In the first hour it is background noise. The teacher counts something, the group moves in rhythm, you try to catch up and cannot tell whether that was three or eight. By the third week you are counting along and cannot remember when that happened.
Here is what you are actually hearing.
One to ten
Written as it sounds rather than in strict pinyin, which confuses a reader with no background more than it helps.
1 一 yi - “ee”, short and high.
2 二 er - “arr”, with a barely audible r.
3 三 san - “san”.
4 四 si - “sss”, almost without a vowel.
5 五 wu - “woo”.
6 六 liu - “lyoh”.
7 七 qi - “chee”.
8 八 ba - “bah”.
9 九 jiu - “jyoh”.
10 十 shi - “shrr”.
At speed several of these shorten past recognition, which is normal in China too. It does not need to be accurate - it needs to be in rhythm.
Why count in Chinese at all
Three reasons, none of them ceremonial.
The first is length. Chinese numerals are monosyllabic. “Five, six, seven, eight” is five syllables, “wu, liu, qi, ba” is four, and when you are counting out eight repetitions at speed that difference is audible. The rhythm is cleaner, because each beat lands on its own syllable.
The second is working across languages. People train in our hall who do not speak Slovenian. Counting that is equally foreign to everyone works better than counting that excludes half the group.
The third is tradition, though not in a ritual sense. Kung Fu was transmitted together with its vocabulary, and some terms have no good translation - more on that in a moment.
Terms you hear besides the numbers
馬步 mabu - “horse stance”, a low symmetrical position with feet wide and knees pressed out. The most basic and most merciless stance in Kung Fu.
弓步 gongbu - “bow stance”, front leg bent, rear leg extended. The basis of almost every forward strike.
抱拳 baoquan - the palm-over-fist salute that opens and closes the class. An open palm over a closed fist means strength under control.
氣 qi - the word translation struggles with most. Literally “breath” or “air”; in training it describes the felt connection between breath and movement. Rendering it as “energy” is misleading, so we avoid it.
功夫 gong fu - skill acquired through sustained effort. The word has nothing to do with fighting.
散手 sanshou - literally “free hands”, the name for the sparring part of training where techniques are used in free exchange.
What you do not need to learn
Nothing. That is the honest part of the answer.
Nobody in the hall expects you to arrive with a prepared vocabulary, and nobody will test you. The counting sticks on its own, because you hear it three hundred times an hour, and the stance names are learned by the teacher saying a word while everyone does the same thing - which is faster than any list.
This piece is for people who go home after a first class wondering what all that was. Not for preparation.
