| Monkey
Kung-Fu Gets UNC Shaking
By Ashley Perryman
Every Tuesday and Friday
about 5:30, the walls of the women’s
gym start to shake. It’s not an earthquake,
It’s UNC’s Monkey Kung Fu Club.
This low to the ground, acrobatic martial
art is a test of the endurance and grace
of even the best athletes.
Instructor
Hinar Polczer has been studying the art
for 18
years with his master in Hungary and
since coming to America, he’s been passing
along the style to eager students.
Polczer said kung fu is not primarily
about violence or even self defense.
“So
you’re doing one…kung fu move perfectly, then you call yourself
a master or a kung fu practicioner, but it’s really about perfecting
yourself, becoming
the best person you can be," Polczer said.
"Fighting is just sort of
a side thing in kung fu. You’re really learning to control yourself,
your thoughts, your spirit, your mind.”
Polczer practices the five basic monkey
styles: the tall monkey, which incorporates
acrobatics, the stone monkey, which
makes use of strong
direct strikes, the
precision monkey, which focuses on pressure points, the tricky monkey,
which aims at confusing
an opponent, and the drunken monkey, wherein the fighter swoops and
swoons as though intoxicated.
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