BACK TO THE ROOT.

Q. Does your training prepare you for this situation? A. It can and will do if you know what to look for.

Week 10 of the “Lockdown” with at least 7 more weeks to follow, when we return we will all be starting over, we will all be beginners again.

This is not a bad thing, after years of training we often forget why we started this journey in the first place.

I said in a previous post that if we know what the basic IDEAS or Fundamental Concepts of Wing Chun are, we know ‘all most’ everything.

What is Wing Chun in its most fundamental state?

It is a ‘Counter-Attacking’ Martial Art.

Just knowing this tells us so much and sets the agenda for an intelligent approach to training.

Let’s ask a simple questions about this premise.

Q. Why are we counter-attacking.

A. Because we are under attack.

As obvious as this is many students just don’t get it, they do not see that this tells us all we need to know, it tells us of the environment that this event is happening in, it tells us of our mental and emotional condition, it tells us of our level of preparedness.

Once we see this it tells us what and how we should train.

Being attacked is not consensual, it is not a joint operation, when we got out of bed on this morning it was not in our plans, whatever is happening we did not ask for it and we do not wish to be there.

We will be on the back foot, surprised and quite possibly in shock.

Keeping all this in mind another simple question.

Q. What outcome do we hope for?

A. Escape, hopefully uninjured.

You may well have answered these two questions very differently, and that is fine, the answers you gave will still tell you what and how to train.

Q. Does your training prepare you for this situation?

A. It can and will do if you know what to look for.

What should we look for?

Let us just lay it all out and see what we have, let’s put all the pieces on the carpet and then start doing the jig-saw.

Over the coming weeks I will attempt to put together a comprehensive guide to help us get back up to speed as quickly a possible but for now let’s just talk about FORM.

What is the First Form, {Sil Lim Tao} showing us in its most fundamental state?

1. It {Sil Lim Tao} teaches us how to develop a well-balanced body, balanced as in the usual understanding of this term but equally important balanced as in having equal tension throughout the whole body.
2. It teaches us the most efficient way to engage our arms from the perspective or ‘IDEA’, of accepting and issuing force.

That is it, all she wrote. If we can develop an innate understanding of these two simple factors, we are almost there.

What is the Second Form, Chum Kiu, showing us in its most fundamental state?

1. The second form {Chum Kiu} teaches us how to support our limbs with our Torso {centre if you prefer this term} primarily with the thought of accepting and transferring force. The conduit we develop, understand and engage that allows us to accept force is the same conduit that issues force, The Kinetic Chain.
2. It introduces the basic movements of shifting and twisting while maintaining the IDEA from the first form. 

Here again. that is it, all she wrote. If we can develop an innate understanding of these two simple Chum Kiu related factors, without forgetting the S.L.T. factors, we are approaching complete comprehension.

What is the Third Form showing us in its most fundamental state?

1. The third form {Biu Gee} teaches us how to generate force by use of the same conduit we developed an understanding of in Chum Kiu, the Kinetic Chain, from the perspective of how to issue that force.
2. Biu Gee teaches us how to accelerate the force issuing from our Kinetic Chain using weight shifts, torque, torsion and sequential acceleration.

Here again. that is it, all she wrote. If we can develop an innate understanding of the two simple Biu Gee factors, combine them intuitively with the 4 previous factors we now have 90% of the Wing Chun knowledge.

The final 10% is the refinement of what we know, there is nothing else to learn.

The next 5 – 10 – 20 years are about refining and owning the IDEA through combining the three forms into one.

Go outside and throw a ball, it can be a tennis ball, soccer ball or rugby ball, observe yourself closely, all of the factors we are talking about are there in that simple well-known action.

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”

– Theodore Roosevelt