WING CHUN SYDNEY.

 

more a passing comment than a conversation

 

I have been writing this blog for more than 10 years in one format or another, and it has been a great journey, I have been able to organise my own thoughts in such a way that I have become a far better instructor than I was previously.

Blogs by their very nature are brief snapshots, in terms of interpersonal communication they are more a passing comment than a conversation, and at this point in my life I feel I have more to offer than just a passing comment.

The fact that the blog is Wing Chun centric created its own problems, there is a lot of great idea’s in Wing Chun, but there is also a great deal of nonsense, sadly it is the nonsense that gets most of the oxygen and the great ideas that get misunderstood.

No matter where one sits in the Wing Chun tent it is first and foremost about violence, from our perspective stopping someone from using violence against us, which of course we accomplish by employing more effective violence of our own, but no one really wants to talk about this.

So much happens before we would use our Wing Chun that never gets so much as a cursory mention in traditional Wing Chun training, but this is the stuff that saves lives, not Tarn Sau – Bong Sau, not Nim Lik, not Dai Gung.

My senior students and I have evolved our training to a state that is both more complex and yet simpler than anything we have done before and it is exploring this that my next foray into Cyberspace will entail, it will still be examined through the lens of Wing Chun, after all it is what I do. 

If you like the way I approach the work and are interested in knowing when the new format comes about simply follow this blog or notify me of your interest I will let you know when we get there, the plan is to post only once a month but with better and deeper content, if you are a follower of this blog you should get automatic notification from WordPress.

 

wingchunsydney@internode.on.net

 

As of this writing I am not planning on sharing the new site to Facebook, no one takes Facebook seriously anymore, it has just become an advertising platform, associating with it makes us all just look like salesmen.

 

 

 

It is a confusing, challenging dilemma but it is not insurmountable, understanding that IDEAs do not need specific orientation is the key,

 

WE ARE DOING IT BACKWARDS.

A few of my guys are doing a lot of technical and free sparring at the moment and certain things are becoming pretty obvious, namely that nothing works the way we train it, this is no big surprise to me I have known this for years, it is the old chestnut of Form v Function, students that expect their training to just work the way they train it  get the surprise of their life and find things just a little confusing.

Part of the difficulty they encounter stems from the fact that to a very large extent we approach training for fighting backwards.

What do I mean by this?

The bulk of traditional Wing Chun training is set around understanding the Forms and using Chi Sau, these IDEAS are then tested against some type of resistance, a partner applies pressure and we execute whatever movement of the Form we are working on.

Chi Sau is constant forward pressure against equally returned resistance.

Everything we do in this type of training begins with contact, for instance the partner holding a wrist to prevent Tarn Sau, static resistance, people touching arms.

Here’s the rub, in any physical encounter, contact, touching arms, is the end point not the beginning, to be effective and useable the sequence needs to be ran in the opposite direction, most of our training begins at the end point, hands on, very little of our training deals with how to get there. 

A typical Form training progression goes –

1. Initiate {make} contact.
2. correct alignment and body structure,
3. focus on task,
4. introduce intent and move.

If we are fighting the progressions needs to be –

1. move while creating intent.
2. focus on what is needed.
3. bring about correct structure and alignment.
4. make contact.

 

 

The disparity between how we train and what we need to do if we intend to effectively use our training create a very real problem that we must get sorted out before we ever need to use it be that sparring or fighting.

It is a confusing, challenging dilemma but it is not insurmountable, understanding that IDEAs do not need specific orientation is the key.

When faced with a tricky question I look to sports, in this instance tennis, the application for a tennis forehand and a tennis backhand are the same in every detail except how we physically position ourselves to perform these shots, the racquet head and the ball do exactly the same thing and are affected by exactly the same forces.

A key requirement for using Wing Chun is patience, as a counter attacking Martial Art we really do need the Bad guy to attack us first, teaching students to step in as they counter attack is only possible against a feed, it is not possible against a genuine committed attack, this of course begins the confusion.

 

 

Some things move and somethings get moved, understanding what this term means can make effective even dynamic movement really easy

We cannot move bones, it is not how our body works, muscles move bones, however it is an easy interface, a decent frame of reference but we should recognise it as nothing more than a useable form of shorthand.

Moving the Hips, moving the Spine, moving the Centre or similar terms are shorthand, not actual, in all instances when we move we advance our kinetic chain and as such each link so to speak only affects the link that is next in the chain, our feet move our legs, our legs move our pelvis,  because our centre is located somewhere inside our pelvis the expression “move the centre” appears to make sense.

But it is false.

Some things move and somethings get moved, understanding what this term means can make effective even dynamic movement really easy, when students struggle to move correctly using either the Chum Kiu or Biu Gee methodologies it is usually a recruitment of moving parts issue and nothing to do with the Forms at all.

A good “non Wing Chun “ place to begin understanding the Chum Kiu method is by observing what is happening when you push a shopping trolley around the supermarket, with the Biu Gee method a good “non Wing Chun” way is to observe what goes on as you reach behind yourself and down to pick up the T.V. remote that you knock off the arm of your chair.

We must be sure to not confuse moving with changing location. The fact that my Elbow moves from point “A” to point “B” while performing Bong Sau  does not mean that I am in reality moving my Elbow.

Movement as a power producer is always and only about momentum not relocation, revisiting the “conservation of momentum theory” can clear things up in a couple of minutes.

As I mention at the end of the video, the usual resistance training that we do in Wing Chun approaches situations in reverse, this is not a problem if we understand this, but taking our training at face value can create very real problems.

 

 

I reintroduced sparring about a month ago and it now constitutes most of our training time, sparring is not fighting, but it is a great deal closer than Chi Sau or 4 corners drills, the compression of time and space brought on by an advancing sparring partner really shines a light on the problems caused by not understanding that we train in reverse.

It is easily fixed, but until it is fixed it really messes people up.