DEEP DIVING, AND OTHER CONUNDRUMS.

 

What we look for is what we will find.

 

How are we going at this strange, strange time, what does our training look like, where is our focus?

I think that many of us are taking a “Deep Dive” into the Forms, if not why not, what else can we do from 1.5 metres away from each other?

Let’s pretend we are all doing this, if only for the sake of this post.

What are we finding on this “Deep Dive”?

I think that by now we all understand that ‘what we find’ depends very much on ‘what we look for’.

So perhaps I should ask ‘what are we looking for and how do we approach the Form to find it’?

If we approach the Form to simply validate what we already know are we genuinely learning anything?

If we are it is certainly not anything new.

Looking at the Form in the same way as we have always seen it, the way we were taught it by our teachers turns it into nothing more than a record of our teachers thinking and as good as that may well be it is not our own thinking.

It may be a great place to start the journey from, but is it the best destination we can hope for?

Surely the goal for all of us, as it was for those that preceded us, is to transcend our teacher’s instruction, to cut the cloth in a way that fits us as individuals and not just try to walk around in another man’s clothes.

When taking a ‘Deep Dive’ into the Form {and by ‘the Form’ I am referring to the first three Forms looked at as one} there are a couple of caveats that we should keep front and centre, never ignore.

1. Wing Chun Forms are not ‘Shadow Boxing’ Forms.
2. The movement sequence of the Form is not important.

Caveat #1. Wing Chun Forms are not ‘Shadow Boxing’ Forms… Nothing at all in the Forms has a predetermined reason for being, a raison d’etre. A certain move may look like a Leg Sweep or an Elbow Strike, it may even be able to fulfil that task, but that is not the intention. Once we assign a specific job to any action from the Form we will not be able to see it as anything else, this reduces our options of how to use that particular piece of the puzzle, this is not how to get the best value from a concept.

Caveat #2. The movement sequence of the Form is not important… The shape, sequence or patterns that we might see inside the Forms, up/down, forwards/backwards, left/right or whatever are non-existent manifestations that our brain creates to deal with the chaos of the world around us. There is no relevancy to the sequence, it is simply an aid to memory, a way of securing the information so that it does not get forgotten. There is no practical reason for any particular move to follow or precede any other move.

What we look for is what we will find.

If we are looking for answers we have a much better chance of a successful outcome if we ask simple, clear and concise questions of the Form.

If we are doing the Form and not asking questions it may be a very long wait for any kind of answer.

This is not about right or wrong, it is simply a method to find out certain things that we can, later on, decide for ourselves if they are right or wrong.

Question suggestions.

How does the Form answer us when we ask about Balance?

How does the Form answer us when we ask about Dexterity?

How does the Form answer us when we ask about Range of Motion?

How does the Form answer us when we ask about Weight Shifting?

How does the Form answer us when we ask about Dynamic Movement?

Many such questions will overlap, mostly reinforcing each other but occasionally contradicting each other.

It is these overlapping junctions that offer the most fertile ground to grow new IDEAs.

Spend some time there, camp out, dig in.

Fighting and Self-Defence may be looked at as two sides of the same coin but in reality, they are totally unalike, they require different approaches and different thinking.

How does the Form answer us when we ask about Fighting?

How does the Form answer us when we ask about Self-Defence?

There is no predetermined “Right Answer” to any of these questions, we are involved in exploration, not explanation.

Ultimately our answers, our final outcome, will depend on how far along the path to honesty we have progressed.

 

How does a Form answer us when we ask about surviving a violent encounter?

How does an Alphabet answer us when we ask about writing a novel?

How does a Music Scale answer us when we ask about creating a melody?

 

 

The clips in the video are taken from a normal Saturday training session, nothing was pre-planned, there were no do-overs or double-takes we just shot it ‘on the fly’.

When we do this the result is frequently a little long-winded, sometimes circuitous and maybe even a bit vague, and let’s not even start on the framing.

But the information is in there, some really good information if you have the eyes to see it and the mind to understand it.

 

STAY HEALTHY.

 

WORK ON YOUR WEAKNESS’.

PLAY TO YOUR STRENGTH.