Shaolin West SA

March 15, 2020
Hello SDWSA
There are 4 ways you can make sure you are up to date with the school announcements.
First, make sure we have the best email to reach you, not your spam email that you ignore. We are putting a new newsletter entry form on the website homepage.
Second, check the home page of our website, austinkungfu.com, there is a new button there with Covid-19 announcements
Third if you are on facebook in any capacity search for Shaolin-Do of Austin. This is a closed group that you request access to, then we approve.
Fourth you can call the school phone number and listen to the voicemail
CLOSED TILL FRIDAYSo first off, we are going to close the school this week in accordance with recommendations from the City of San Antonio and the CDC. I have also spoken with several medical professionals and they all agree that we should shut down till Friday. We are doing everything we can as a school to help slow the spread of the coronavirus. For now, we are going to close until Friday this week, but use the methods listed above to read updates. As a small business, we hate to close for any extended time but I feel that this is the best for OUR community. All of the Shaolin Do Texas schools are doing the same.
SEMINARS FOR ALL as soon as this blows over we will have 3 separate seminars for adults, kids and tai chi students. These seminars, which are usually $60 or more, will be completely free to all the students as a way for saying thanks. Your solidarity with the school during this challenge is priceless to me.
CLASS THIS WEEK
Watch your Spark Member App. I will be uploading special katas and workouts throughout the week.
Please be safe, wash your hands, stay home whenever you can. Please keep training so you can be ready to bring your spirit back to the school the moment our doors are open again. We will be updating the status on opening near the end fo the week.
Thanks and take care everyone,
Master Rick.

March 13, 2020

It is important for everyone to take action now in the greater public interest. Rapid responses to viral outbreaks in the past were shown to protect the populations that didn’t hesitate. It does this by slowing the onset of infection in the population and helping the medical community stay on top of things.
All the closures and cancellations seem scary and maybe feel over done, but it’s really an amazing act of social solidarity. I read a great quote from someone in Italy.“Our grandparents were asked to fight in a world war, we’re just being asked to stay at home. We’re sacrificing so we can give nurses, doctors and hospitals a fighting chance.”
So from an appropriate amount of caution, we are closing the school on one of our busiest days (Saturday) this weekend and then will decide by Sunday evening if we will take a “Spring Break” next week. Since the virus is very infectious when symptoms have not even shown up, we want to do our part in not helping it to spread within our Shaolin family that we care so much for. Please be patient during this time and continue to support the school. This will all be over soon and we want to make sure the school carries on, positively impacting lives and the community.
HOWEVER
IF we do need to take a longer break than this weekend, we will be offering some very cool workouts, new forms, and new drills for all of our programs. Several instructors and I will be creating these at the school in HD and send the links by email and Facebook.We’ll ALSO provide some “fun” seminar type videos for both kids and adults and some special QiQong videos. You will likely have plenty of time at home and if you stay committed, you could come out of this a better-skilled martial artist than before. We will let you know by Sunday evening if this will be necessary.
If we are closed for more than two days, we will create a stream of videos for:
Kids Kung Fu
Adult White to Green
Adult Brown
Black belts (with new specific material for each degree)
Tai Chi beginner to brown sash
Tai Chi brown and black sash
Chi Kung (for Tai Chi students)
In closing, I got an email today from one of the Tai Chi students wanting to donate to the school since the pandemic might be hard on us. This is why I love our community so much. We are all there for each other in every way.

March 12, 2020
 We find ourselves in an unusual situation with the Covid-19 Pandemic. So much about this situation is unknown, and it seems to change from day to day.We want to communicate to you what we are doing currently and our plans for moving forward. We are trying to use appropriate caution and do our part to assist the public health effort underway to control the spread of this disease.Here’s what we are doing starting today (Thursday 3/12):Continuing our normal class scheduleMonitoring Center for Disease Control (CDC) recommended precautions for businessesMonitoring City of San Antonio AdvisoriesWiping down surfaces with Lysol Antiviral Disinfecting Wipes before and after each classWiping down weapon handles and pens. Encouraging you to use your own pen at the counter.Asking students to wash their hands when they arrive at classAvoiding any classroom contact between students including high fives and partner exercisesUsing Shaolin bow instead of handshakes to greet each otherHere’s what we are doing going forward:Continuing to monitor CDC and City of San Antonio advisoriesListening to feedback from students and families in our communityAdjusting our approach as new information is availableIf you or anyone in your family is sick, please do not come to class until you are cleared by a doctor. If you have any questions or concerns, please reach out to Master Rick.