We were told on our very first day, in fact in our first conversations, that Wing Chun is a “Concept Driven” Martial Art, based on normal human body movements.
My sifu was a somewhat traditional teacher, he would show us but was not too big on explanations, he thought we would learn more from our own discoveries than if he simply told us what to look for.
There is some merit in this approach, but not very much if I am honest, a bit of help never hurts.
A case in point is FORMS, he would bang on about how important they were and how if we did not fully understand the FORMS we would never understand Wing Chun, but then he would just leave us to our own devices to fathom what he meant.
He may have ,at least, shared that there are multiple layers of understanding, and that the least important was the physical practice.
He could have told us that the “REAL” approach to the FORMS was not physically copying traditional patterns whose main function is to introduce us to optimal ranges of motion, which is such an easy Rabbit hole to get lost down, but that it is the relationship between the core attributes of each of the FORMs that is the ‘ONLY’ information that we can ever transpose into a random violent situation.
As always, hindsight is a MOFO.
We were told on our very first day, in fact in our first conversations, that Wing Chun is a “Concept Driven” Martial Art, based on normal human body movements.
Like all of my contemporaries, I did not understand what that statement meant.
As a result, it was many, many years before I began seriously trying to understand what I was doing in the FORMS.
By now, we all know that what we do in training will never be used or repeated in a genuine violent encounter. If we sit down and think about this, it means that the physical, fun bits were not the learning objective; they were the lesson that allowed us to progress our study.
But the study of what?
When I would ask this, my Sifu would say, “Just do the FORMS and you will eventually understand”.
He was, of course, correct.
Because I do now understand, but I would have understood 20 years ago if he had simply told me told me that the “Learning Objective” is not just learn how to top the FORM, it is not even to understand the Core Attributes of each Form, but is in fact to resolve these attributes into a single IDEA.
A “Little IDEA”.
Again, hindsight is a MOFO.
When a student of any level struggles with an exercise, it soon becomes clear that they are not relating what is being done back to the relevant FORM, but when a senior struggles with an exercise it is usually due to the fact they actively relate the exercise to a FORM, and not back to an IDEA.
Something other things we see in hindsight is that it was made clear to us that Wing Chun does not use two hands for the same function; this goes in one ear and out of the other, even once we begin Chi Sau and Chum Kiu, which fly in the face of this.
Another is that each and every movement in Wing Chun comes from the FORM, and not from the individual FORMS, which deserves thinking on.
Lastly, that every single movement of every FORM is a FORM unto itself. This places the formalised patterns as a convenience to aid memory; there is no pattern, and if there is no pattern, then it stands as a given that there is no set direction of travel or order of play.
We are all different, we all think differently and come to personal conclusions, but an Epiphany for me was once I started to play my FORM PATTERNS in reverse.
This caused me such a head spin and helped me to see what I did not understand.
To a very large extent, playing the FORMS is an exercise in futility and is of no practical value, but it would not be Wing Chun if there were not a contradiction. If we do not play the FORMS, we are not even getting the message.
“Plans are of little importance, but planning is essential.”
WINSTON CHURCHILL.
Wing Chun Sydney, Australia 