Category: FIST LOGIC

Engaging in this kind of mental exercise allows us to step away from what have come to think as reality.

It is almost scary how much these old post echos what we did this past Saturday, using the Wing Chun Fist logic of Economy of movement this is a re-post and not a rewrite.

When we are confronted by abstract IDEAs that we struggle to adequately explain we use the mental tool of an analogy using the description of something we understand at some level to stand in for another completely different thing.

Such as seeing our body as a grove of bamboo that bends and sways with the wind instead of resisting it to imagine how to handle incoming force.

Or in the way the Shaolin Monks crafted their movements after different animals, this is also a kind of analogy.

Tiger, Crane, Leopard, Snake, and Dragon are all essentially the same Kung Fu, the same preparation, the same conditioning, the same body-work it is only their inspiration of how to use their Kung Fu that differs.

Tiger style relies on brute force and upper body strength, Leopard style is defined by fast attacks targeting soft tissues, pressure points, and vital areas, Crane style is more of an evasive style, Snake style relies on speed and intimidation and finally Dragon style, which combines traits of the other four animals. 

The chosen movement style of any monk is a reflection of the physical analogy they most relate to and of course, that choice is fueled by their imagination, fueled by how well they can visualise and internalise the analogy.

It is not that big a stretch to say that all Kung Fu is the same body-work and that only the individual analogies separate them, we all begin with the same blank canvas.

In the more word-centric western thinking, we do well to replace the IDEA of analogy with the IDEA of strategy.

In this way, there is only one martial Style with many ways to use it, which means we can learn from a multitude of sources.

Setting up the body, understanding how to maintain the set-up when moving and changing shapes are the core of the training, how and where we use that training is dictated by our chosen strategy/analogy.

Things get a bit wacky when we look into this way of training, there is a need to suspend our chosen reality and view everything as a movie, later on we can decide what the movie was about.

Movie #1.
A twig on a river, the twig moves but the river stays in the same place.
Our arms are the twig, our body is the river.

Movie #2.
A Fire Hose, no matter how much water is gushing out of the hose nozzle, the hose is always full.
Our hands are the water, our body is the hose.

Movie #3.
Our Body is a Spider Web, it is not possible to only move one part of the web, it all moves together no matter what part we move.

Engaging in this kind of mental exercise allows us to step away from what we have come to think of as reality, step away from the rules that govern it, and get closer to seeing things as they are.

Before we get all Carlos Castaneda stay connected to the FACT that at the centre of all Shaolin Fighting Moks training was Dhyāna/Chan/Zen – a state of being, an IDEA, they were always trying to be in the moment and to understand themselves as men, they were never trying to be animals.

Engaging in out-of-our-head thinking can be more than beneficial in so many ways…

BUT…

…At the end of the day, 2 + 2 must always equal 4.

It is good to keep an open mind, but not so open that our brain falls out.

The universe is founded in symmetry, unification through symmetry, the fundamental theme of Mother Nature, all of the forces of the universe combine to form simpler structures, unifying them through a simple symmetry.

What is simpler than being ourselves?

Unification through symmetry is the theme of the universe.

The governing paradigm of the whole universe is symmetry.

The things we can learn from STANCES and FORMS are so deeply important that they are beyond value.

This post was only put up a few weeks ago but I would like us all to revisit it as I am planning on taking a deep dive into ‘FUNDAMENTALS’ in the very near future. It would be a good idea to revisit https://wordpress.com/post/wingchunsydney.com/2252 as well.

Anyone with fighting experience, especially ‘Street fighting’ experience, will tell you that there are ‘NO STANCES’ in a fight.

A stance is a perfect Idea, an ideal shape and position that we benefit from being as close to as we can be.

The reason for this is explained by the ‘THEORY OF THE CONSERVATION OF MOMENTUM’.

In practice, we only ever move into a stance or out of a stance, yet all the action happens in the space between these points.

