At the Basic Fit club near the Rembrandtplein in Amsterdam, we offer a weekly Kung Fu Toa Simorgh class. This effective martial art will get you into shape and teach you how to fight at the same time.
Have you been practicing combat classes, bag training or kickboxing? Now you can expand your horizon and learn how to fight your opponents with a huge set of techniques.
Kung Fu Toa Simorgh is a very efficient martial art based on army training. We use a practical mixture of different styles, ranging from Jeet Kun Do stand-up fighting to MMA and Brasilian Jiu Jitsu ground game. All sorts of techniques are allowed, which is one of the reasons why we don’t support organised fights. At a Kung Fu class, we fight to learn, not to damage your friends.
As opposed to the other programs in this gym, our classes might be different every week. We don’t use music, either. However, the Kung Fu program does consist of recurring elements: a heavy work-out, martial art techniques and sparring.
The warming up usually takes about half the stretch of an average lesson. It resembles the Bootcamp program - running, jumping and some power exercises.
Usually, the warming-up is followed by a technical part. You will learn new kicks, punches, street fight methods and other techniques. Keep in mind though, that our techniques may be efficient, but not very easy to learn. In that sense Kung Fu differs from kickboxing, for example. On top of that, there are an awful lot of techniques to learn. To keep things simple, you will be taught katas. A kata is a fixed sequence of techniques.
During our classes, some time is reserved for actual sparring. It doesn’t matter whether you are a novice or an expert - you might even start to see whether your Combat moves work or not. However, we will take care of your safety, for example by making sure any novice will only fight experienced Kung Fu members. They know what they are doing. To prevent further accidents, discipline is an important part of our classes.
We perform our classes bare-footed. Our official outfits consist of black suits, but a pair of trousers and a t-shirt will do fine. Make sure there are no little hooks or laces attached to your clothing, because that might hurt somebody’s fingers. Similarly, tank tops are not recommended. We use gloves for fighting, but as a novice, you don’t need them yet. We usually have a few extra pairs.
To participate, you should be either a member of the Basic Fit club or the Kung Fu organisation. A free trial is of course possible. The class is currently scheduled on Friday evenings from 1930 to 2100 hrs, but see the latest timetable here.
As is custom at Basic Fit, everything you do inside the club is at your own risk. So, participate in what you feel comfortable with, but don’t do anything that doesn’t feel right. That’s perfectly fine with us.
Would you like to know more? Just ask me. See you in class!