July 2024's Newsletter

Hello students & parents,

Please welcome our newest students to the school:

• Isabella - Beginner Gongfu Class

• Logan - Kids Gongfu Class

• Hazel - Kids Gongfu Class

Happy Birthdays for the month:

• Seph Mortensen

Kid & Adult Gongfu students - It's HOT! We get it. For the next few months, no upper uniform top, so please wear a t-shirt or tank-top with gongfu pants until you order an official undershirt (exception for advanced students doing sanda, details below.) For this month, the following classes will be focusing on:

• Morning Taiji: TBD

  • We have not forgotten about you all! We're waiting on 2 more students to make the class viable. Once we have those numbers, past morning students will be alerted to restart

• Evening Taiji: Taiji 13

• Beginner Gongfu: Review month

• Kid's Gongfu: Basics month

• Advanced Gongfu: Sanda Sparring & Cardio Conditioning (Sanda gear or shorts/tank-top only until sanda uniform comes in)

MANDATORY UNIFORM ITEM - UNDERSHIRT

Starting in August, it is mandatory for all adult & kid gongfu students to wear an official undershirt; the Christmas-gift shirt is a casual shirt, not for training. The new undershirts are meant for & designed for sports. No more random t-shirts/tank-tops (as much as I love anime, rock bands, Beetlejuice and Zelda). I made it as affordable as possible.

All students need to use all of July to order your undershirt and wear it as soon as you can, exception for sanda students wearing sanda gear, just for July. Now that it's summer time, this will ensure we're still matching as a group on days when it's too hot to wear the full uniform, as well as for future performances or tournaments for when we're not wearing the top just yet to avoid wrinkling. For kids, just a t-shirt is available. Adults, you have a choice between the unisex sleeveless tank-top (for breathability & movement) and/or a unisex moisture-wicking t-shirt (for more modest, daily wear.) Entirely your choice on picking which one you want to wear or mix it up:

https://www.shaolongacademy.com/online-store

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Martial Art Cinema

We can all safely admit - we love martial art movies! Back in the time when Americans didn't know the difference between karate/ninjas/'kungfu', to mystical, one-hit-kill chi-throwing martial art masters, to modern day fighting.

It's summertime, so relax to these martial art movie clips, ranging from classic gongfu, to kickboxing, to jeet kune do, to wuxia-style flying movies, to mixed martial arts. Here is a sampling of our favorites (there are so many out there, but this is a good start for beginners). Consider it "martial art research," and pick a few (or all) to watch on your free time & check out some full movies. Spoiler alerts on a lot of these clips, not ranked. Enjoy!:

• Drunken Master 2: In my opinion, the best classical gongfu fight scenes ever. Jackie Chan's magnum opus

• Police Story III - Super Cop: Young Michelle Yeoh kicks butt with Jackie, infiltrating a crime ring

• The Flying Guillotine: A masterpiece of silly, special-power fighters and deadly, comic-book like weapons

• Five Deadly Venoms: Unique characters, inventive fights and overall a classic, gongfu fun. A cult classic

• Wheels on Meals: Not a typo. Ever seen Jackie skateboard? The 3 Dragons (Chan, Hung & Biao) star in this

• Knockabout: Some of Yuen Biao's finest, traditional gongfu choreography. The fastest of the dragon brothers

• Fist of Fury: Has the infamous one-against-many fight scene at a dojo. No one beats Bruce

• Enter the Dragon: Goes without saying, a hallmark movie of the legendary Bruce Lee

• Hero: Donnie Yen vs Jet Li... yes please. Intricate fight scenes and visuals.

• Fearless: Jet Li in a story of a legendary fighter regaining his honor after a tragedy

• Ip Man: Incredible display of Donnie Yen portraying the legendary Ip Man's Wing Chun, Bruce Lee's master

• Flashpoint: Amazing modern day combative fight scenes from Donnie Yen

• 36th Chamber of Shaolin: It doesn't get more old-school, traditional than the fabled training of Shaolin monks

• Kung Fu Hustle: Fun, goofy, comic relief martial arts. A classic movie of Stephen Chow's

• Shaolin Soccer: Yeah. It's exactly that, but more ridiculous than it sounds & it's amazing, also Stephen Chow's

• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: The OG US-released wuxia movie w/ elite-level display of weaponry & choreo

• House of Flying Daggers: Zhang Ziyi's drum sequence is just too cool in this artsy, colorful wuxia film

• The Raid 1 & 2: Extremely graphic & violent (adults only), but some of the best hardcore fights ever filmed

• Animal World: It's weird, but has only 1 fight in this movie & it's Chinese "Ronald McDonald" killing monsters....

• The Last Dragon: Probably the campiest, cheesiest 80's kungfu flick.. & we love it. "Who's the masta? Shonuff!"

• Tom Yum Goong: One of the best Thai kickboxing movies of a protector going all out to rescue his elephant
  

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HOUSEKEEPING ITEMS

• Reminder - absolutely no political discussions at the guan. Please see our past newsletter for more information.

• Parents & family members in the observation area in the studio: be respectful if you're watching class. All phones must be silent and calls need to be handled in the lobby or outside. If you weren't aware, the school also has Wifi for those that want to work while waiting, password on the wall in the lobby

• Kids Class - Parents, please save your questions for email unless it's an emergency; Shifu has only a few minutes before preparing for the Adult Class immediately afterwards. Reminder-absolutely no sideline coaching.

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THIS MONTH'S SCHEDULE