Doing any Form is a kind of dancing, without a goal it is pointless, when we know what we are looking for we will instinctively find it in any Form, in every Form.
It was 17 years ago this month that my Sifu shuffled off to the great Kwoon in the sky, a great loss of a great man.
He is missed.
Something he would often ask me as I was standing doing the S.L.T. Form was “What are your Ankles doing at this moment”?
At first this really baffled me but after many conversations it became clear that he was reminding me not to be in any one part of my body at any one time, but to aim to be in all of my body all of the time.
This of course is an aspect of the “IDEA”, and a component of Sil Lim Tao training.
A trap I would fall into when he asked me this was to change my focus to my Ankles and as such be making the same error.
Since his passing, and the creation of my own school, this is something I try to pass on to you guys, and, just like my Sifu with me, I have no easy answers for you, no shortcuts or hints.
Only the FORM.
But do you know how to use the Form to improve capability?
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the poet, the author of The Little Prince, a hero fighter pilot who perished in World War II had this to say to us.
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks or to do work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”
Doing any Form is a kind of dancing, without a goal it is pointless, when we know what we are looking for we will instinctively find it in any Form, in every Form.
Do not waste your time and effort building ships, instead, yearn for the open sea, our incredible brain will then set about building ships.
In the video with this post may be difficult to see the point of what we are doing, after all effortless power is easy so it does not clearly show up, with this in mind watch how little everybody is effected when they do stuff.
Effortless power is achieved by transferring as much of our body mass/kinetic force as possible into the target, any kind of recoil effect that results from an action is a sharing of that body mass/kinetic force, no recoil is a sign that all of the body mass/kinetic force was transferred into the target.
Moving at speed increases momentum that in turn increases the force applied, moving slowly is simply the first of many baselines that can be scaled up.
The first baseline, i.e.moving slowly, if performed correctly will transfer the static body weight of the person punching, all of these guys are over 80kg, so these slow punches are the equivalent of being hit with 4 bags of concrete.
“A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment we contemplate it bearing within us the image of a Cathedral”.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Wing Chun Sydney, Australia 