Waterloo kung fu students move up the ranks
Three athletes trained very hard to receive brown and black belts
Everybody loves kung fu fighting — especially Erich MacLean, who recently obtained his brown belt, and Antonia Jolley and Sneha Miskin, who obtained their black belts, on May 12 at the Waterloo Kung-Fu Academy.
All three athletes have trained out of the academy since they started. It was founded in 1987 by sifu (teacher) Bob Schneider.
The current owner, sifu David Moylan, started training at the school in 1990 and became an instructor in 1999. After Schneider passed away in 2006, Moylan said he received a blessing from Schneider’s family to keep the school running.
The academy runs 40 classes a week, has 33 active instructors and about 350 students, according to Moylan. He said what he loves best about the academy is the community and the instructors.
“It is such a diversity of people that are here, from different nationalities and different faiths but we are all here for one common thing — we love doing kung fu,” said Moylan. “With kung fu there is what you think, like the kicking, punching and blocking, but there is also the mental end of it, so respect and discipline.”
Jolley, 18, started with the junior program in 2010 alongside her sister. She said kung fu is a big part of her family, as her father has been an instructor at the academy since 2003 and her cousins practice it as well.
In order for these athletes to fulfil their ranking, they have teaching requirements, which Jolley said she really enjoys. She said she teaches kids of all different ages, three times a week.
“I like adapting to different kids and seeing how they react to kung fu,” said Jolley.
Jolley said her success has a lot to do with having Miskin to train with, as they would push each other to go to class and also train outside of class.
MacLean, 16, said his inspiration for starting kung fu in 2009 was the “Kung Fu Panda” movie. Since his mom knew a sifu at the academy, he began his training and said he loves it because of the people and the classes he gets to teach.
“I have made a lot of friends here,” said MacLean. “I get to see the younger generations move up through the ranks and it’s really nice to see a community of people, all doing it together.”
MacLean said earning his brown sash, which is one level below black, felt really good, as the grading to get to the next rank is an intense six-hour test. He said all sifus are present during the test to push you to your limits.
“It feels really good to get something out of it,” said MacLean.
Miskin said the test consists of a lot of sparring, self-defence and is a huge test of your skill, technique and mental and physical strength.
“It is especially a test of your spirit because at the end of the day your physical capacity will only get you like four hours into the grading and then after that you have to push yourself mentally to get past the road block,” said Miskin.
In order to continue his success, MacLean said he trains at the academy four times a week and is there for most of the morning on weekends helping with the kids classes. He is also part of the demonstration team, which Miskin describes as a team that performs the basic fundamentals of kung fu for the public, at events like Hamilton Tiger-Cats football games.
He said he plans to pursue the sport for a long time and even sees himself running his own academy one day.
“I’m only 16, so I have a lot of future ahead of me,” MacLean said.
Interestingly enough, Miskin’s inspiration was also the “Kung Fu Panda” movie.
“I was dabbling in other sports like karate, but it didn’t really stick,” said Miskin. “Somewhere around there the ‘Kung Fu Panda’ movie came out and I remember saying ‘I really want to do this, I want to stick with this.’”
Miskin, who is now 18 yearsold, said she started when she was eight years-old in the academy’s youth program with her older sister. She progressed to junior and then adult classes, and joined the competition team three years ago, which Jolley and MacLean are also a part of.
The competition team runs from February to May each year. The competitions are held all across Ontario.
Miskin said it took her about eight months of training before she would progress to the next ranking.
“By the time you become a black sash, you know like 20 forms and a whole bunch of sequences and they are just sort of in your muscle memory,” said Miskin. “I guess that is a huge part of training, just building on how we do it so slowly that it just stays in you and everything becomes kung fu.”
Miskin describes receiving her black sash as crazy and emotional, as the last eight months were very physically and emotionally exhausting.
“I always talked about it when I was little,” said Miskin. “At the end when I got it, it was so much relief, I was crying. It is so much of your time and literally your life that you put in. and it is just great seeing the reward of so many years of hard work.”