This does not mean that we cannot reach the same destination by a different path.
The ancient Kung Fu masters did not explain or talk about the organising physics of our universe anything like the same way we western educated people do.
But that does not mean that they did not understand it, understanding something in a different way, even a completely different way, is still understanding.
Qi, jing, Yi, Sung are just words, used to describe a feeling, framed from the perspective of a certain philosophy.
These words make perfect and easy sense to a person that follows this type of philosophy and can manifest in many positive ways.
If we are not living this philosophy naturally in every minute of our waking day these words are meaningless and their practice is pointless.
This does not mean that we cannot reach the same destination by a different path.
Every wisdom tradition from every part of our world covers the same ground,
Every culture posses this profound knowledge and explains it very differently.
But it is the same thing.
Consciousness.
But it needs to be our own consciousness an not one borrowed from some exotic location.
Chi, Jing, Yi and Sung only exist in China, to be expected if we wish to talk about, experience or realise Chi, Jing, Yi or Sung we can only do it in China.
This does not in any way imply that the experience behind these words/names does not exist for example, here in Australia, but it will only answer and come to us when we use its Australian name.
Finding different ways to enrich and expand what we consider to be viable ‘Solo Training’ should be a priority.
Post-Lock-down I have had a few students from other schools taking some short term instruction with me due to Covid.
With visitors, I make a real effort to sew as little confusion as possible, especially as the way I teach and talk about Wing Chun is so very different than their Schools/Instructors.
There is an idea that progress is gained by listening, learning and understanding what we do.
Especially Forms.
But I think there is another way.
‘Deciding’ what we want to do.
I talk to guest students more from the context of ‘sport’ than Wing Chun.
Take any bat and ball sport or any throwing sport and look at it from the context of body movement.
There is a ‘commonality’ to these actions, typically referred to as fundamental motor skills.
If we recognise that ‘commonality’, embrace it, we are half-way to knowing how to play all other sports.
Including Kung Fu.
Cricket, tennis, baseball, shot putt, discus, they all share that ‘commonality’.
All of us have a great deal of personal experience with sports, even if we consider ourselves pretty ordinary.
Therefore we all have personal experience of at least one expression of that same commonality.
The changes to how we train, brought about by COVID, creates an environment where ‘Solo Training” is more important than ever if we wish to move forwards or simply maintain our current level.
Finding different ways to enrich and expand what we consider to be viable ‘Solo Training’ should be a priority.
Areas of interest are Physcho-neural programming, in the 1980s I had great results from the Sybervision Programs with Golf and Tennis.
Ben Judkins is the creator of the blog ‘Kung Fu Tea’ if you have been to the blog, and if not ‘why not’? You will know his style, he is an academic researcher and not an Ernest Hemingway imitator.
Although the title is the History of Wing Chun there is far more to this book than imagined by the title.
Three-quarters of the book describes the social and political environment that Wing Chun emerged from, and we are all the better off for this, it adds depth and much-needed context.
It is academic work by a professional academic, be prepared for this, a few sections are like ‘wading through a swimming pool of leftover Christmas Custard’.
To paraphrase Winston Churchill…
“If you are wading through custard, keep going”.
Understanding the historical/social and political context that influenced the formation of Wing Chun answered so many questions I had not even realised I wanted to be answered, filled so many gaps I never knew existed.
The final quarter of the book focuses on Yip Man and Hong Kong and the creation of modern Wing Chun.
How it happened.
Where it happened.
Why it happened.
There are numerous enlightening insights into the beginning of what would become the most popular Martial Arts style on Earth.
One part that ‘really’ caught my attention…
In 1949 the Chines Communist Party closed its borders with the European Enclaves of Macau and Hong Kong, this act separated thousands of people from their families, Ip Man was one of these thousands of now displaced people.
He did not see his sons, Ip Chun and Ip Ching for over 10 years.
Without giving too much away during the 1950s Ip Man changed the content and the way of training his Wing Chun three times, so much so that when he was eventually reunited with his sons they hardly recognised what he was teaching.
Three complete make-overs in ten years! What The…..?
When we consider that two of his most notable and respected students, Wong Sheung Leung and Chu Shong Tin, also made their own major changes to the content and teaching of the style it becomes almost redundant to talk of “correct” Wing Chun.
This is a slow and sometimes sluggish read but if you are at all interested in Wing Chun it is essential reading.
The history of Wing Chun is not at all as we think it is, one thing that is clear is that through its “Golden Years” the only constant was constant change.
The development of a new self, or at least a new vision that goes above and beyond us, sets new paradigms, attains new heights.
