My Favorite Thing About Kung Fu San Soo

My most favorite thing about Kung Fu San Soo is the infinite variety of attacks one can use to subdue the opponent. As you progress in this art, and learn to master more and more of its’ fighting techniques, you have more and more weapons to choose from and use during a fight.

Just like an artist that paints, as you learn more and more of this art, you are only limited by your own creativity as to how to best create your fighting reality. One of the most powerful aspects of Kung Fu San Soo is the ability to change direction and adjust your choices at any given moment to what is actually happening during an altercation.

If, for example, you move in to block an opponents attack and your block changes his direction to something you didn’t expect, you can continue to flow into another fighting technique without a second thought. The way Kung Fu San Soo is taught creates the ability to flow from one technique to another with minimal transition time.

I think the key element here is that we are learning different TECHNIQUES in our lessons rather than specific fighting routines. When I first started in San Soo I learned just a few techniques, and practiced them over and over until they worked well for me. Sometime into my fourth year of this art (brown belt level) I started to become more adept at “freestyle” fighting. It just kind of happened for me back then and that is when the full impact of Kung Fu San Soo training hit me.

I was moving and flowing from one technique to another instantly without even thinking and regardless of where my opponent was positioned, I had something learned from my endless arsenal of San Soo techniques to flow into and finish the attack.

My instructor had told us from the beginning that Kung Fu San Soo was like learning the letters in the alphabet in our early stages of training and like learning to read and write this alphabet as we moved up in experience. He said when we reached the Black Belt level we start to fully articulate the language of San Soo we have learned into our own creative and personal fighting style.

This is why, during our presentations to the public, our fighting techniques can look completely different from one San Soo fighter to the next. I often here the comment that is looks like we have so many different styles in our presentations but in reality it is each learned San Soo fighter using his/her techniques in an ever creative and personal way

I look forward to learning and perfecting more and more Kung Fu San Soo fighting techniques and incorporating them effortlessly into the San Soo fighting reality I create for myself.