Austin Kung Fu Academy

CARDIO KICKBOXING!

Santanu — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 16:57:17 +0000

CARDIO KICKBOXING
Fitness Kickboxing, No Experience Necessary!

Tuesdays & Thursdays 6 – 7pm
Try a class for FREE

Regular prices, $8/class or 10 Class-Pack for $60.

Our New Videos!

Santanu — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 20:37:12 +0000

Instructors Ariel and Rick have been featured in 6 new videos for AKFA! These are application videos, that is, videos showing how to use the movements in a combat situation.

Director Santanu Rahman wanted to shoot these videos, because the application he has set for these movements aren’t really featured anywhere, so he went ahead and filmed it so folks can see some of his interpretation of how these movements can work.

You can see all the videos back to back on youtube (it autoplays) right here:

Friday Funday!

Nightfury — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 06:38:03 +0000

Kid’s Fun Night!

This Friday, August 19, there will be another Kid’s Fun Night at Austin Kung Fu Academy. The festivities will go from 6-9pm. As always, there will be games, pizza and more! The price for entry will be $25 per child. Friends of kids who are not at AKFA are welcome! Come one, come all for a night of fun, food and Fu!

Ging-lai for now!

Sifu Sam Ng

Nightfury — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 06:59:57 +0000

Master Santanu and Sifu Sam Ng

In the late 90′s, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, I connected through a mutual friend, with Philip Ng. We were both graduate students in Education. I told him I had learned some Choy Lay Fut forms and was interested in learning Choy Lay Fut from him. He said that he could teach me some stuff, but his father, Sifu Sam Ng was the main Choy Lay Fut master at the Ng Family Chinese Martial Arts Association.

Now, Sifu Ng was teaching in Chicago at a Chinatown recreation center at the time (now they have their own commercial property). Since Phil and I were both in Urbana-Champaign, I did the bulk of my training with him. We’d occasionally go to Chicago together, which is home to him, and I’d get fine-tuning from Sifu Ng.

Fortunately, Phil had videotapes of his Dad doing Choy Lay Fut moves, and I am pretty good at mimicking movements from video. So I’d learn the sequence of moves from video, and Sifu Ng would make corrections, adjustments, and tweak details.

I trained very dedicatedly with them, and sometimes Sifu Ng and Phil would have me lead some of the Choy Lay Fut practices. I got my greatest foundation of authentic Chinese martial arts from the Ng Family. They not only have great material that is very pure, but they also have a fantastic methodology of disseminating it to students.

After Phil and I graduated from UIUC, we moved away from Champaign – he got a job in a Chicago Suburb, and I landed a job at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. I was wanting to continue learning more Choy Lay Fut, but the Ng Family was too far away. I noticed Master Tat Mau Wong, a very skilled and reputable Choy Lay Fut teacher was offering a correspondence program, where he had a his curriculum on video, and then you’d travel to San Francisco once a year or so to train with him. That I could handle, and I eventually became an instructor under them.

Now with the advent of social media, the Ng Family have been putting out lots of videos of their curriculum. I was attempting to learn that material, and called Sifu Sam Ng, and we reconnected. To that end, Sifu Sam Ng will be working with me and my students when he visits Texas later this month.

Also, since I go to Illinois at least once a year to visit my parents and friends, I will fly into Chicago, and get training from him. So, it’s a return to my foundation, the roots of my Choy Lay Fut training, and I couldn’t be happier! The level of detail that Sifu Sam Ng teaches with his lineage of Choy Lay Fut is simply amazing, and I am honored to get the opportunity to receive it. I will gain so much knowledge, and most importantly, I get to impart that onto my students.

Kids Master Weaponry

Nightfury — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 07:17:10 +0000

Notes From Kung Fu Summer Camp

Kids Kung Fu summer camp is in full swing at Austin Kung Fu Academy. These masterful mini martial artists are getting special in depth training. Usually at AKFA, only students with a black belt are allowed to learn weapons forms. However, Instructor Rick is teaching all Kung Fu summer camp attendees the weapons forms, regardless of belt rank!