STANCES and FORMS share the same confusion, we spend a great deal of time and energy training them but in the end, we will never use them.

This is a paradox of cosmic proportions.

This is why it is so difficult to get beginning students to engage in a meaningful way, even students with zero fighting experience know instinctively that STANCES and FORMS have no practical value.

The first confusion we come across is that although we train them statically they are in fact transitional shapes that we move into or out of.

The things we can learn from STANCES and FORMS are so deeply important that they are beyond value.

How we resolve this importance from a purely personal perspective will determine the quality of most if not all of our Martial Actions.

Stances should be looked as being still points in a progressive movement, and not specific shapes and locations.

If it was available back in 1860 Doctor Leung Jan would have simply used ‘Time Lapse Photography’ and completely ignored the path of STANCES and FORMS.

Despite Stances being static they are an exploration of Human Movement, allowing us to look in detail at how our body is set up at different points in a possible progression.

Most importantly starting points and finishing points, but they can also function as a fault-finding method if we are not hitting the end stance position correctly when we move through a certain sequence.

When we look at Stances in relation to Forms we see a suggestion of how we would/could connect a start point Stance to an endpoint Stance.

Adding otherworldly importance or abilities to STANCES and FORMS has definite entertainment value if someone is a ‘Hobbyist’, but being involved in any kind of thinking that is not ‘RIGHT HERE-RIGHT NOW’ can only be detrimental to an aspiring Martial Artist.

We can only become the Martial Artist that we hope to be in 2,3 or 5 years by understanding and being the Martial Artist that we are today.

And we can only become that person by understanding the training we are doing today.

A General Theory of Fighting Arts becomes grounded in Human Movement and not, as it so often is, ‘Esoteric Ideology’.

 The General Theory of Fighting Arts is a term widely used to try to get students to identify the mutual movements of all martial styles, and the alignment with most dynamic sports.

One thing we have all been told, and if we are talking to beginners or non Wing Chun people often repeat is that ‘Wing Chun movement is based on normal human body movement’.

I do not think that students give enough credence to this statement, that ‘Wing Chun movement is based on normal human body movement’.

It gets treated as if it is just some sort of cagey advertising spin just as many Instructors still claim that Wing Chun was invented by a woman, a device to encourage smaller, less athletic men to take up Wing Chun instead of a rival code.

But Wing Chun IS based on normal human body movements.

If we approach the work from this perspective and look at what is presented and how it is presented, we see a pattern emerge, that in the progression of the FORMS, as we move from the first Form to Chum Kiu and then Biu Gee, this progression is nothing more than the introduction of more complex movement for people not familiar with this way of moving.

This approach more than likely had merit back in 1860s Foshan but today, due to the average sporting curriculum of most western schools every 12-year-old child is familiar with these moves.

A very large proportion of what is introduced through the Forms is simply unnecessary, at least from the point of view of controlling our body.

Do not get me wrong, the FORMS are needed for other reasons so I am not suggesting abandonment.

But we can easily be moving at a level that is needed for any aspect of the work be it the Dummy, the Pole or the Knives if we put more practice and focus into moving better as a Human.

Take any movement or action from any sport, especially a throwing or bat and ball sport, and you will find the moves somewhere in the Form.

 A General Theory of Fighting Arts becomes grounded in Human Movement and not, as it so often is, ‘Esoteric Ideology’.

This week spend some quality time exploring the similarities between Martial Movement, Sports and Dancing, once you see how they amalgamate, consolidate and integrate FORMS become a secondary consideration. 

IMAGINE, MANIFEST AND WORK ON THE IDEA OF THE FRAME.

And while you a re at it put some minutes into the MAGNIFICENT SEVEN.

Here they are, and here is a recap.

WHEN YOU UNDERSTAND, THINGS ARE JUST THE WAY THEY ARE.

WHEN YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND, THINGS ARE JUST THE WAY THEY ARE.

