If in any doubt what to do just learn how to move a bit easier, a bit smoother, a bit Cat-Like.
I hope everyone is healthy, staying at home as much as possible and doing some training.
When I was filming this blog, Saturday 28th at 0830 there was so much air traffic from Bankstown airport, so much more than usual, there are some stupid people out there.
If in any doubt what to do just learn how to move a bit easier, a bit smoother, a bit Cat-Like.
As always get in touch with me if you have any questions about this or anything Wing Chun related.
To put it another way, 99% correct is 100% incorrect.
To get any long term benefit from Forms training we need to be able to develop good focus, we need to pay attention.
If our focus is split then we will make very poor progress, mentally prepare yourselves to do the work, clear your head, sit down with a cup of tea or coffee and spend 30 minutes thinking about what you are going to do before beginning.
One thing to think about is exactly when does something change from being correct to be incorrect?
My first job was as an apprentice Toolmaker, an Engineer, when we made something it always had a tolerance level between acceptance and throw it in the bin, usually give or take a couple of “thousands of an inch”.
.001 tolerance, one-tenth of one per cent.
If something is 1% incorrect it is completely incorrect.
1% incorrect is the equivalent of 99% correct.
To put it another way, 99% correct is 100% incorrect.
Focus on just what you are doing.
I will also post this video and all future videos on the ISOLATION TRAINING ADVICE PAGE to make it easy to find if you wish to review it.
Feel free to comment or even contact me if you need anything clarified.
What we think of as six Forms are better seen as two different presentations of the one “Little Idea”.
Hi Guys,
I have not been able to do the videos I promised to do as I have unfortunately pulled the muscles in the side of my neck and the rear of my shoulder that is stopping me from holding my head straight.
I will be doing some videos as soon as my neck/shoulder allows but in the meantime here is some food for thought.
In this time of self-isolation, the only access we can have to Wing Chun is through the Forms.
What we think of as six Forms are better seen as two different presentations of the one “Little Idea”.
The first three Forms present as Information, the second three Forms present as Application.
What most people refer to as the Sil Lim Tao Form is in fact only the “A” Section of the Sil Lim Tao Form, Chum Kiu is the “B” Section and Biu Gee the “C” Section.
Only on completion of the Biu Gee set have we seen all of the components of the Sil Lim Tao Form.
The Dummy, the Knives and the Pole are three semi-practical methods/constructions for exploring the “Little Idea” with a more physical agenda.
Seeing the S.L.T. Chum Kiu and Biu Gee as different levels of the same thing makes it easier to understand the unified nature of Wing Chun and from there to engage in deconstruction and reconstruction which is the only way we can coax them into life.
Break them down and build them up better than before.
To do this we need to have a deep understanding of what the Forms are, how they fit in the system, what the critical components are and how they inter-relate.
During this awkward time, we have a chance to really engage with the Bio-mechanical aspects of the Wing Chun body without the distraction of trying to solve aggressive physical problems in that thing we call training.
If we can all get into this it will save everyone years of stumbling in the dark.
It should not be too long before I can film but in the meantime, I will put up the new page and populate it with some of my previous videos.
We do this by sourcing good quality information from reliable sources.
Hi Guys.
It looks certain that at some time soon we will all need to isolate ourselves in the face of Covid – 19, the Carona virus.
The question that arises is how do we maintain our training without supervision, how do we prevent ourselves from undoing all of our good work?
There are numerous answers to this question but first and foremost the best way forwards is to improve our knowledge.
We do this by sourcing good quality information from reliable sources.
This immediately disqualifies most Martial Art / Wing Chun promoters, {including me if you are not one of my students and up to speed with my thinking and methodology} at best all it can bring is confusion.
Most Martial Art / Wing Chun promoters are just advertising their product, a very large amount of what is sold as Wing Chun on the Internet is rubbish that will not work.
I hate to inform you of this but you cannot use the Law of Attraction to learn how to fight, I have been a Chef since 1970 and something I know is that you cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs.
