Most people’s first encounter with kung fu is a movie, and it’s hard to blame them. But what you see on screen, the spinning kicks, the dramatic soundtracks, the flying across rooftops, doesn’t have much to do with what happens in a real school.
It’s not what the movies sold you
Here’s something that surprises a lot of people: ‘kung fu’ doesn’t actually translate to ‘fighting.’ It means, roughly, ‘skill acquired through hard work and time.’ It’s a term for any discipline mastered through sustained effort, which is why in China you’ll hear it applied to a master chef just as readily as a martial artist. In the Western world it became shorthand for Chinese martial arts, and that’s stuck, but the original meaning tells you something important about what the art is really about.
Traditional kung fu isn’t just a collection of techniques. It’s a complete system, physical conditioning, striking, kicking, forms, weapons, sparring, all held together by a framework of values that have been passed down through generations of masters. The fighting is real. So is everything built around it. And developing yourself as a person is just as much a part of the training as anything else.
The lineage behind the art
One of the things that sets traditional kung fu apart from a lot of modern martial arts is how seriously lineage is taken. Buk Sing Choy Lay Fut traces its roots to Grandmaster Tarm Sarm, whose fighting system went undefeated for fifty years. That knowledge passed through Master Kong On, through Master Kong Hing, through Masters Vince and Dave Lacey, and eventually to Sifu George Michielsen, who has been training and teaching for nearly five decades.
The world of Chinese martial arts is a secretive one, steeped in tradition and a fierce hierarchy. Extracting genuine knowledge takes years of commitment and earned respect. What gets passed on through a lineage like this isn’t a watered-down version of the art. It’s the real thing, tested in challenge matches on Hong Kong rooftops in the 1960s and preserved carefully ever since.
What traditional training actually looks like
If you’ve never trained before, the idea of starting a martial arts course can feel a little daunting. The good news is that everyone starts at the beginning, and traditional kung fu is built around that.
Online training follows a logical progression that makes sense once you’re in it. You begin with the fundamentals: stances, basic strikes, kicks, and the body mechanics that underpin everything else. From there you move into forms, which are at the heart of the art, and gradually layer in combinations, drills, and applications as your skills develop.
Forms are one of the things that make kung fu unique. They’re sequences of techniques practised in a set pattern, and each movement has a real purpose behind it: a strike, a block, a shift in footwork, a tactic for closing distance or creating space. From the very first lesson, you learn not just what a movement is, but what it’s for. That understanding is what separates traditional kung fu from simply going through the motions.
One of the things that works particularly well about online learning is that forms are something you can practise anywhere, in your own time, at your own pace, revisiting each lesson until the movement becomes second nature.
The other thing worth knowing is that traditional kung fu builds gradually and deliberately. The early stages are about getting the basics right, and that foundation is everything. As Sifu George’s son Tarm puts it, good kung fu is about being an expert on the basics. Everything else grows from there, and it grows naturally when the groundwork is solid.
What students actually get out of it
People come to kung fu for all sorts of reasons. Some want practical self-defence skills. Some are after a fitness routine that actually holds their attention. Some are just looking for something with a bit more substance than the gym. Whatever brings you here, what tends to happen is that you stay for reasons you didn’t expect.
The physical benefits are real and they build over time. Strength, flexibility, coordination, stamina — all of it develops through training that never really feels repetitive, because the art is deep enough that there’s always something new to work on.
But the changes that catch people off guard are the other ones. A quiet confidence that grows without you noticing. A sharpness and presence that carries into your work, your relationships, how you handle pressure. Students who’ve trained for years consistently say that kung fu changed how they think, not just how they move.
Training online also means you can fit it around your life. You’re not locked into a fixed class schedule. You train when it works for you, progress at your own pace, and still have access to instruction that comes from one of the most respected traditional lineages in the world. That combination, genuine depth and real flexibility, is something that’s hard to find anywhere else.
Is it right for you?
But if you’re looking for something that builds you rather than just entertains you, something with real depth and history behind it, it’s worth giving it a go. Have a look around the academy and see if it feels like the right fit.
Curious where to start?
Our Gold level course, Dune Da, is designed specifically for beginners. It’s the ideal entry point into traditional Buk Sing Choy Lay Fut, and you can start today. Explore our courses
