WITHOUT STUDENTS AM I STILL AN INSTRUCTOR?
HEY GUYS,
I would love to think that you all got something from the last few weeks posts, but I know better than that, none of us can learn anything without direct experience of the event.
My second choice is that these posts have encouraged you to think about your training, to question it, dig into it, to try to reshape it, to develop a personal understanding of what you do.
Like every other teacher, all I can do is reflect on my personal experience and what works for me, it is up to each of us to find our personal “Sweet Spot”.
The S.L.T. { from my perspective inclusive of Chum Kiu and Biu Gee} is a vehicle to study the theories and concepts of Wing Chun.
In many ways, it does not teach Wing Chun at all, just the thinking behind it.
Theories and concepts are abstract constructs that are never set in stone, they have a tendency towards being vague, nebulous and inconclusive.
It is up to each of us to look out of the window and describe our personal vista as we see it.
My teacher, Jim Fung, would say that every move in the S.L.T. Form is separate, individual, complete.
Every move could and should be considered a separate Form unto itself.
This IDEA was passed down from Ip Man to his student Chu Shong Tin, from C.S.T. to my Sifu Jim Fung and on to me and now out to the world via this blog.
If every move is individual it goes without saying that there is no pattern, no proper sequence to how we do the Form.
This is a liberating thought.
This gives us the freedom to observe the Form from inside, outside, upside and down.
No preconceived rightness or wrongness.
While we have the time this is a mental exercise worth engaging in.
Without the ability to make contact we have had no choice but to approach the Form from the perspective of human ranges of motion that hopefully, can help us see that our Form is and always was simply movement, not magic.
When we play with these things we discover that they are common movements that we use every day.
Deconstruct – reconstruct.
For me, this is “the magic”.
This Isolation is doing my head in, troubling questions bubble up unheralded and unwanted.
WITHOUT STUDENTS AM I STILL AN INSTRUCTOR?
We are all Instructors now, teaching ourselves.
During these trying times, it is quite pointless to try to maintain the notion that there is a right or a wrong way.
There can from now on until this thing breaks only be “our own way”
TRAIN YOUR WEAKNESS.
WORK TO YOUR STRENGTH.
STAY FROSTY.
Wing Chun Sydney, Australia 