Hey, absent guys, guess what you missed?
We had a great evening training on Thursday, just the 4 of us, myself, Sam, Costas and George, as usual, we began with what could be referred to as Wing Chun fishing, we just did some random stuff, using a Boken, of all things, and drifted into Biu Gee and the Pole, as you would naturally do from this start.
Sadly, I did not turn the camera on, as I usually do, and as Murphy’s Law dictates, we had a blinder of a session.
Even to someone like myself who has understood the essence of effortless power for many years, watching what the guys were doing was a little confusing, watching as Sam holding an 11-foot p[ole with just a thumb and forefinger pushing Costas around the room, and then me being the guy on the wrong end of the pole, was a reality test.
With any handheld weapon what we are doing is absorbing the weapon into the body, in this case, the Boken and then the Pole, as such the weapon becomes part of the body and loses its separate identity, so we are only moving what we move in a Form, when this is achieved it does not matter how the weapon is gripped, or held with thumb and forefinger as in this instance, because this is not a physical act.
To reinforce this IDEA we later did the same thing but this time having the pole wedged into the shoulder or under the arm, or in the crook of the elbow, it makes little difference because it is not physical.
As insane as this may sound, this is the endgame of Wing Chun training: creating usable, practical power without overt effort by understanding natural connectedness and alignment so that every action is powered by our body mass, which of course can be magnified by any simple movement.
This is what Forms are for, this is why we train stances, not to use them as we train them but to teach us how to develop, move and maintain a correct and efficient structure.
As for not having a video, to be honest, it would not have looked like anything special, just some weird shit, so the point of this post is to get you to come into training and ask me to repeat it.
Stay frosty.
Derek.
Wing Chun Sydney, Australia 