Simplification of information requires that at some point we need to be overcomplicated and moderately confused.

We all know that Wing Chun is a concept based Martial Art that is based around the Sil Lim Tao.

The ‘small thought or little idea’.

But what exactly is that?

After 30 years of training, I have concluded that the Sil Lim Tao as a concept is a Chinese equivalent of the ‘Law of Parsimony’.

Simplification of information requires that at some point we need to be overcomplicated and moderately confused.

We better get started is all I can say.

The IDEA of the ‘FRAME’ as a virtual reality 3-dimensional construct that we constantly use as our method of representing points in a space of given dimensions by internal physical coordinates. may sound a bit whacky at first but it is simple, quite elegant and readily accessible to anyone with any imagination.

Over the coming weeks I will attempt to expand and simplify the whole IDEA of building and working from the FRAME as opposed to using more common, physical or mechanical means.

This methodology is central not only to Wing Chun but to most other Martial Arts, all sport or any form of movement technology that is intended to be functional such as dance or acrobatics.

Stability is having control of the body while we are moving or being affected by an outside influence.

Movement is born from stillness. Movement is the death of stillness.

This is a self-evident statement overlooked during training, especially in the pursuit of Stability.

Balance and Stability are frequently used interchangeably, I plead guilty to that myself, but they are two very different things.

Balance is having control of our body under the influence of gravity alone. Essentially standing still.

Stability is having control of the body while we are moving or being affected by an outside influence.

Think of it this way…

While practising the First Form, our body is still and we can work on being aware of what it means to be in balance.

While practising Chum Ku our body is moving, our balance is effectively surrendered but working on maintaining the connections of our body brings about stability.

Stance training is about working on these connections, understanding them, internalising them.

Things to look for and explore during stance training are conditions such as…

Where is our ‘Line of Gravity’?
Where is our ‘Centre of Gravity’?
Where is my ‘Lower Tantien?
Where is my ‘Middle Tantien’?
What is the relationship of each of these to each other
Are we in ‘Balance’?

Moving or transitioning from one ‘Stance’ to another ‘Stance’, which is what we are doing as we play Chum Kiu, requires that we ask ourselves the same set of questions as we move.
Where is our ‘Line of Gravity’?
Where is our ‘Centre of Gravity’?
Where is my ‘Lower Tantien?
Where is my ‘Middle Tantien’?
What is the relationship of each of these to each other?
How is the alignment of my feet to my ‘Lower Tantien’?
how is the alignment of my Arms to my ‘Middle Tantien’?

And of course, once we arrive at/in our new ‘Stance” we ask once more…

Where is our ‘Line of Gravity’?
Where is our ‘Centre of Gravity’?
Where is my ‘Lower Tantien?
Where is my ‘Middle Tantien’?
What is the relationship of each of these to each other?
Are we in ‘Balance’?

If we choose to stop a movement mid-transition, something I recommend, this becomes a ‘Stance’ and we begin the test again.

Hitting each other, doing drills and playing Chi Sau are fun games to prevent boredom and stagnation.

Stance training is where the ‘Gold’ is.

We started with a truth that sounds like a cliché, so let us also end with one…

Moving quickly evolves from smoothness. Soothness evolves from moving slowly.

Learn the form, but seek the formless.

Learn it all, then forget it all.

Learn The Way, then find your own way.

The illustration above could very well be someone throwing a punch.

Monday evening I was working on Sequential Acceleration and Summation of Forces with Saleh, it is important to understand that in Wing Chun the overall instruction of correct movement is scattered throughout the Sil Lim Tao { the complete S.L.T. Containing Chum Kiu and Biu Gee}, no single part of the Form has all of the pieces, some assembly is required.

Separate aspects of Chum Kiu and Biu Gee introduce all of the mechanical IDEAS for shifting our weight both inside our frame and through space that is later mixed and matched through the Dummy, the Knives and the Pole to give us a more complete view.