Over the next few days, I will put together a number of short videos with suggestions on what to do if there is no training available, fun things that will advance your ability and teach new skills at the same time.
Not boring pointless advice like “Just do the Form”.
Perhaps the problem is not the act of “Kicking” but rather what we think the act of “Kicking” is?
This is a reposting from 6 months ago, the reason for the re-post is because we are here again, kicking causes such confusion for some students.
One thing that has always confused me has been the role of kicking in a ‘FIST’ art like Wing Chun.
Is it necessary, should it even be there?
What is the historical perspective?
If we go to the Kuen Kuit to get assistance there is practically nothing related to kicking, this is more than odd I think, especially as the Kuen Kuit is the repository of Wing Chun’s original wisdom.
Somewhat concerning is the fact that one of the only times the Kuen Kuit cleary references kicking is in the line “Kicks lose nine times out of ten”, this does not sound much like a positive credit.
The Kuen Kuit also says “Learning the usual ways will allow later variations”.
It just appears that the usual way did not favour kicking.
There are many situations within the ‘Canon’ of Wing Chun were things that make up the backbone of our work begin to fall apart, even contradict themselves, I believe that this is a conflict of translation over interpretation.
My teacher {Jim} Fung Chuen Keung would often say that some things in Wing Chun defy translation to English, if we take this to its ultimate conclusion we westerners that depend on such translations are all, and quite possibly always, wrong, the only option available is a personal interpretation of what is a very cryptic, and incorrectly translated Kuen Kuit.
People, being people, this fluidity leads to ‘Cherry Picking’.
Is it possible that kicking entered Wing Chun because Ip Man was very small, did he elevate kicking because it afforded him the potential of extra distance?
Perhaps the problem is not the act of “Kicking” but rather what we think the act of “Kicking” is?
There is a tendency amongst many Wing Chun commentators to forget that everything we do has a very real physical purpose that supersedes any pseudo – mechanical or semi-mystical deep thinking.
The product supersedes the process.
Any kick has a job to do, and that job has very little to do with how we move our limbs, it is all about distance control, contact, cause and effect, hurting the Bad Guy.
Wing Chun is a ‘Close Range’ fighting style, kicks, on the other hand, are at best mid-range, more often than not long-range.
Approaching kicking as something we do with ourselves as opposed to something we do to an attacker is a road to nowhere.
What do we think a kick is?
Does it fit the Wing Chun ethos?
First and foremost and something that needs to be contemplated deeply is that “Kicking” is effectively fighting on one leg.
It requires exquisite levels of skill to remain in balance on one leg during a dynamic exchange, a lack of balance leads to a lack of power.
A wider and more generalised consensus we can be comfortable with could be…
A blow delivered to an opponent by a foot of shin that has built its energy from a swinging leg.
Kicking is an overt attacking move, often pre-emptive, all eggs in one basket kind of approach, it is difficult to align this with the Kuen Kuit’s ‘he attacks first, but I strike first’ which is alluding to a counter-attack.
Nowhere in any of the Wing Chun Forms does this type of movement exist, in both the Chum Kiu and the Biu Gee it is the body that moves and not the leg.
In Chum Kiu practice we are advised that the extension of the leg must not compromise our balance that we should be able to maintain balance with the leg extended.
This position, this one-legged stance if you wish is called the “Hanging Horse”.
This is a static, solid, stable position that if an attacker walks into is the equivalent of a bike rider hitting a parked car.
If the timing is correct and the attacker makes contact at the exact time that the position is established the exchange of momentum would be almost perfect and extremely powerful.
Seeing this take place from an outside vantage point would look very much like a consensus kick, a swinging leg.
Like so many other aspects of Wing Chun what appears to be is never what is, this can only be taught hands-on, and validated through experience.
I realise that many people reading this will to some extent disagree, and that is cool as I said at the beginning “I am one of those that are in favour of each of us making our interpretation of the work we do, forging our own path ” and of course there is valid and effective leg work in Wing Chun, it is just not kicking.