A self that is physically, mentally and emotionally on a different level.
A competent and capable self.
Trained and ready to face any challenge.
Not just violence.
Wing Chun is a vehicle.
But like any vehicle on any long journey, we would do well to know how it works, how to fix it when it breaks down, to treat it with respect, so that it lasts us a life time.
On any journeys of significance, as we progress, we accumulate new knowledge and develop opinions.
Opinions that change as we gain further knowledge.
It is how we grow, move forward, transcend.
At this juncture, my opinion is this…
The most important aspect of our training is to stabilise our spine.
I believe that this is ‘THE NUCLEUS OF THE LITTLE IDEA’!
All of our training, all of our FORMS, our drills, our Chi Sau and whatever else we are involved in and around are nothing more than ‘stress tests’ to see if we can play them and maintain “a stable spine’.
If this is ‘THE NUCLEUS OF THE LITTLE IDEA’, what is ”THE LITTLE IDEA’?
It grows from using this Nucleus, thinking about this Nucleus, becoming this Nucleus.
MOVING ON THE OUTSIDE, STILL ON THE INSIDE.
Task number one.
HOW DO WE STABILISE THE SPINE?
There are numerous methods although ultimately they all boil down to Intra-abdominal Pressure {I.A.P.}
I am in no way a physical therapist, I am not going to advise you how to do this, but to be expected there is a ‘living shit tonne’ of videos on Youtube, by real doctors.
This is a decent one for getting the general gist of where and how to start.
Watch this and then surf the recommended video links on the right of the presentation and find one that makes sense to you.
‘Crazy Horse’is an awareness and conditioning exercise, in time we need to infuse I.A.P. into it.
This is not particularly difficult, but neither is it quick.
In the numerous styles that I have studied there has always been talk of breathing techniques, Buddhist breathing, Daoist breathing, belly breathing, diaphragmatic breathing, breathing into our feet the list is endless.
They are all on the right track but they are also wrong in so many ways.
It was not until about 5 years ago when I was seeing a rehab specialist for several weeks, at the ‘Pain Clinic in Liverpool Hospital’, that I was finally able to put all the pieces together
We always boast that what we do in Wing Chun is based on ‘normal, human body movement’ but few schools teach ‘normal, human body movement’.
They teach Wing Chun movement, which is so very rarely normal and only partly human.
“What have you learned from 50 years in the study of Chadō?
One of my favorite maxims/stories is from 16th century Japan.
The famous Tea Master, Sen no Rikyū, a National Living Treasure was retiring after over 50 years following Chadō, the way of Tea.
He was asked…
“What have you learned from 50 years in the study of Chadō?
He thought for a while, massaged his chin and replied…
‘Before ChadōTea was just Tea, but as I became more involved in ChadōTea became much more than Tea, finally, once I understood ChadōTea was once again just Tea.
It is essentially meaningless to go over the same old ground in the expectation of finding something new.
We need a new IDEA.
We all have a shape, a posture or a setup.
We adopt them because we think they will aid us in what is upcoming.
In this way, every shape we adopt is a reflection of what we are thinking, the more we think about something the better and more effective our shapes become.
In this way when two people fight they pit one shape against another, one set of thinking against another.
To a very large extent we are always fighting our opponents thinking.
There are two ways to win this fight.
Have a better, more effective way of thinking.
Disrupt our opponents thinking so that it becomes ineffective.
If our shape is a result/reflection of our thinking then when we attack our opponent’s shape, we attack his thinking.
For me, this is at the heart of everything we do, especially Chi Sau.
I really do hope you disagree with this last set of IDEAS, at least in a minor way.
We need provocation to help us see what we really think.
HOKA HEY.
Have a great 2021, that hopefully will not be much of a test after 2020.
Training can go in many directions, hard, soft, internal, external, practical, spiritual you name it.
A few weeks back I caught up with a friend, an ex-student, that has not trained with me in what seems like forever, it is about a decade, after playing around for half an hour he said…
“Your wing Chun is nothing like it was when I trained with you”…
I have thought deep on this, and he is wrong.
My Wing Chun is the same…
It is Wing Chun.
Wing Chun is always just Wing Chun.
Training can go in many directions, hard, soft, internal, external, practical, spiritual you name it.
But that is just training.
Training is not fighting.
No matter how we train…
When it is “go” time…
It is “go” time.
If for any reason this does not make sense…
Stay out of trouble over Christmas and the New Year.
“Because what ever word we choose is just a made up word for an imaginary event that we only think is happening”.
Imagination is how we humans interact with the universe around us.
How we see it.
Not as it is.
But as something it is not.