The illustration above could very well be someone throwing a punch, all it needs is to adjust for a more vertical spine.

The exercise usually equated with pre-Long Pole training is the culmination of all of our moving mechanisms and the closest we get to practical Martial movement.

Summation of Forces.

The combination of forces produced by different parts of the human body. When a person is moving or attempting to move an object, several different parts of the body act together to maximize the force. In theory, force summation occurs when all body parts act simultaneously In practice, the strongest and lowest body parts around the centre of gravity (e.g. trunk and thighs) move first, followed by the weaker, lighter, and faster extremities. This is known as sequential acceleration and results in successive force summation. To obtain a maximum force, summation also needs sequential stabilization of body parts, with some body parts having to be fixed at stable points while other parts produce the effective forces. OXFORD DICTIONARY OF SPORT.

THE ONLY WAY TO BE A BETTER MARTIAL ARTIST IN 3, 5 OR10 YEARS IS TO UNDERSTAND THE MARTIAL ARTIST WE ARE TODAY.

Everything we do, everything we train for is contact with either an incoming strike or an available target. And for that we need STABILITY.

In a one on one conflict, the aim is to affect our opponent more than they affect us, hopefully, before they affect us.

It becomes a bit of a no-brainer that everything we do must affect our opponent.

If my arms are still moving, I have not yet made contact with my opponent.

If I have not made contact with my opponent, I am not affecting them at all.

As counter-intuitive as it may appear, what we do is all about stopping.

Or to be more accurate, forcing our opponent into stopping our strike or interception with their body.

Everything we do, everything we train for is contact with either an incoming strike or an available target. And for that we need STABILITY.

Somehow this gets overlooked to the point of almost being ignored.

This is where STANCES live.

Once we spend some time working and thinking about stances, perhaps even begin to understand them a little, we see our Forms in a different light.

Forms become a way of practising how to move out of one stance and into another.

A method of transitioning from one position of stability to another position of stability.

This is the beginning of the “Little Idea”.

Each section of our body, Arms, Legs, Torso examined through the first, second and third forms respectively.

Stances provide Stability, Forms introduce Mobility, Stability is at the opposite end of a sliding scale from Mobility.

In a real situation, we will be using an amalgamation of IDEAs from all aspects of the Sil Lim Tao.

We can only become the Martial Artist that we hope to be in 2,3 or 5 years by understanding and being the Martial Artist that we are today.

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The things we can learn from STANCES and FORMS are so deeply important that they are beyond value.

Anyone with fighting experience, especially ‘Street fighting’ experience, will tell you that there are ‘NO STANCES’ in a fight.

A stance is a perfect Idea, an ideal shape and position that we benefit from being as close to as we can be.

The reason for this is explained by the ‘THEORY OF THE CONSERVATION OF MOMENTUM’.

In practice, we only ever move into a stance or out of a stance, yet all the action happens in the space between these points.

STANCES and FORMS share the same confusion, we spend a great deal of time and energy training them but in the end, we will never use them.

This is a paradox of cosmic proportions.

This is why it is so difficult to get beginning students to engage in a meaningful way, even students with zero fighting experience know instinctively that STANCES and FORMS have no practical value.

The first confusion we come across is that although we train them statically they are in fact transitional shapes that we move into or out of.

The things we can learn from STANCES and FORMS are so deeply important that they are beyond value.

How we resolve this importance from a purely personal perspective will determine the quality of most if not all of our Martial Actions.

Stances should be looked as being still points in a progressive movement, and not specific shapes and locations.

If it was available back in 1860 Doctor Leung Jan would have simply used ‘Time Lapse Photography’ and completely ignored the path of STANCES and FORMS.

Despite Stances being static they are an exploration of Human Movement, allowing us to look in detail at how our body is set up at different points in a possible progression.

Most importantly starting points and finishing points, but they can also function as a fault-finding method if we are not hitting the end stance position correctly when we move through a certain sequence.