In Wing Chun we are informed and influenced by an IDEA, to be expected the same IDEA that informs and influences our arms informs and influences our legs.
We do not swing our arms around or hammer them into the opponent’s arms do we, this alone should raise a few flags.
“Greet what comes in, follow what goes out”.
Like the bike rider and the parked car, we offer a place for the opponent’s energy to exhaust itself under Newtons Third Law and the Law of Momentum Conservation.
We then step forward and finish them off.
This is shown in all its simplicity in the Chum Kiu and Biu Gee leg movements, there is no need to add anything.
We call this “Jamming”, to anyone that does not understand the finer points this can look just like kicking and as such is frequently taught as kicking with all of its overt, overcommitted implications.
When it comes to a personal assessment of the validity and effectiveness of kicking, I must admit to holding a bias on this point, my first 20 years in the Martial Arts I followed styles that did not need kicking to get a favourable result, Boxing, Ju-Do, Bu-Jutsu.
Add to this that throughout my teenage years, the “soccer hooligan’ years of the 1970s in the U.K. On the occasions when everything went ‘Pear Shaped’ I consistently fared much better against people that tried to kick me than I did against non-kickers.
This, of course, could also be that many people, back then and today, try to kick because they have little confidence or ability in striking.
The more I think about and the more I study Wing Chun I am drawn to the conclusion that overt attacking kicking does not have a rightful place in this art, I know many people will disagree, many have in the past, but in today’s time-poor training world I think we should question the value of training something that the Kuen Kuit says fails 9 times out of 10.
This is not me saying do not train to kick, if you think you need it then train it, I just think that it is a little bit of an illegal import.
A final thought, FIGHTING ON ONE LEG.
Apart from 1970s Shaw Bros movies, this is something that no one with any sense would choose over fighting on two legs.
It’s a balance thing.
Even the most highly accomplished of kickers, Baas Rutten and Benny “the Jet” Urquidez { if these guys are unknown to you hit up YouTube} to name just two of my all-time faves would, on occasion fail and fall down, thankfully in that environment the opponent was prevented from jumping up and down on their heads.
A recent phone call from a prospective student surprised me because the first thing he asked was “Do you do Internal or External Wing Chun”?
I was not aware that there was now officially an “External Wing Chun”.
I informed him that I do not know what he is talking about and advised him to use Google.
It was a case of Deja Poo.
I have heard that shit before.
Late last year I had a guy come to one of our group lessons at the Studio, he told me that he had 5 years Wing Chun training with an inner Sydney school but wanted to find somewhere closer to home.
Most of our work here at W.C.S. Is about developing a stable structure and good mobility, it is not unusual on any night for all levels to be working with the pole, doing footwork drills, working on accepting heavy loads in Chi Sau or Chum Kiu analysis or using resistance bands to condition and understand how to efficiently and effectively organise our body.
From the outset, the guy struggled with poor fitness and bad co-ordination, his structure and the ability to maintain his shape under pressure were at a low level considering he had trained for 5 years.
His ability and proficiency were generally poor and as the night wore on he looked more than a little disappointed in himself.
At the end of the session, I asked if he would be making another visit and he declined, mentioning that he was not looking to do ‘External’ Wing Chun.
When I asked why he thought we did ‘External’ Wing Chun and why it was any different to what he did at his other school, he said that our type of training required too much effort.
While it is true that my students have been known to break a sweat our training intensity would only be that of a brisk 3 KLM walk.
Our Wing Chun does not use or require excessive effort, just natural movement, natural fitness and natural muscular strength, something I believe is common with all Wing Chun.
In a real-world situation, which is ultimately the only thing that matters, all Wing Chun is the same, just Wing Chun.
We can do it with a soft body, unstable joints and very little movement, or we can do it with a conditioned body, stabilised joints and dynamic movement.
There is some real rubbish out there being flogged off as Wing Chun and it does none of us any favours.
Below are a couple of Videos on things we do to lightly condition ourselves, and understand Human Bio-Mechanics.
