Saturday 21 February 2015

Nuns

I was raised in quite a religious household and realised quite how devout our family were when at the age of about 13 my Aunt decided to become a Nun. This was something she had always wanted but my grandfather had persuaded her to wait a while to be absolutely sure. Around the same time i was getting quite into skateboarding and listening to alot of American hardcore/ skatepunk bands. British punk was very just not quite the same! until my friends and I discovered "the stupids" these guys were young,didn't take themselves too seriously were skaters and they dressed like us (surf/skate wear) and to my delight their first single was entitled "violent nun"
I grew up a bit and mostly forgot about "nuns" apart from the occasional film reminders "Nuns on the run", "Sister Act 1 & 2" until i started doing "kung fu" and my teacher talked about the monastic tradition of the buddhist shaolin and how the monks, who were celebate, cultivated their sexual energy through chi kung. Their kung fu could be used to defend the temple from bandits but the main focus of the discipline was to achieve enlightenment. The female buddhist nuns developed their own styles of kung fu, one of which was Wing Chung.
Things change , "The Stupids" now play Drum and Bass , i still practise a little martial arts but mostly for fun/health and my Aunt is now a Mother Superior !