Who we are

History

Ba Feng Quan (八風拳 Eight Winds) is a forward-looking and pragmatic kung fu school owing its teachings principally to those of the Southern Shaolin tradition.

Sifu Faraz trained for 20 years under Sifu Leppard, head of the Eight Winds Kung Fu school in London UK, before moving to Bermuda in 2022. He currently holds a 3rd-degree black belt and has established a new school in Hamilton and Smiths parishes.

Teaching philosophy

After many years of training, Sifu Faraz gained a deep understanding of traditional Shaolin art through Sifu Leppard’s contemporary teaching methods.

Teachings involves rigorous physical training but also include other fundamental elements of learning, such as centredness and mindfulness through the practice of Qi Gong and meditation.

Philosophy of our Practice

Our aim is never to indoctrinate our students with any particular set of beliefs, but it is helpful to examine the origins of Shaolin Kung Fu to put the art in its proper context.

We tend not to articulate our philosophical foundations in words; this is not because we are being evasive, but because Shaolin Kung Fu was developed in the Ch'an (Zen, as it's known in Japanese) Buddhist temples of China and there is something to be gained from adopting the traditional experiential methods of learning Kung Fu, and we don't believe it is right to enforce a world view on anyone.

These methods may be viewed as anti-intellectual by those familiar with mainstream Western philosophical traditions, emphasising as it does direct experience and transmission of knowledge at the expense of lengthy debate and an attempt to objectify knowledge.

We believe that progress in any endeavour in life is best achieved through hard work ("kung fu" is sometimes translated as "human effort"), dedication and reflection. The harder the work, the more profound the reflection, the deeper the insight.

Among the cultural elements we adopt from our classical origins are the supremacy of direct experience as a substitute for "book learning", a desire to reduce reactive ego, respect for all life, value physical effort and the desire to achieve harmony with other people and one's environment.

One can practice Ba Feng Quan purely as an absorbing physical activity with great benefits, and most students do just that. For those seeking deeper insight there is much food for thought in our techniques and our teaching methods, that serve to act as a direct illustration of these underlying principles.