How To Learn Kung Fu By Myself - 6DRAGONSKUNGFU.COM

Maybe your like

ShareTweetPin8787 Shares

Kung Fu learning: all the steps

These are the steps:

Understand what Kung Fu is (and what it requires)
Choose our goal (and the relative martial path)
Prepare the body (depending on your current conditions)
Train the instinct (if you do not do it before, you will never do it after)
Study the techniques (understand concepts and principles)
Train the techniques (conditioning)
Internalize the techniques (adaptation)

Note – This article has been asked by one of our Core Course practitioners on Patreon (see how to attend our home study classes here Learn Kung Fu online: a beginner-to-expert course).

Let’s see each of them in detail.

1. Understand what Kung Fu is and what it requires

What is Kung Fu?

Real Kung Fu (Gong Fu if we want to be more precise):

Has nothing to do with most of what we can see in movies (read Martial arts: movies VS reality, 7 differences), internet (etc.)
Is a path of personal growth, physical and mental (read Practicing Kung Fu: 12 changes (mental) and Practicing Kung Fu: 10 changes (physical))
Borns inside us, it is not a set of forms, techniques (etc., those are only crystallized derivations)
Is not the result of a mere theoretical study but of a practical (an active one, read 6 Dragons Kung Fu: the difference with other martial arts)
Is forged in hard and daily training (no matter how long in the beginning, it must be a gradual growth, read Daily training: the right psychophysical effort and Daily martial art training & normal life: how to)

Can I learn Kung Fu completely on my own?

No, it is not possible. Traditional or not (read also The disadvantages of “traditional” Kung Fu), without any previous experience, it is not possible to learn Kung Fu completely alone and the reasons are fundamentally 2:

There are infinite details that go beyond visual understanding and personal discernment
There are mistakes that is good to make (or better that are necessary sources of knowledge, read Measure ourselves with errors) but there are others that are just destructive and / or very hard to correct in a second moment

This does not mean that we cannot learn it remotely (through home study, read Online learning and martial arts: is it possible?) but that there are a few requirements that we must fulfill (read also Learn Kung Fu online: why it is better and when).

What do I need to learn Kung Fu through home study?

The requirements are:

A space to train that is always available (read Training area and external people)
At least 1 training partner (this only if we want to truly learn to fight, read 5 effective ways to find a training partner)
A step-by-step guided path (like the one we natively designed in our school, from beginner to expert, no random materials recovered here and there, read Learn Kung Fu online: beginner to expert course)
An instructor / coach (even remote, because without an expert who periodically corrects our errors, Kung Fu will never blossom in us)
Common sense (to preserve our safety and to understand that no big results can be achieved in a few days, in Kung Fu, the slower we go, the faster we acquire real martial skills, read How to acquire special abilities)
Determination (discipline, preparation and concentration; without, no matter where we are, how long or with whom we train, we will never get results and probably, within a couple of months, we will leave, read Motivation: from passion to self-discipline)

What we do not necessarily need:

A gym or enormous spaces (in China, many Grandmasters teach in small apartments)
1000 training partners (the more they are, the better it is but to start, a motivated 1 is more than enough, even only periodically, read Group VS solo training: which is better?)
Special talent or a specific age (read Natural talent and martial arts and The right age to start practice)
Expensive training tools or weapons (in our Kung Fu, most of the basic equipment is already in your home, read The basic equipment for training in 6DKF; only when we are advanced / expert practitioners, we can choose or not to buy real martial weapons)

A note by Master Kongling – These are the only requirements in our school, all the rest is welcome but not crucial. It is important to stress that no matter if you want to learn Kung Fu online or on a classical gym course: solo training and study are in any case fundamental steps to becoming an expert. Many people think that martial arts development ends when the 2-4 hours per week time is ended, well, that is reasonable but only for amateurs, not real practitioners.

What to stay away from

If we do not have previous experience (at least 1000 hours of actual practice), let’s not waste our money in:

DVD / VHS / Blu-ray video courses
Random YouTube / Facebook / TikTok videos
Low-quality live courses (read Recognize a good / bad master: 5 characteristics)
…

These are all incredibly useful sources of learning and / or training but alone, for the reasons we listed before, they cannot help us in any way to build real martial skills.

A note by Master Kongling – The fact is that we need a reliable guidance to interactively check and correct our progress (it is with this idea in mind that we have designed our Core Course).

2. Choose a goal and a martial path

A note by Master Kongling – What many people do not know is that Kung Fu is an umbrella name that refers to many things and even limiting to the martial meaning, we always talk about hundreds of different styles (modern and ancient): no one masters or even knows the entire Kung Fu knowledge.

