CHOOSING THE RIGHT STICK.

We are not people learning to use Wing Chun, we are people choosing Wing Chun to learn how to use ourselves.

Everything will work to a certain extent, and everything will fail to a certain extent.

Becoming capable is about 3 things.

Understanding how our body works

Understanding our styles philosophy, our ‘FIST LOGIC’

Understanding how to build a bridge between the two.

Because if we ever find ourselves in a violent situation…

… it will be on that bridge.

We are not people learning to use Wing Chun, we are people choosing Wing Chun to learn how to use ourselves.

Asking will my Martial art work is a little bit like asking will this stick work?

It will if you know how to use it, and are willing to use it.

There is a joke here in Oz. 

Q. What do you call a Boomerang that does not come back?

A. A stick.

The moral of this tale is choosing the right stick.

Whenever we talk about interacting with another Human Being, be it in a violent situation or otherwise, and especially if we are giving suggestions on how to interact with another Human Being, we should always prefix the statement with “It depends”.

So when our Combat Athlete cousins say that our training sucks, we need to approach it from the position of “it depends’.

Because sometimes it does, and we do not even realise this.

Especially if the approach is that of the Mind leading the Body, as it is with much of Kung Fu.

The Tai Chi Classics tell us that “where the Mind leads, the Chi follows’, and my own teacher would say that the ultimate expression of Wing Chun is when the Mind does the work.

Modern advances in medical imaging, especially in the area of Magnetic Resonance imaging, have shown which areas of the brain are stimulated in response to physical pain, which essentially is the same as any physical sensation such as making contact,.

The results leave us without doubt that it is the Body that influences the Brain and not the other way around, this is important because it shines a light on the fact that what we think we are doing is not what is happening, and how we react to this experience, the ‘Take Away’ so to speak [ in a training environment this can be viewed as what we think we are learning] is often the opposite of what we think will happen.

This is a huge, complex subject, but relatively easy to wrap our heads around, that I will go into at a later date.

Understanding this is the difference between choosing a Boomerang or choosing a Stick.