Wing Chun Sydney, Australia

The scale is certainly different, perhaps that is all.

One pronounced effect this COVID lockdown and ongoing restrictions has brought upon me is that I have spent a great deal of training time on my own.

This has brought about an increased involvement in the more passive, internal side of the training, this is reflected in my teaching since we resumed.

I have a problem with this.

There is no doubt that the passive training benefits the active training and vice versa, however, I genuinely believe that when you train in the “External/Hard” approach alongside the “Internal/Soft” approach there is a very real potential to diminish both sets of work.

The reason is quite straight forward, the mind set, the emotional response and the physical condition that are required for either discipline are as close to opposite as we can get, it is an anti-matter/matter situation.

The Samurai, Vikings, Yaqui Shaman, Indian Warrior Princes, in fact all or any of the Priest of Mars from history were well aware of this and would take themselves away on “Spirit Quests” to spend serious time looking inward.

They would seperate themselves from all forms of violence or any other contact with the outside world or interaction with other people.

When the job was done, the vision received or the wisdom manifested and they returned to the world of men it was business as usual, no more meditation, no more ‘Mr. Nice Guy’ back to the old ‘hack and slash’.

I am fully aware that we live in different time with different reasons for the training we do but is what we do that far removed from the like of Spartacus or Alexander the Great.

The scale is certainly different, perhaps that is all.

But the way I think is the way I think.

Few of us could afford the time or find the motivation to go on a Vision Quest, but something we could and perhaps should do is put one week a month aside for just passive/soft/internal training and see where it takes us.

I know it will take us to a good place.

AS ALWAYS…

TRAIN YOUR WEAKNESS – WORK TO YOUR STRENGTH.

Intent is innate, it is wisdom, it is MIND BOXING.

Intention is acquired, it is technology, it is FIST LOGIC.

Thursday evening I was talking with Costas and George, two of my senior students about plateaus, wrong turns and misunderstandings.

As with all hiccups in understanding Wing Chun they stem from the difficulty in translating pictures, pictograms, Chinese script, into words, built from letters as used in the English language.

We only have 26 letters to choose from to describe everything that exists.

There are always going to be problems, especially when we use certain different words interchangeably.

INTENT  – INTENTION we can even get a bit deeper into the weeds with INTEND.

My Sifu, a Hong Kong-born Chinese Gentleman with a  Mother Tongue of Cantonese, who spoke first-rate English, would say that the best that can be done when translating from Chinese to English is to guess and try to get as close as possible. 

The trouble begins when the desired guess sounds very similar to something with a different meaning.

This then becomes an issue with phonetics, in fact exploiting this difference is a popular comedic device, using a word that means something completely different in the place of the expected word.

“Did you hear about the bald guy that had Rabbits tattooed all over his head because from a distance they looked like Hares”

This is a very common literary device in English.

Hair – Hare.

Where – Wear.

Pear – Pair.

Red – Read, {past tense of Read}.

Boot – Boot, {car versus left in this case}.

This is compounded even more when the students first language is not English.

How can we describe INTENT in a way that is clear and easy.

Intent is stored power, potential.

Intention is directing where to put that potential to use.

Look at it this way, if we have 3 or 4 devices that use the same battery while the battery is on the shelf its potential is the same, it can play music, shine a light, drive a toy car.

As soon as we put that battery in the device its potential becomes the devices potential.

Intent is multi-functional capable of moving in any direction for any purpose, it is the energy to do work, it is capable of any work.

Intention is directing this energy, using the energy to perform specific work.

Intent is innate, it is wisdom, it is MIND BOXING.

Intention is acquired, it is technology, it is FIST LOGIC.

Now that we have cleared this up somewhat are we any closer to knowing how to use it?

After all, action is potential realised.

Does the value lay in the act of the practice or the product of the practice’?

What is Mind Boxing?

First off it is an actual style of Kung Fu, named Yi Quan.

Yi Quan derives its name from a training method that is an intrinsic aspect of all Southern Fist Styles.

Outside of Yi Quan ‘Mind Boxing’ is a term used for a group of methodologies that unite the Mental and Physical into a combined new and superior whole.

This revolves around Chi Kung alongside that of martial techniques.

Although I have practised {minimally} the internal Kung Fu styles of Bagua Zhang, Xing Yi and I have also spent significant time on Ba Duan Jin Chi Kung.

I cannot say that I believe in the cultivation or application of Chi, but there is little doubt that something is going on that is of great value to a martial artist.

Something I find interesting is that many if not all of the early civilisations had some kind of energy work, but only the Chinese talk of it as being a physical power generator.

There are some subtle but intriguing variations in the Global Practice.

The Shaman of the Yaqui Indians of New Mexico advise keeping the hands closed to avoid energy spilling out, and then the Mongolian Shaman advises to keep or hands open so that the energy can come in.

Apart from this, the systems are very similar in thought and process to Chinese Chi Kung.

What do we make of this?

There is no doubt that we can ‘excite’ areas of our body by directing our attention to that place, relax our muscles with just our thoughts and send blood to our extremities by breathing, but I am pretty sure we could do that anyway, we just did not notice.

The big question is…

Does the value lay in the act of the practice or the product of the practice’?

Let me reiterate that I am not doubting that there is value.

Is it Intent or Intention?

The explosion of money in professional sport over the last century has also brought an equal explosion into sports-related research, and created the fields of ‘Sports Science’, and ‘Sports Medicine’.

And with it ‘Sports Psychologists’, Muscular-skeletal specialists, Physical therapists and an ever-increasing list of allied disciplines.

21st Century Sports Shamans?

There are several areas were the work of the ancient Shaman is verified by our modern-day Shaman.

But no-one can find verifiable existence of Chi.

As I say I am not doubting that there is something going on, but what?

I believe that the juncture is the Neuro Biometric Boundry that controls all Physical movement, we are essentially rewiring or even reprogramming our brain.

As close as the old sifus were they just did not know what we know today, they were correct in thinking that the work is always done on the inside from the inside

Never disengage the mind in training or you will only be training your brain to hide away from what you think you are training for.

There is much more to come from me on this topic, it is just so very difficult to articulate.

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.

As always…

WORK ON YOUR WEAKNESS’ – PLAY TO YOUR STRENGTH.

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.

Psychoneuromuscular theory.

Visualization technique.

Cognitive/Insight Learning.

Extrinsic feedback.

VIDEO.

As always…

TRAIN YOUR WEAKNESS’ – PLAY TO YOUR STRENGTH.

“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 Chadō Tea was just Tea, but as I became more involved in Chadō Tea became much more than Tea, finally, once I understood Chadō Tea was once again just Tea.

As always…

TRAIN YOUR WEAKNESS’ – WORK TO YOUR STRENGTH.

NOTHING CHANGES IF NOTHING CHANGES.

Here we go again.

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.

1. Have a better, more effective way of thinking.
2. 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.

As always…

WORK ON YOUR WEAKNESS’ – PLAY TO YOUR STRENGTH.

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.

TRAIN YOUR WEAKNESS’ – WORK TO YOUR STRENGTH.

SAY NO TO EXTRA PUDDING.