When we look at Stances in relation to Forms we see a suggestion of how we would/could connect a start point Stance to an endpoint Stance.

Adding otherworldly importance or abilities to STANCES and FORMS has definite entertainment value if someone is a ‘Hobbyist’, but being involved in any kind of thinking that is not ‘RIGHT HERE-RIGHT NOW’ can only be detrimental to an aspiring Martial Artist.

We can only become the Martial Artist that we hope to be in 2,3 or 5 years by understanding and being the Martial Artist that we are today.

And we can only become that person by understanding the training we are doing today.

We become familiar with the Body Being by creating and observing Feedback Loops.

In a nutshell, the ‘LITTLE IDEA’ is about understanding how to develop/build/create the condition/shape we are after and then learning how to use it.

This aspect is often referred to as the MIND/BODY CONNECTION, but it is primarily about being a BODY.

BEING a better body than we are today, BEING a better human being.

HUMAN BEING – HUMAN BODY – BODY BEING.

To aid clarity when we are talking about experiencing the Mind and Body working together we can refer to this unity as ‘BODY BEING’.

BODY BEING is a manifestation of self-awareness.

Physical leading Mental.

Inner leading Outer.

We cannot “BE” something we are not aware of, something we do not know about.

We become familiar with the Body Being by creating and observing Feedback Loops.

AS ALWAYS…

WORK ON YOUR WEAKNESS’, PLAY TO YOUR STRENGTH.

Does the value lay in the act of the practice or the product of the practice’?

What is Mind Boxing?

First off it is an actual style of Kung Fu, named Yi Quan.

Yi Quan derives its name from a training method that is an intrinsic aspect of all Southern Fist Styles.

Outside of Yi Quan ‘Mind Boxing’ is a term used for a group of methodologies that unite the Mental and Physical into a combined new and superior whole.

This revolves around Chi Kung alongside that of martial techniques.

Although I have practised {minimally} the internal Kung Fu styles of Bagua Zhang, Xing Yi and I have also spent significant time on Ba Duan Jin Chi Kung.

I cannot say that I believe in the cultivation or application of Chi, but there is little doubt that something is going on that is of great value to a martial artist.

Something I find interesting is that many if not all of the early civilisations had some kind of energy work, but only the Chinese talk of it as being a physical power generator.

There are some subtle but intriguing variations in the Global Practice.

The Shaman of the Yaqui Indians of New Mexico advise keeping the hands closed to avoid energy spilling out, and then the Mongolian Shaman advises to keep or hands open so that the energy can come in.

Apart from this, the systems are very similar in thought and process to Chinese Chi Kung.

What do we make of this?

There is no doubt that we can ‘excite’ areas of our body by directing our attention to that place, relax our muscles with just our thoughts and send blood to our extremities by breathing, but I am pretty sure we could do that anyway, we just did not notice.

The big question is…

Does the value lay in the act of the practice or the product of the practice’?

Let me reiterate that I am not doubting that there is value.

Is it Intent or Intention?

The explosion of money in professional sport over the last century has also brought an equal explosion into sports-related research, and created the fields of ‘Sports Science’, and ‘Sports Medicine’.

And with it ‘Sports Psychologists’, Muscular-skeletal specialists, Physical therapists and an ever-increasing list of allied disciplines.

21st Century Sports Shamans?

There are several areas were the work of the ancient Shaman is verified by our modern-day Shaman.

But no-one can find verifiable existence of Chi.

As I say I am not doubting that there is something going on, but what?

I believe that the juncture is the Neuro Biometric Boundry that controls all Physical movement, we are essentially rewiring or even reprogramming our brain.

As close as the old sifus were they just did not know what we know today, they were correct in thinking that the work is always done on the inside from the inside

Never disengage the mind in training or you will only be training your brain to hide away from what you think you are training for.

There is much more to come from me on this topic, it is just so very difficult to articulate.