Something that we can make sense of, work with.
This does not make it “REAL” in any sense of the word, but it does make it a very valuable mental method.
When teaching my IDEA of “Crazy Horse” I encourage my guys to give their imagination free reign.
I put it to them that what we are doing when we engage our imagination is creating a language that both our mind and our body can use to communicate with each other.
Creating what I refer to as “feeling pictures”, or “screenshots” of our inner working.
One imagining I like to use is to think that we have a hydraulic pump deep in our pelvis.
This pump sends pressurised water down our legs, up our spine, along our shoulders and into the arms and hands until we are full and can even feel our skin bulging as the water tries to exit through our fingers and toes.
Most students achieve this easily and sometimes ask….
“Is this Chi/Nim Lik/Nim Tao/Kundalini”?
I answer…
“It can be if you wish it to be”.
“Because what ever word we choose is just a made up word for an imaginary event that we only think is happening”.
Some people take umbridge with me for saying that Chi, or Nim Lik, or Nim Tao, or Kundalini are only imaginary, they feel I am being dissmissive.
I am not.
I do not see any problem with using our imagination.
I am repeating myself here but Imagination is how we humans interact with the universe around us.
We all deeply believe that when we look out of a window and see BLUE skies, GREEN trees, RED cars on BLACK roads it is because they are real.
And I am the first to agree that not only do I do this but that this is a universal consensus.
The fact that we all agree, all think and perhaps even see the same thing does not make it REAL.
Not even close.
We do not LOOK OUT of windows, we do not LOOK at anything, our eyes are more akin to cameras than scanners, we open the lens and the view flows IN.
We only IMAGINE that we look out.
In our universe there is no colour, there is only different wavelengths of electro-magnetic energy, we interpret these different wavelengths to represent different colours.
Except of course for the “Clour-blind” in our society.
All and any interpretation of any subject is just us using our IMAGINATION.
What has all this got to do with teaching and studying Wing Chun?
When people from the C.S.T. lineage like Sifu John Kaufman talk about Nim Lik and Nim Tao, when people from the Robert Chu lineage like Alan Orr talk about the 7 Bows and linking/de-linking or when I talk about putting on our Crazy Horse and staying in the Goldilocks Zone we are using a different imaginary language to talk about the same thing.
The Ghost in the Machine if you wish.
Underneath this language, our bodies are doing or at least attempting to achieve the same objective.
That is the reality of what we are doing and as such is the true work.
If we take the Kung Fu and Spirituality away completely, what is our body ‘actually’ doing when we ask it to link and de-link, to bend one of the 7 bows, raise up Nim Lik or engage Nim Tao, stay in the Goldilocks Zone or put on our Crazy Horse?
Whatever we think that is we would benefit from exploring in that direction.
Apart from any other considerations this thing is measurable, observable and capable of being experienced/felt by a person other than ourselves.
It is REALITY and not IMAGINATION.
Do I know what lies beneath the imaginary language I create, beneath my Crazy Horse and my Goldilocks Zone?
We will never use Wing Chun if we are in a stressful and violent situation, we will just do stuff, any stuff our body thinks will do the job of getting us out of there.
If we allow ourselves to approach this work we call Wing Chun as play it is usually effortless, it is only when we over invest in it, attach importance to it, elevate it, forget that it is, in the end, just normal human movement that it gets tricky.
Even before we embark on Crazy Horse practice we learn that torso is independent.
Add to this that the arms are independent of the torso.
Also that the legs are independent of the torso.
In throwing sports this is referred to as separation.
Keeping it simple, from a purely physical perspective, Crazy Horse is pretty much what we do when we push a shopping trolley around a Supermarket.
Think about that and then go out and find a shopping trolley.
One of the reasons, in fact the main reason I have so many props and tricks is to prevent us from elevating it to something other than simply ‘work’.
We will never use Wing Chun if we are in a stressful and violent situation, we will just do stuff, any stuff our body thinks will do the job of getting us out of there.
Under stress our body reverts to the things it knows how to do best, or at least is the most familiar with. We all do other things in life far more often, and usually better and more naturally than when we do Wing Chun.
It is only in training that we do Wing Chun, if we can reach the point where we regard our training as just ‘stuff’, ‘ordinary stuff’ not ‘special stuff’ there is a good chance our body will pick it when we need to ‘get stuff’ done.
Once more for the late comers.
Play with it, do not take it so seriously, this is possibly the best information you will ever get.
If we need to concentrate {which is essentially a form of mental isolation} on what we are doing we will never have access to that skill in a dynamic, ever changing, hectic and stressful environment that is a violent situation.
