ALL IS ONE, ONE IS ALL.

This is a door that once opened cannot be closed.

James, one of my most senior students, has found himself in a place that many have found themselves in before him, work commitments and a young family make it more than just challenging to take part in regular training.

James’s solution to this problem is to buy a Mok Jan Jong so that even though he may only train with us once a month he can keep up his connection to training by working on the Dummy.

In the last two private sessions we have begun the work to understand the Mok Jan Jong Form.

Right away we hit a wall that every pre-Master before him has run into head-on.

There is no such thing as the Mok Jan Jong Form.

The Jong does not stand alone, the Dummy does not exist as a separate practice.

The dummy is an expression of everything we know about the ‘IDEA’ that is Sil Lim Tao.

It is a microcosm-macrocosm.

All is one, one is all.

This is a door that once opened cannot be closed.

This is, of course, good news.

To do any given movement on the Mok Jan Jong we must know every single movement and IDEA that makes up Wing Chun.

This is good news because it means when we perform any given movement on the Dummy, we are performing everything that is Wing Chun.

Working on the Jong requires us to start the journey over, at least from the perspective of information, of raw data.

To begin a total revision of all we know, it is at this point that we realise that the progression of Wing Chun is circular and not linear and that when we once again meet the Jong we will rinse and repeat.

 Albeit with a higher level of understanding.

Everything in Wing Chun is the Sil Lim Tao, and the Sil Lim Tao Is everything in Wing Chun.

This is the way of the small IDEA.

All into one.

On subsequent rotations, the practices and learning outcomes of Chi Sau reposition themselves, and as such their importance becomes clearer.

 We can now see that Chi Sau was a way to explore Chum Kiu.

 First, we seek the bridge, once found Chi Sau gives us IDEAS of what to do next from a defensive standpoint.

Do not carry the opponents’ weight, do not press the contact, and do not fight force.

We recognise that our first run at the dummy should have been a way to explore transitioning from Chum Kiu’s thinking of accepting force to Biu Gee’s thinking of issuing force so that the Dummy itself becomes another aspect of Chi Sau.

Looking back we see that Biu Gee showed us how to not carry the opponent’s weight, how to not press the contact, and how to not fight force.

To see a World in a Grain of Sand.

WILLIAM BLAKE