These kids have certainly shown that they have the skills and discipline needed to handle the responsibility of using weaponry. For those who missed it, ten of AKFA’s kids (along with instructors Rick Galione and Ariel Rodriguez) performed an impressive demonstration of Kung Fu skills at the May 28th opening weekend screening of Kung Fu Panda 2 at the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar. Check out the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XG_3tP7YiKo. Great job, AKFA pandas!

Ging-lai for now!

Kung Fun!

Nightfury — Thu, 19 May 2011 06:53:36 +0000

We’re nearing the end of the school year, which means three months of fun and excitement await our youngest martial artists. How better than to kick things off with another…

KUNG FU FUN NIGHT!

What? Pizza, games and, of course, Kung Fu!

Where? Austin Kung Fu Academy

When? Friday, May 20th, 6-9pm

Who? Kids ages 6-12

How much? $25 per child

Kids are welcome to bring non-AKFA friends as well.

Pizza will be on hand for the festivities.

Writer’s Room

Nightfury — Sun, 01 May 2011 20:51:47 +0000

Exciting news for Austin Kung Fu Academy co-founder/co-owner Santanu Rahman. He has just had an article published by Qi:The Journal of Eastern Health and Fitness. Below you can find scans of the article, which concerns the differences between external and internal components of martial arts forms.

To see more articles from this publication, check out their web site at http://www.qi-journal.com/journal.asp

Coming Soon!

* The next Kung Fu Kids Fun Night!

Ging-lai for now!

Summertime, the Kickin’s Easy

Nightfury — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 03:04:29 +0000

Kung Fu Summer Camp!

There’s no denying it now. Texas has had its one week of Spring and has catapulted right in to Summer. That means it’s time to fill up the swimming pool, put away your coat for another 9 months and, most importantly, decide where to go for Summer camp! Well, Austin Kung Fu Academy has one of those, and it is still taking enrollments. Kung Fu Summer camps are held for four hours every day in a nice, air conditioned studio. Four hours! What could fill four long hours?! Well, for starters, there will be some Kung Fu-themed games, stories, role playing and artwork to give kids a background in the philosophy of Kung Fu. It won’t all be theory, though. There will be plenty of actual Kung Fu training to keep the kids moving. Then, we’ll roll out the projector for some awesome (and age-appropriate) Kung Fu movies. There will also be discussions about the values and principles of Kung Fu.

Phew! That sounds like a pretty amazing way to spend the day. Sign the kids up now so they can spend the long, sweltering hours of Summer in martial arts bliss.

Photo by Robert Carlson

Ging-lai for now!

And Now, Introducing…

Nightfury — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 01:04:25 +0000

…Instructor Ariel Rodriguez

New Instructor Ariel Rodriguez with Master Santanu.

Austin Kung Fu Academy would like to welcome its newest addition to the staff. Ariel Rodriguez is a long-time student here at AKFA and just recently earned his black belt. He has earned a reputation as a dedicated pupil, attending most classes regularly, and an incredibly skilled martial artist. Now, he’s an instructor!

For those of you not familiar with Ariel, I’ve done some digging. We sat down and had a very hard hitting interview. No softball questions from Nightfury! Here’s the scoop.

1. How long have you been doing Kung Fu? What initially drew you to KF?

As an adult, I’ve been practicing Chinese martial arts for about 7 years. I initially got into Kung Fu as a kid. I had been taking classes in Tae Kwon Do for a while and my dad had expressed interest in trying out Kung Fu, as he was an avid fan of old Kung Fu films from the ’70s and I often watched them along with him. We joined a Kung Fu school together and studied there for a few years along with my little brother.

Family obligations forced me to stop my Kung Fu training, but I had a very strong desire to go back to it. In college I did just that, starting my training again in the Boston area.

2. What is your favorite style of Kung Fu?

That’s a tough question! I think one of the greatest aspects of Chinese martial arts is how styles fit together to form a comprehensive system of self defense, fitness, overall health, and artistic expression. For example, you can study an external style like Choy Lay Fut together with an internal one like Tai Chi or Ba Gua.

