NOT DANCING.

Actively working on combos is, in my opinion, just training us to be impatient.

In the Bruce Lee film ‘Enter the Dragon’ when talking about being defeated the character played by Jim Brown says “WHEN IT COMES I WON’T EVEN NOTICE, I’LL BE TO BUSY LOOKING GOOD”.

Without intention what he is referring to is that if we are looking good we will probably lose, we are just dancing, a winning physical interaction is at best messy, usually downright ugly, but most importantly, it never looks GOOD.

As madcap as it sounds, when watching a movie or video clip if it looks like it would work in a real situation, it will more than likely fail.

But we are all human and get impressed by dance moves pretending to be fighting.

But if shit happens my advice is, ’don’t dance, just fight’.

Chi Sau training, when it is valuable and practical, from the outside will always look messy and weak if it looks good it is because we are succeeding in doing something our partner cannot counter.

But that is a fighting mentality, that is us trying to do something to our opponent, great fun and a big part of the Chi Sau game, but it is also the trigger for the trap.

The thing we really want to learn is how to prevent our opponent from doing something, anything, to us.

If we can negate our partner’s attack and open them up we can do anything we want at any time, this is the core of Chi Sau training, this is understanding how to transition from being attacked.

In training exercises, we are working on implementing one specific IDEA, but if we hope to prevail against an attacker out in the wild it will need multiple IDEAS.

Skill, ability, and effectiveness are governed more by transitions than combinations.

Perform one skill correctly then rapidly transition to another skill and do that correctly, rinse and repeat.

We can only transition between skills if we see them as individual skills, and as such we must train them as individual skills.

Actively working on combos is, in my opinion, just training us to be impatient.

Looking at this video it is tempting to say that what is going on with these guys is weak, not very good W.C. and would fail if we were in trouble.

But the truth is that this is very powerful training, the guys are staying in control of their shape, and their balance, not losing their composure and not trying to win when the win is not there.

This is what wins a violent conflict, not techniques or even power.

Control ourselves, stick to the plan, and trust the work and what we know.

“Your mind is a battlefield, be its commander, not its soldier.”