Staff Column: Don’t forget the basics

By Staff Writer Felicity He

At least two hours a day, four times a week, I’m at Dragon Rhythm Shaolin Kung Fu. On top of my near-decade of experience, third-degree black belt, 17 event medals, two grand champion trophies, and national team status, I teach and serve as a role model to younger students. The studio has become a second home to me. So, when my fractured ankle kept me out of Kung Fu class for 10 weeks in late 2024, I couldn’t wait to return. However, my first class back — a joint training session with School Team A, made up of middle schoolers — ruined my eagerness to get back. While my healing ankle relegated me to stretching on the wooden flooring, I could only watch the twelve-year-olds practice the animal imitation forms they’d performed for the last three years — except now, they actually hit with power and moved with speed, performing difficult tumbling passes they certainly couldn’t land 10 weeks ago, and passes I couldn’t land even pre-injury. Seeing their growth filled me with pride, but also with sinking dread. These kids who barely came up to my shoulder now performed at a level that exceeded mine. Their impressive growth revealed a truth I was trying to avoid: that I had fallen behind. 

To keep myself going after my injury, I clung to my belief that I had retained my level in forms. Pretty poses, elegant movements, and fine-tuned details came instinctively when I was learning them, so I assumed that I’d maintain them with no effort. When it came time for me to drill old forms, I immediately put in 110%, focusing on my strength and speed, where I historically struggled, instead of details and movements. It wasn’t only because Shifu was egging me on, yelling at me to strike with more power and move faster; I believed that only by putting all of my effort into relentlessly training could I catch up to everyone else.

However, I neglected to account for the hits that my injury dealt to my endurance, flexibility, and posture, the basic skills required for Kung Fu. Without the basics, no matter how hard you hit, no matter how fast you move, your effort is all futile. It took me years of careful corrections to get them second nature, yet my break reversed them. By neglecting these aspects in favor of increasing my power and speed, all I did was stagnate. My movements, despite the energy I put in, were slow, labored, and sloppy: nothing about them indicated nearly a decade’s worth of experience. Regressing at forms, my strongest point throughout my entire Kung Fu journey, and plateauing even with hours of practice, frustrated me to the point of almost quitting. 

Just as I was ready to give up, it came time for me to learn a new form: spear. Although I was excited initially, I quickly discovered that spear was the most annoying weapon in the world. It’s humongous — 195 centimeters to be exact — and arm-noodling to use, not to mention very painful, since one of the basic movements involved repeatedly punching yourself in the stomach with the end of the spear. Worst of all, using spear totally exposed my now-shoddy fundamentals, which were insufficient for the form, as using the weapon relied on good posture and shoulder flexibility to have the extensions that make swinging around this behemoth of a weapon look good. It was a huge blow to my pride when Shifu called out how atrocious my shoulder alignments were — I’d only ever been praised on them before my injury. 

Spear forced me to go slow: I checked the form movement by movement, fixing errors I never imagined myself making. But even then, I actually found myself in better spirits. With the slower pace, I focused less on disparaging myself and more on constructive feedback. I could sense myself improving with each round of critiques and feel the familiar ease of movement return with the new form. Through that learning process, I realized that I had been taking my strong fundamentals for granted.

Funnily enough, my tendency to force progress without actually thinking about what needed work was exactly what caused my injury in the first place. When I was younger, the momentum of my legs allowed me to complete a side aerial safely, but as I grew taller, aerials became increasingly risky to perform. My head would get dangerously close to the ground and, more often than not, I failed to pass the aerial. While the root problem was my longer legs lagging, I assumed the take-off was the issue, so I pushed off the floor with so much force I hurt my ankle. When I started training aerials again, I realized the mistake and moved my legs faster, turning my aerial consistent again.

In our quest to improve, we need to consciously fight to keep the skills we already have because they are not permanent. Strengths can always turn into weaknesses. Whether it’s struggling through a form or troubleshooting an aerial, sometimes the missing component is the piece you thought you had the entire time.