Annual Camp 2001

  Sifu Paul Burkinshaw And Master John Holden

Once a year, the students from the Sil Lum Kune Chinese Boxing Association descend on a small coastal town named Caister to spend a week focusing on the art of Kung Fu.

Usually this involves many early morning runs along the beach, plenty of traditional teachings, and a dash of weapons training for good measure.  This year, I’m please to say, was no exception!

After congregating at our usual meeting point, the convoy of cars and people carriers proceeded from Coventry to Norfolk.  With dual carriageway the majority of the trip, the journey was pretty uneventful. The highlights being an unfortunate incident with a case of travel sickness!  On arrival everyone made themselves at home and it wasn’t long before we ventured out to refamiliarise ourselves with the facilities onsite.

Sunday being the first day of training there were a few sleepy heads as we commenced the first of our many early morning fitness sessions on the beach.  Unfortunately Caister beach has rather a lot of steep sand dunes, which meant twenty minutes of competitive dune running was in-store!  We split into teams so that there was a good mixture of adults and youngsters in each team.  The winning team was given a well earned rest whilst those on the losing team took the forfeit of more press ups!

Once we had finished our rigorous workout it was back to the huge training hall that was to be our home for the week.  Although not up to the standards of our usual kwoon, the facilities were excellent for our requirements.   The first subject of our training was forms.   As a group we practiced all of the forms in our syllabus as far as red sash.  This was a good opportunity to polish up on some of the more familiar early forms.  Personally speaking, good stances was the focus of my efforts.  It is so easy to make a good form appear poor by shallow stances. By being in such a large group it was good to compare your own faults with that of your classmates.  One form in particular that was focused on was  ‘dook sau’, meaning poison hand, this form is to be completed slowly.  Although an easy form to learn it is incredibly difficult to master.

Annual Camp Group Photo 2001

Mondays training began in the same vein as the previous days with a lively exercise regime along the coast.  Once back at the club we practised forms before moving on to self defence techniques.  As with all elements of kung fu, constant practise is the favoured route to success.  During my two years training in Sil Lum Kune I have been taught numerous different self defence techniques by my Sifus, this presented me with the perfect opportunity to practice some of the more complicated ones.  I was impressed by the speed in which some of the lower grades picked up some of the techniques that I personally struggle with.  Sifu Paul Burkinshaw had commented on how each of us would find favourite techniques that we were comfortable with.  I certainly agreed with this view and recognised the importance of learning a wide variety of techniques in many different situations.  Master John Holden taught us some interesting techniques that involved deflecting blocks followed by some interesting combinations of hand strikes.

As the week progressed so did the subjects that we covered.  In previous years a wide range of traditional Shaolin weapons have been taught.   This year we focused on four weapons, the Nunchaka,  Sai, Sickle and Tonfa.  There was ample opportunity to try out each of the weapons.  My personal favourite was the Sickle.  The Sickle, with its sharp blade, is traditionally used as an agricultural tool.  Only Sifu Paul Burkinshaw had the experience and skill to use live blades on the sickle.  Thankfully for me (and my classmates!) I had a wooden version of the Sickle.  Throughout the week forms were taught in these weapons until on the final day some students successfully achieved grading in their chosen weapon.  A special mention must go to Mark Pritchards who amazingly completed the two grades in Nunchaka!

Aside from our studies in Kung Fu we also took time out to visit various places of interest in the area, including a lot of the Chinese restaurants!  A regular feature of the week has been a visit to a Chinese Gift shop in Great Yarmouth, where the students stock up on a variety of presents.  Everyday after training some of us took to the onsite leisure centre for a quick swim and a long sauna to relieve those aches and pains caused, no doubt, by the sand dunes.

Evenings At The Annunal Camp

I think its safe to say that the students of Sil Lum Kune enjoyed their week in Caister immensely.   Its impossible to remember everything that was covered in the packed week we spent, however, some good advice was that at the end of each days training before bowing out we took a few minutes to contemplate what we had learned and to focus on what we had enjoyed this seemed to make all those techniques stick in my mind!

I would like to thank the all the staff at Haven Holiday park for looking after us all so well and my teachers for the week, Master John Holden, Sifu Paul Burkinshaw, Arron Marsh and David Richardson.

Written by Robert Buckler.
Student of Sil Lum Kune