This morning I noticed the whole black belt West Wind clan was headed to the park with their weapons. So, I grabbed some pants and a video camera and ran after them. I hid in some bushes and videotaped them practicing with bos and 3-sectioned-staffs. It was pretty silly looking, if you ask me. There was a lot of standing on one leg, toes pointing downward, arms awkwardly placed over the head, etc etc.
I think I have about 20 minutes of tape, and a few interesting comments about insects that had made it into my pants. If anyone wants to see it, someone will have to tell me how to upload video or what not. I am so technically un-inclined.
The only editing software I have at the moment is iMovie, which exports into .mov, which is quicktime. If I had Final Cut (which I may steal from my mom) I think I could export to mpeg.
Another thing I realized is that my footage of Richard Lee’s BFD school has some bo kata on it, so if anyone here is experienced with a bo, it would be nice to get a comparison. The exact details of body mechanics may be harder to make out in the WW video, due to distance, but I think it’s probably pretty decent.
Yeah, it’s confusing. They claim to teach kung fu, but they wear gi, have instructors called sensei and soke, kiai, kata, all sorts of stuff. But the teacher level above sensei is sifu, and they bow like I’ve seen at wushu tournaments, but I guess they say the bow is to represent a weapon and its sheath, which I believe they even say out loud when they do it.
They claim their style is bok fu, which in reality is just kenpo that had some chinese forms added. I don’t know if the Chinese stuff was added before or after Ron Lee left Richard Lee’s school.
Oh, and they also have an iaido/kenjutsu class on Monday nights, complete with hakama.