The first question that a serious instructor asks at the first meeting with a new student is “What is your goal?”, so let’s try to do the same thing but on our own:

Do we want to learn for self-defense?
Do we simply want to make some fitness for wellness and health?
Are we looking for a relief valve against stress?
Do we want to participate in combat sports competitions?
…

The implications

Kung Fu can reply to all these requests but we must understand that the way we face the “same” path changes drastically, in fact:

For self-defense, we need much more than a few magic street fighting tricks (read Best martial arts for self-defense and Self-defense: why 90% of martial arts does not work)
For fitness, we have to follow specific rules to not over / under stimulate our body
For peace and relaxation, we have to be aware that we will need to dedicate ample space to our mental preparation
For combat sports, we have to accept the idea of pain (in combat as in training, physical and even mental)
…

The intensity

Even the training intensity (in terms of physical commitment, read Intensity of training: depends on what?) is very different, for example:

For self-defense, we should be ready to fight (ideally) every day at every hour; this means that we should never be totally out of energy (read Self-Defense: is it possible to always be ready to fight?)
For fitness, we have to balance the effort in order to gain a small but constant improvement
For relaxation, we must never overcome a certain level of fatigue but maintain, at the same time, a certain self-challenge to progress
For combat sports, we must perfectly calibrate the periods of maximum effort with the recovery ones in view of a specific type of confrontation on a specific date (read 5 differences between real fights & combat sports)
…

A note by Master Kongling – Having established what our goal is, we must ask ourselves if we are able to pursue that path to the end, because in none of the cases mentioned, the road has no obstacles to overcome.

3. Prepare the body

To start to practice Kung Fu:

No matter the age
No matter our actual athletic level

We have to reach a minimal physical shape, read How to start practicing from scratch.

4. Train the instinct

No one can express martial performances better than those who already have a personal combat instinct (read Are there self-taught MMA fighters in UFC?). As we have started to say previously, Kung Fu must born within us and not as a copy of a copy of a copy.

This means that, if we learn to manage dynamic situations freely, when our mind is still clean, we will be able to explore and exploit a kind of potential that otherwise would remain unknown.

This naturally must be done under the supervision of an instructor (as we said, even remotely) but only to correct the errors, not to impose a system (it’s no use teaching a bear to fight like a butterfly or vice versa).

A note by Master Kongling – We are not talking about previous martial arts courses but about a free application of our body in exercises that force and stimulate fast reactions (read /// Subscribe (it's free!) or Login to see this content ///).

5. Study the techniques

Only after having corrected / avoided the biggest errors and discovered ourselves, we are then ready to address the study of the real technical baggage:

When our body is basically trained to receive it
When our mind has the basic experience to implement them correctly and rationally

A note by Master Kongling – This does not mean that we have to avoid any technique in the past phases, but only that we do not have to impose it as real conditioning to our muscle memory (read The right way to develop muscle memory).

6. Train the techniques

No one uses all the techniques that are studied but each of them must be seen as a precious piece of serious martial preparation:

The didactical ones help to understand the general principles
The most strange / complex ones are useful to make the most current ones easier and to discover our weaknesses
The most common ones help us to learn how to face the most common situations

A note by Master Kongling – In any case, none of them will be exactly the one that will distinguish our Kung Fu: following a correct path, we will express, each time, our personal version of them.

7. Interiorize the techniques

The last step is interiorization: the synthesis.

It is here that a practitioner reaches his / her highest level of Kung Fu, the perfect fusion of:

Theory and practice
Personal experience and secular knowledge

Only at this point, Kung Fu really lives within ourselves.

In-depth video courses

Basic 6 Dragons Kung Fu exercises – A deep explanation of everything you need to gain real martial skills
Advanced speed and reflexes training – The secrets of combat speed (from instant improvement to deep training)
Mind self-control hacks – How to improve and exploit the capabilities of our mind to reach our goals
DIY training tools for martial arts – Build the only targets that we can hit at full power and even with lethal intent
Basic Kung Fu stances: how to – A detailed explanation of the hidden details behind every stance
Basic free hand fighting techniques – All the fundamental techniques of our Kung Fu
Self-defense basics: how to – Our complete personal defense path (based on our S.A.F.E. method)

In-depth articles

Is your instructor harming your martial growth? – A hard but necessary question to reply to (as soon as possible)
A scheme to quickly learn any kind of technique – The perfect path to internalize any combat technique

Questions

Reply in the comments and share your experience:

Will you start a martial path?

Author: Master Kongling

Founder of 6 Dragons Kung Fu. Twitter Facebook

How to master 6 Dragons Kung Fu?

Are you searching for:

Daily training exercises?
Synthetic theory and concepts?
A step by step path from white to black belt?
A path (clear, consequential and gradual) designed to build real martial skills?
A direct contact with Master Kongling?

Go to our Patreon page and choose a training plan: starting from the Practitioner level, you will gain access to all this and much more.

Inside each Premium Lesson, you will receive the same teaching (practices, tips, concepts, small secrets and corrections) reserved to the live students of Master Kongling.

Important - Once a certain number of registrations are reached, no other participants can be accepted. For more information write to: [email protected].