THAT CONVERSATION CONTINUES.

 

 

What is your frame of reference for relevance?

Without Martial Purpose is Wing Chun even a Martial Art?

 

To help us help ourselves move forward with our training there are better questions we can ask than “Does Wing Chun Work”?

Questions that once answered can help forge a direction to influence our training such as…..

“What is the ultimate take away from Wing Chun”?

“What task do I expect Wing Chun perform”?

“Where is the pointy end”?

To a certain extent, all of these questions move in the same direction but they are not the same question.

No matter what subject matter we are training in there is an end product that we expect to achieve, writing, cooking, even Wing Chun are all teaching us something specific.

Does learning how to write mean that I will be a decent author?

Does learning how to cook mean that I will be a decent Chef?

No, it does not, learning a skill is simply the departure point.

For many years I was in charge of every aspect of some very large kitchens, food, and staff. When seeking to hire a new team member for the kitchen I drew up a shortlist from their resumes, what they said and thought they could do, then when they came to see me I handed them a box of ingredients and asked them to cook me something.

Completely their call.

Surprisingly it was often the person who on paper had the least knowledge that created the most imaginative food.

They would work with what they knew and not get lost in flights of fancy.

All training is task-specific, in Wing Chun if you are not training to improve fighting ability exactly what is it you are training for, what is your intention.

What is your frame of reference for relevance?

Without Martial Purpose is Wing Chun even a Martial Art?

Or is it merely Chinese Boxercise?

Never doubt that people who come to Boxercise with a previously established fighting skillset can gain real benefit from it, although it should be obvious that genuine boxers do specialised calisthenics and not Boxercise to improve their conditioning, mobility, and overall physicality.

“What is the ultimate take away from Wing Chun”?   We will all have different answers to this, the key is to measure that answers suitability to deal with violence.

Just saying self-defence is not enough, defending one’s self does not in any way guarantee a satisfactory outcome.

“What task does Wing Chun perform”?   If you are doing it for relaxation, for health or for some form of mindfulness these are all perfectly sound reasons for investing your time, sound advice would be to not take it into places you are not training it for.

“Where is the pointy end”?   What is the one thing in all of the training that would get whatever you needed doing, done? This applies equally to any reason that you engage with Wing Chun.

The IDEA behind asking ourselves this type of question is to get a clearer definition of what as individuals we thing Wing Chun is, why we train it, and hopefully how we can use it, there is no correct or standard answer just as there are no standard human beings.

If we intend to develop and use a strategy for any purpose the most important thing is to have a very clear idea about ourselves, how we relate to the purpose and whether or not our knowledge and ability are fit for the task.

This is mostly an exercise in attitude and mentality, from here we can build a strategy that will not only work but one we can be happy to deploy.

It is not only about smacking people in the head.

 

Work ‘ON’ your weaknesses, work ‘TO’ your strength.