A CONTINUATION TO THE CONVERSATION.

 

 

 

If we try to deliberately make this happen it disappears like morning mist.

 

Social distancing means we are still working mostly on head stuff.

Nothing we are training is of any practical use.

If / when we get into a violent situation we will not even think about using Wing Chun we will only think about getting out of that situation in the best shape possible.

In a fight we will simply fight, only in training will we do Wing Chun, only in the training hall, never in the street.

But we know this.

Every man and his dog connected to Wing Chun will tell you that Wing Chun is a concept-driven Martial Art.

If that is the case then whatever we do physically, or energetically if you study ‘Internal’ aspects, are nothing but vehicles for the exploration and deeper understanding of the concepts.

Learning to understand things like not fighting force, not carrying weight, escorting what comes in, facing the shadow – chasing the shadow, embracing the economy of movement and the true reality of what it means to Counter-Attack.

Without a method to explore and experience these ideas, they will remain as just words.

Take adopting softness as an example.

The ultimate goal is not to be soft, come on get real what use is being soft in a shit storm, the goal is to avoid becoming stiff, learning how to not tense up under pressure.

Relaxation is not an ongoing and ever-evolving condition, relaxation is a method to disengage from overt tension in our body when we are placed under load, the tension that will slow us down and steal power.

In Wing Chun training we are rarely placed under load due to our misunderstanding of this concept.

Muscles have two states, tense and relaxed, if they are being used they are tense if they are not being used they are relaxed.

A relaxed muscle is turned off, we cannot use a muscle that is turned off, to believe otherwise is foolish.

Our idea of relaxing is out of context, as are so many things if they are looked at as being practical.

The majority of our training is Chi Sau and Forms.

Even the most one-eyed of Wing Chun students realise that neither Chi Sau nor Forms are intended for fighting, it is simply not their role in the system.

Can they inform and influence how we fight, of course they can, but they cannot teach us how to fight.

Many people pay lip service to the notion that ‘training is not fighting’ without having any genuine experience of fighting and as such no means of comparison.

My first 15 years in the Martial Arts were in the combat sports of Boxing and then Judo.

I have first-hand experience of the difference between training for an upcoming fight or match and turning up and fighting, it is huge and extremely dissimilar.

Living in Liverpool through the 1960s and 1970s meant that not all of my fights were in a ring or on a mat.

The fights that were not in a ring or on a mat turned out to have nothing in common with what happened in the ring or on the mat and were even farther away from what I was training.

I am really not too sure if I did anything in these street encounters that could be considered a result of my training.

The role of our shapes and movements is to expose us to the intelligence of Wing Chun, which is deep and wide.

Seek out the why and ignore the how, just like Master Wong it is bogus.

Once we find it it can never be lost.

Once we understand it we do not need to train techniques.

Once we become one with Wing Chun every single gesture has power.

If we try to deliberately make this happen it disappears like morning mist.

 

TRAIN YOUR WEAKNESS’.

WORK TO YOUR STRENGTH.