The Chinese Club hosted martial arts demonstrations in the Large Gym every Monday and Thursday from Oct. 17- 27. Representatives from the Kuk Sool Won of Oak Hill Martial Arts, many of which were LASA students, helped organize the event and taught students the basics of martial arts during the demonstrations.

Senior Alan Bao organized the majority of the event. Bao has been learning Kuk Sool Won alongside his sister, sophomore Chloe Bao, at the martial arts school since he was very young. During the summer, he thought about what he could do to connect both LASA and the Kuk Sool Won of Oak Hill Martial Arts school in a novel way.

“I chose to organize it just because it’s something new that I wanted to bring to the Chinese club,” Alan Bao said. “It wasn’t something that they’ve done in the past, and it’s just something that I have a passion for. It was really fun and brought everyone together to try something that maybe they haven’t done before.”

Chloe Bao demonstrated different martial art moves during the events, helped instruct students, and cheered them on. According to her, learning martial arts in this way can introduce someone to a new form of exercise that isn’t too rigorous. 

“Each day had different [demonstrations], so I thought it was cool,” Chloe Bao said. “It was also nice to get to meet some of my brother’s friends’ and classmates in the process. In the future, if they do ever do it again, we should probably have a more confirmed area to do it in. We kept switching from the small gym to the large gym because it was closed, and no one had told them about it so it was confusing.”

Involved in the event as well, senior Josiah Phou, said he hoped students were able to have fun and try out a new sport. Phou had also attended the Kuk Sool Won of Oak Hill Martial Arts and decided to help out in the presentations.

“If you like the art and choreography [or] if you want to look cool and have fun, then this is your thing,” Phou said. “[However], if you’re looking for self defense and trying to be practical, it probably isn’t for you given that America has watered down a lot of martial arts, so just research a little bit about what you’re trying to do.”

 Although Alan Bao thought the demonstrations from the instructors, other students, and himself were successful, he thinks there is room for improvement for future collaborations. According to Alan Bao, he hopes to expand the curriculum of the presentations and dive deeper into the parts of martial arts that they had not taught the students about very much. 

“For the future, I think I would like to branch out a little bit more, maybe with different martial arts styles, or having new activities to work on,” Alan Bao said. “For this first time we stuck to the basics, which is more welcoming to newcomers, but if people want to stay interested, I think we can introduce some more advanced or intermediate techniques.”