Each of those is its own style, and all have hard and soft elements. However, they often fit together (along with other styles/methods like Chi Gong, Chin Na, Shuai Jiao, etc.) to complement aspects of the other. It’s hard to have a favorite when so many different styles work in harmony to make you a better practitioner of the martial arts!

3. Which Kung Fu movie star is your favorite (if you have one) and why?

Bruce Lee is such an inspiration that I have to mention him here, like many other martial artists would. Techniques are always changed in film to make them easier for the audience to see or understand, but I always admired that Bruce had this sense of martial authenticity in all his choreography.

A more recent star that I like a lot is Donnie Yen. I like how he adapts his kung fu to fit his roles. He seems to really think about which form or style his characters’ Kung Fu will take and adapts himself to fit those roles.

4. What are your favorite Kung Fu forms and why?

I have to admit I’m pretty partial to the jian (straight sword). The straight sword core form that we practice at AKFA has lots of great techniques that are challenging and fun to execute. The straight sword is often called “the gentleman of weapons”, which is something great to aspire to while cutting your opponent to pieces!

5. What are your top 5 favorite KF films?

In no particular order: Police Story, Enter the Dragon, Hero, 36th Chamber of Shaolin, and probably Fist of Legend.

6. What would you like people to know about your class?

In the classes I’ll be leading we’ll focus more on the details of certain fundamental Kung Fu topics. As we look more closely at these techniques and practice them, we’ll work to refine our Choy Lay Fut foundation to make it even more solid. If you have a stance transition you can’t quite figure out or wonder how to better execute your punches, we’ll be working on just those sorts of elements.

7. What do you like most about being part of the AKFA family?

The community at AKFA is really positive and enthusiastic about Kung Fu training. I admire the dedication students at AKFA have to Kung Fu in general, and Choy Lay Fut in particular. Everyone is very supportive of their fellow Kung Fu brothers and sisters, which makes for a great training atmosphere.

8. What would you say to people who are thinking about starting a martial art?

The martial arts are a fantastic way to keep both your body and mind engaged! It’s unlike any other type of exercise I’ve ever encountered in that there is so much culture, history, and variety along with the physical and mental challenges it provides. I highly recommend trying it out, but find a school like AKFA where the people are enthusiastic about their practice. That enthusiasm is infectious and may make you realize that a martial art like Kung Fu can be more than an exercise routine, it can be a way of life!

Ariel Rodriguez will be teaching classes on Wednesday at 7:30.

Ging-lai for now!

Tried and Tested

Nightfury — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 03:46:37 +0000

Belt Test!

Austin Kung Fu Academy would like to congratulate all of its students who successfully reached their next level of martial arts mastery at the March belt test. They pow’ed and gwa’ed their way to a shiny new sash. Below is a full list of the students and their new ranks. Way to go, ladies and gents!

Kate Asaff and her red belt.

New Black Belt Ariel Rodriguez with Master Santanu.

The following are AKFA students who belt tested and earned a new sash.

Yellow Sash Kids 3-6 year olds
Maya Goodman
Ethan Parker
Jack Stein
James Van Gompel

Green Sash Kids 3-6 year olds
Oscar Thompson
Ben Wallis

Brown Sash Kids 3-6 year olds
Amethyst Skwarek

Yellow Sash 7-14 year olds
Samuel Bellon
Sabina Berkley
Santiago Berkley
Angus Christian
Annabelle Christian
Sean Gray
Catcher Sartoris
Lucas Parker
Max Pipkin
Zane Reda

Green Sash 7-14 year olds
Joseph Mathias
Woodrow Middleton
Sophia Salo

Brown Sash 7-14 year olds
Cameron Gray
Jacob Yin

Red Sash 7-14 year olds
Sebastian Escalante

Black Sash 7-14 year olds
Charlotte Odland

Adult Yellow Sash
John Edwards
Brent Frost
Jason Logsdon

Adult Green Sash
Rachel Nicholson
Farley Rambin

Adult Brown Sash
Jake Bridges
Cindy Stowell

Adult Red Sash
Kate Asaff
Joe Hidrogo III

Adult Black Sash
Charles Crain
Rick Galione
Ariel Rodriguez

Ging-lai for now!