Shandong province and was later developed into Plum Flower, Seven Star, Six Harmony.
Other Chinese Martial Arts Praying Mantis styles such as Seven Star Mantis Martial Arts, Five Star Mantis Martial Arts, Chinese Martial Arts Wah-Lam Mantis, etc.
Chinese Martial Arts Southern styles generally refer to the martial arts disciplines that are popular in the southern part of China. The southern martial arts system was developed at the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of Qing Dynasty. It spread throughout the areas of Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujian, Hunan, Hubei, Sichuan, Jiangxi, Jiangsu, Zhejiang provinces, and Hainan Island.
Southern styles have many varieties. The styles includes Tiger Style, White Crane Style, Hung Gar, Lau Gar, Choy Gar, Li Car, Mok Gar, Wing Chun, Choy Lee Fut, Buddha Style, Eagle Style, etc. Although each style has its uniqueness, most styles of Southern Chinese martial arts share the same characteristics of a stable stance, flexible and rich hand forms, and powerful movements. The high population density and narrow streets in Southern China also have direct influence on the dimensions of Southern Style movements. Different from the elegant, confident, line-flowing and fully-extended Northern Style movements. Chinese Southern Style of martial arts movements have relatively smaller dimensions, as manifested by the saying "attacking within the area of the size of a sleeping bull". Its attacking points are usually on the upper part of the human body, such as the head, neck, chest, waist, arms, etc.
Martial arts are codified systems and traditions of combat practices, which are practiced for a variety of reasons: as self-defense, military and law enforcement applications; as competition, physical fitness, mental and spiritual development; as well as entertainment and the preservation of a nation's Intangible cultural heritage.
Although the term martial art has become associated with the fighting arts of eastern Asia, it originally referred to the combat systems of Europe as early as the 1550s. The term is derived from Latin, and means "arts of Mars", the Roman god of war. Some authors have argued that fighting arts or fighting systems would be more appropriate on the basis that many martial arts were never "martial" in the sense of being used or created by professional warriors.
For martial arts training, there are techniques which aim to strike the opponents at any vital areas of the body (head, eyes, neck, solar plex, groin, spine, hand and feet joints, etc...)which could cost serious injury, or death. The shorter the time to bring the opponent down, the better. Martial arts training involve a lot of conditioning to strength up the hands and feet, make the bone strong and hard so that it can be use for striking to the opponent at the vital areas.
Martial sports is gear toward striking non vital areas such as stomach, legs, arm, etc... Often, martial sports training would not involve conditioning. Martial sports often focus into hand forms, or weapon forms. Training without live blade for swords. Wear all protective gears when sparring. Training mostly toward how to gain point(s) for competition. Work in a lot of cardio and stamina, so they can last long for competition.
In some odd cases only, but not 100%. For example, in a street fight, there are no rules, anything goes. The purpose is to take down each other as soon as possible. People often grab any object (knife, gun, chair, stick, etc...) and use it to hit the opponent or throw at the opponent(s).
If one only focus in martial sports techniques for their training, they often used to striking the non vital areas of the opponent to gain their points for the match or game, then they would have higher chance to get hurt in a street fight. Whereas if one mainly focus into martial arts training, he/she will get used to strike the vital areas to bring the opponent down as quick as possible. They often will have a higher chance to survive in a street fight.
The individual should question themselves, do they want to train martial arts or martial sports. Both paths are good. At the end, it boils down to are you living in a rough city or a very peaceful city. For rough city with big population, you will have a higher chance defense for your life and protect your family. For peaceful city, will have less chance to use martial arts.
In my opinion, no one would know what or when things could happen. So practice martial arts techniques as your major, and practice martial sports techniques as your substitution or minor would be better. Stay healthy and look great is important, but being able to protect your life, and your loves one should be more priority on top of anything else.
The following are the results for our school from 2015 U.S. International Kuo Shu Championship Tournament held in Baltimore on July 24 - 26, 2015:
For the total score of all the events in the tournament with other schools, our school came to 3rd place for overall youth form.
Congratulation to all, and especially to Justin Ly who had won the most medals this year!
