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| 官鋒忠 |
What Makes a True Kung Fu Teacher?
When I came to Taiwan, I arrived with quite a lot of martial-arts experience—and, I have to admit, perhaps a little too much confidence in what I already knew.
I had spent years practicing Kung Fu and had learned almost everything available to me in my home country. Taiwan seemed like the obvious place to continue searching.
For almost two years, I lived in Taipei.
I visited many schools, practiced with different instructors and met some well-known people in the martial-arts community. The technical level was often high, and I certainly learned from those experiences.
But something was missing.
Much of what I encountered consisted of different interpretations of principles I already knew through Wing Chun. Some interpretations were excellent, others less convincing, but I did not find the deeper experience I had imagined before coming to Taiwan.
Eventually, I decided to explore other Chinese martial arts while continuing my Wing Chun research.
Again, something didn't feel right.
In several schools, training felt primarily like a commercial transaction. Once the lesson ended, so did the relationship.
Perhaps my expectations were unrealistic. Perhaps I was looking in the wrong places.
Whatever the reason, after a while I stopped searching.
Moving to Tainan
After almost two years in Taipei, my wife and I moved to her hometown, Tainan.
Eventually, I began missing regular training.
This time I wasn't searching for secret knowledge or some mysterious “higher level” of Kung Fu. I simply wanted somewhere to practice seriously.
Finding traditional Kung Fu in Tainan was surprisingly difficult.
Many traditional teachers had little or no internet presence, and language presented another obstacle. With considerable help from my wife, however, I eventually found a Bajiquan (八極拳) school.
At the time, I knew almost nothing about Bajiquan.
My primary interest had always been Southern Chinese martial arts, especially Wing Chun and White Crane. I didn't even know exactly what Bajiquan training looked like.
That didn't matter.
I just wanted to train.
Sometimes the most important discoveries happen when you stop looking for them.
Meeting 官鋒忠
That Bajiquan school turned out to be what I had been searching for.
And this story is really not about Bajiquan.
It is about the man who created the environment I found there:
官鋒忠.
What immediately impressed me was not a spectacular technique.
It was the atmosphere.
Everyone paid the same training fees. Foreign and Taiwanese students trained together. I never felt that knowledge was deliberately withheld from me because I was a foreigner.
People respected the art, their teacher and each other.
More importantly, they seemed to practice because they genuinely loved what they were doing.
Kung Fu was not being presented as an exotic product.
It was simply part of their lives.
And much of that atmosphere came from the teacher.
I Learned More Than Bajiquan
When I began training there, I knew much less about traditional Taiwanese culture than I thought I did.
Living in Taipei had taught me something about Taiwan, but Tainan was another experience entirely.
I undoubtedly made cultural mistakes.
Sometimes I probably behaved in ways that seemed strange or even impolite simply because I didn't understand the rules.
What I encountered from 官鋒忠 was patience.
Nobody handed me a book explaining Taiwanese culture.
I learned gradually—through training, observation, conversation and simply spending time with people.
Eventually I realized that some of the most valuable things I was learning had nothing to do with punching or throwing someone.
I was learning about people.
More Than a Martial Artist
官鋒忠 was also interested in preserving other aspects of traditional Taiwanese culture.
He was an artist and musician and worked to preserve the playing of a traditional Taiwanese clay instrument known by relatively few people.
That told me something important about his approach to martial arts as well.
For him, preservation did not mean putting tradition inside a museum.
A tradition survives because people practice it, understand it and transmit it.
He founded the Maita Association with the goal of preserving and spreading what he understood as the original spirit of Chinese martial arts.
But preservation did not mean refusing to change anything.
He also looked for ways to make traditional martial arts understandable to younger generations and was interested in explaining aspects of training through modern and scientific perspectives.
That combination impressed me.
Preserve what is valuable. Understand why it works. Find a way to transmit it to the next generation.
“Kung Fu Belongs to Everyone”
There was another thing he said that stayed with me:
Kung Fu belongs to everyone.
For somebody teaching a foreign student in a traditional Taiwanese martial-arts environment, that statement meant something.
Chinese martial arts developed within Chinese culture. Their history and cultural context should be respected and preserved.
But that does not mean their knowledge must remain restricted by ethnicity or nationality.
A person willing to approach the tradition sincerely should be able to learn.
That was how I was treated.
What Is a True Kung Fu Teacher?
My understanding of a good Kung Fu teacher has changed considerably since I first came to Taiwan.
Technical knowledge matters.
Fighting ability matters if someone claims to teach fighting.
Understanding the system matters enormously.
But teaching is more than possessing information.
A good teacher creates an environment in which students can learn.
He understands that different students require different approaches.
He preserves knowledge without turning tradition into dogma.
He answers questions rather than fearing them.
He gives students room to develop.
And perhaps most importantly, his behavior teaches something even when he isn't teaching a technique.
I came to Taiwan looking for Kung Fu knowledge.
In Tainan, somewhat accidentally, I found something more valuable:
an example of what a Kung Fu teacher can be.