Kung Fu Swim

I am sure you have heard of Kung fu Soccer made popular by Stephen Chow, the actor which was a hit many years ago. Have you heard or seen Kung fu Swim then?

I certainly have and the star of this unique style of swimming is none other than our boy, Ryan Looi. Yes, he loves swimming and he adores kung fu, the fist fights and the kicks. And the best moment he enjoyed the most during his twice a week swimming lessons with his coach Mr Lee, are towards the end of the session where he gets to play and have fun with his coach.

Look mommy, I am flying .....

At the end of each session, his coach will reward him by tossing him high into the air and letting him do his stunt before splashing into the water. He is quite a sensation, I must say at the swimming pool each time, they do this because, many parents would be staring in disbelief and and marveled at how agile and daring this tiny little boy is, having no fear, as it were of the water or the height.

The Eagle stance flying through the air ...

The Bruce Lee's high kick ....

Just a couple of days ago, I took him for his usual swimming lessons. We were a little early. His trainer was still teaching another kid. The moment, Ryan changed into his swimming costume, put on his cap and goggle and the next thing he did, was jumped straight into the deep end without any hesitation.

Jumping into the pool with style ...

There was another mommy who was there watching his daughter swim, and I could see her mouth gasped as she pointed at Ryan. I could see her disbelief and concern, I am sure, thinking that Ryan was reckless. Then I can see that her facial expression turned into one of envy the moment Ryan's head popped up from the water and started his first breaststroke lap.

She came over later and asked if Ryan was our son and how old he is and how long he has been swimming. 

Words cannot described how proud we were, when we happily declared that he is and he is only 5. 

The Legend of Kung Fu

As far as I can remembered, Ryan has always been interested in kung fu and has been demonstrating and posing with his self taught moves in a lot of his pictures as far back as when he was only two. He was agile, flexible and above all, focus and passionate for the art.

Ryan, his friend Slevin and his head coach posing with the performers on stage after the show 'The Legend of Kung Fu'

Hence, as I have posted in one of my earlier post, we wasted no time, in registering him to one of the Shaolin kung fu classes for children his age when we finally found one bear our place. He has been practicing and learning his Shaolin kung fu for a couple of months now and had learnt quite a number of impressive moves which include his signature eagle, tiger and snake stance, all of which he is just too eager to demonstrate whenever he has a chance. Chenya is picking up her kung fu `moves' too, imitating his brother, watching from the sidelines.

Ryan going through his kung fu moves during training every Sunday afternoon.

His head coach seemed to have a special liking for him and at times, pushed him to practice with some older kids or used him to demonstrate some moves to the younger ones, all of which Ryan was just too please.

Ryan with his kung fu stance, taken during our holiday trip to Club Med Bali in 2011. We had always wanted him to learn wushu properly. Little did imagine, that he is now learning Shaolin Kung Fun in BEIJING, CHINA!

Recently, his class organized an evening to watch the well received 'The LEGEND OF KUNG FU' performance at the Red Theatre in Beijing (www.redtheatre.cn). Ryan was over the moon. Honestly, so was I as I have always, always been amazed with the`seemingly super human' feats that this monks could do. It was a family affair. We got special discounts for our seats and only had to pay RMB260 (RM130) for the RMB325 seats and it was 90 minutes performance.

Right from the word go, Ryan was sitting at the edge of his seat, eyes glued to the stage as the monks of all ages, leaped, jumped, somersaulted and `flew' with amazing flexibility and ease, occasionally yelling in recognition, some stance that he could identified with... "Tiger!!! Monkey!!! Eagle ...!!!"

Pictures from The Legend of Kung Fu website

The show was spectacular both as far as the stage production is concerned as well as the high quality of performance from the performers, bringing forth the message of the true value and meaning of practicing kung fu, their quest in training their body likened to rock and steel, as protectors of peace.

And where was Chenya in all this? Silently being cuddled by her mommy, hanging on to her trusty napkin, her thumb comfortably in her mouth, and her eyes peeled, constantly on a lookout for performers dropping from the ceiling or coming out from the side doors.

They must have been impressed by the performance. Why? Because I caught Chenya that night, smiling and with her eyes still closed, laughed and yelled "Very good (in Cantonese) and clapped" and continue sleeping.

And Ryan? He now inspired to be as good and wants to be able to break a metal bar over his head!!!!!! Not wanting to disappoint him, we told him that he could do that in due time and he need to practice harder and eat more to build up enough muscles and strength.

I just found out that they organized special tours to visit the Shaolin Temple. Emmmm...that would sound interesting, don't you think?   

My Shaolin Master

Ever since Ryan was a young boy around 2, he has always been interested in `fighting’ and keen to demonstrate his `kung fu moves’ that he picked up from his favourite Ultraman movies. There are so many of his photographs that he strikes up a pretty impressive pose with his kung fu stance.

I, for one, have always been interested in kung fu although I don’t have the opportunity to learn when I was young. I remembered that I wanted to learn tae kwan do but was not allowed by my parents because they feared that I would be using those skills to fight even more, not that I fought a lot. I guessed parenting mindset then and now are significantly different. Modern parents nowadays would want their child to learn as much skill set as possible to equip them for hopefully a brighter and better future. Moreover, such opportunities or classes were not so easily available then and even if they were available, were rather expensive.

I am always impressed with my dear doctor friend, Dr Liew (our children’s paediatrician and also my long time class mate) who practised wushu. I remembered him demonstrated his wushu moves during one of our class parties back in ACS Ipoh when we were in Form Four and I had been mesmerized since then. I wanted Ryan to pick wushu as much as possible, knowing that it would do him a world of good, not only learning a skill to fight, but some form of discipline and to channel his interest in fighting in a positive way. Unfortunately, I was told that he can’t be practising till he was four. Hence, we have to wait.

Now that he has turned five, we started immediately to find out where and how we could enrol him for some classes to start him off. We were originally thinking of either starting him on junior golfing lessons or kung fu. However, I still think that at his age, kung fu would be a better choice since he is much more flexible now and is a skill set that would instil better discipline and self confidence.

While looking around, we were informed by one of our new neighbour who has also become a good friend and their son, Slevin, Ryan’s best friend is taking Shaolin kung fu lessons. We wasted no time to get Ryan there for a trial class and he is hooked. He loves it and from what we observed, he is totally focus and agile for this particular sport.

It was his third lesson yesterday after missing several weeks due to our travelling. We were happy and glad that the trainer actually came over and commented that he was totally impressed with Ryan’s commitment and focus during his lessons and training and is of the opinion that he has the talent to pick up this sport.

It seemed that my son is living my dreams. I am not looking forward for him to become another Jet Lee but I would be contended that this discipline would mould him into a better person.