Had my first class at the new studio a couple of days ago. The workout kicked my butt, I got to hit a heavy bag for the first time in forever, started learning a new short form... all good so far. This one is more formal than others I've attended and puts non-trivial emphasis on the hierarchy: different ranks bow in different ways, instructors are addressed using their full titles at the beginning and end of class, and lower ranks bow to higher ranks. The class itself is highly-structured as well which, given my complaints about the chief instructor putting up with too much at Studio X, is probably a good thing.
One interesting feature of system which the chief instructor pointed out to me is that they attempt to combine external (<something>-gong, I forget the exact phrase he used) and internal ("neigong") conditioning at the same time. I'll buy that provided that neigong is interpreted to refer primarily to cardiovascular conditioning. The first part of class consisted of, among other things, 50 high kicks with each leg, controlled breathing exercises, and 75 iterations each of 4 different blocks. All said and done we were moving more-or-less continuously for the first 25 or 30 minutes of class. Which, as I said, kicked my ass.
The first form I started working on, which I get the sense is beginner material for everyone, was also pretty challenging. I'm starting to notice a marked difference between systems synthesized in America (as represented by USSD) and those developed abroad (everything else I've done). The former has a very "crawl, walk, run" curriculum which focuses on basics first (how to punch, how to kick) while the latter throws the students into the deep end of the pool from the start ("Ok, now you pivot into twist stance while hook blocking and throwing a palm strike"). I wonder how representative my experience is? Do domestically-produced systems reflect a specifically American approach to pedagogy?
Also, apparently this new system uses a lot of herbs... y'all should know my feelings on that by now. I may have the opportunity to do some TCM debunking in the near future.
