Self-correction is only possible if we understand the function of the shapes and positions that we are referencing.
First and foremost, Forms are not about movement.
It is easy to think that they are because we are moving as we do them.
Forms are about establishing “Directional Cues” in our practice that can be developed into practical actions that may perhaps look and feel like nothing we have worked on in training, but will never the less be influenced and informed by the training we have done.
It is the “Cues” that are important and not the shape or movements of the Forms.
What “directional Cues” are we getting from the Forms when we do them?
By “Directional Cues” I mean what are the relationships that the movement of the Forms are making us aware of?
“Cues” are reference positions, reference positions between Wing Chun philosophy and practical usage.
We will never use anything from the Forms in the way that we do them, this should be obvious, but the IDEAS behind these movements we should be able to transpose them to other shapes, other situations.
It is the Cues inside the Forms that we should be researching and spending our time on and not the Form itself.
For example, Taan Sau is a reference position for when I intercept an incoming strike and not a methodology.
Self-correction is only possible if we understand the function of the shapes and positions that we are referencing.
I cannot stress enough how important the whole building of the chassis is, especially as we move forwards into Chum Kiu and Biu Gee.
Hi Guys,
If there is anything that you would like me to do a video on. anything you would like to go over from training drop me a note and if it is possible I will do it.
This initiative is for you lot, after all, I already know this stuff.
William asked me if I could do a video of the Dummy Form, unfortunately this is not possible without assistance from someone that also knows the Dummy Form, sorry William.
I cannot stress enough how important the whole building of the chassis is, especially as we move forwards into Chum Kiu and Biu Gee.
If in any doubt what to do just learn how to move a bit easier, a bit smoother, a bit Cat-Like.
I hope everyone is healthy, staying at home as much as possible and doing some training.
When I was filming this blog, Saturday 28th at 0830 there was so much air traffic from Bankstown airport, so much more than usual, there are some stupid people out there.
If in any doubt what to do just learn how to move a bit easier, a bit smoother, a bit Cat-Like.
As always get in touch with me if you have any questions about this or anything Wing Chun related.
To put it another way, 99% correct is 100% incorrect.
To get any long term benefit from Forms training we need to be able to develop good focus, we need to pay attention.
If our focus is split then we will make very poor progress, mentally prepare yourselves to do the work, clear your head, sit down with a cup of tea or coffee and spend 30 minutes thinking about what you are going to do before beginning.
One thing to think about is exactly when does something change from being correct to be incorrect?
My first job was as an apprentice Toolmaker, an Engineer, when we made something it always had a tolerance level between acceptance and throw it in the bin, usually give or take a couple of “thousands of an inch”.
.001 tolerance, one-tenth of one per cent.
If something is 1% incorrect it is completely incorrect.
1% incorrect is the equivalent of 99% correct.
To put it another way, 99% correct is 100% incorrect.
Focus on just what you are doing.
I will also post this video and all future videos on the ISOLATION TRAINING ADVICE PAGE to make it easy to find if you wish to review it.
Feel free to comment or even contact me if you need anything clarified.
What we think of as six Forms are better seen as two different presentations of the one “Little Idea”.
Hi Guys,
I have not been able to do the videos I promised to do as I have unfortunately pulled the muscles in the side of my neck and the rear of my shoulder that is stopping me from holding my head straight.
I will be doing some videos as soon as my neck/shoulder allows but in the meantime here is some food for thought.
In this time of self-isolation, the only access we can have to Wing Chun is through the Forms.
What we think of as six Forms are better seen as two different presentations of the one “Little Idea”.
The first three Forms present as Information, the second three Forms present as Application.
What most people refer to as the Sil Lim Tao Form is in fact only the “A” Section of the Sil Lim Tao Form, