Ealing Kung Fu School

Nothing gets easier, you just get better.

PAIN

I need my pain, it makes me who I am.
We all bear scars.
Some that you may see, others you cannot.
Scars remind us of painful experiences and how far we've come.
Pain is important in martial arts.
How we evade it, how we succumb to it, how we deal with it, how we transcend it.
Pain is not the enemy.
For without your pain and scars – you are not you.

Stick-Fu | Way of the Stick Some basic body conditioning exercises using a 127cm oak staff. This is footage from a martial arts class, but the set of training drills is useful for anyo...

Health is wealth.

ABOUT LIFE

Dear Gensui,

Here are a few thoughts about Life, the living of it and the learning that lies within our grasp.

Knowledge and Wisdom are not the same thing.

I think that we all know that – and if we do not, then we should.

Knowledge is what we are supposed to learn from our encounters with the educational establishment.

Wisdom is what we are able to understand and use based upon what knowledge we have gained, and added to that a very important garnishing of experience.

But then, these are all just words I hear you say.

What then is the use of words and philosophising about words, when what we are most concerned about is Life itself, and the living of it.

Here then lies the value of reflection, time spent from our hectic busy lives, actually giving rein to that most important muscle/asset that we have – our MINDS, our ability to imagine, and above all our ability to dream.

Is this then the Life that we have been consigned to, during this mortal manifestation?

Is it possible (or enjoyable) to live without UNNECESSARY THOUGHT, and how empty, sterile and mundane would that be?

For myself, I baulk against that.

I will not have that, I want to live a full live, to be meaningful to the Society I live in and to provide essence and meaning to those I touch in my life.

That is why I teach.

Whatever I have learnt, both Knowledge and Wisdom, is mine to share and you are welcome to share it with me in a timely fashion, but only if you have the will and the sincere effort to do so, no matter the sacrifices that we all have to make, to acquire such metaphysical things.

I read today, that at the Shaolin Temple in China, they are trialling a robotic system to study, learn and produce Robots who can do Shaolin.

I find anathema in that. Shaolin, and the Zen and Daoist underpinnings of true SHAOLIN, belie‪ves in the development of Self – in Mind, Spirit and Body… and not a transplant of that knowledge to Robot to do the work for us.

Each day that I live, I set aside learning and writing, and hardly a day passes without my learning something useful, and seeking to share it in a logical manner, with my martial arts study and those who follow me.

In our study of Shaolin, we need to be careful about assigning simple understanding and meaning to things which often appear simple – when in fact the depth in them is hidden from us, much like the tip of an iceberg.

Hence our Precept 18, of ASSUME NOTHING.

Assumption and Presumption are the door guardians of the abyss of ignorance, and sole reliance on the flesh and body, and pride and arrogance are their handmaidens and familiars.

Be mindful of them, they will send you down the wrong path until it is too late to turn back.

Always in SHAOLIN GAOCANMUN NAMPAICHUAN

Sifu Lai
April 2026

Being ready is a myth. You start. You suck. You figure it out. You get better.

By refining a hundred times, steel is created.

The rent for being in shape is always due.

Work on your weakness and your strengths will become stronger!

Next-Gen
February 2026