Here is something that you don’t see every day, a woman levitating in the middle of the street!
This photo was taken right outside Yee’s Hung Ga Kung Fu Academy on Inverness High Street, Sunday 19th of August 2012.
It is, of course, a clever trick. I was asked by one of my students when they will be shown how to do this. I laughed at the time but it made me think of clever techniques that we use in Hung Ga, like the shadowless kick, which uses distraction to hide a kick. Other techniques that might seem remarkable, to people outside of kung fu circles, might include the power of the mind over the body, the ability to block out pain which,amongst other training methods, is taught through long periods of diligent Horse Stance practice. The explosion of force in a small area is another technique which can seem to be an almost impossible feat, however this is taught through inch power training. An example of this, made famous by Bruce Lee, is the one inch punch. Many people comment on the unnatural gripping strength that many Hung Ga practitioners have yet this is developed through practice and hard work, conditioning the muscles and tendons of the arms, hands and fingers through Fu Jow Qi-gong.
Someone very close to me gave me this scroll when I first opened my school.
It says that ‘to overcome a challenge requires 30% talent and 70% hard work. You need to love a challenge to be able to win.’
My Sifu instilled this ethos into all of his students. Hung Ga is not about illusions or weird phenomena, it is about hard work and practice. That is the only way to gain the skill required to perform such powerful techniques.
Practice hard and you will win, whatever your challenge.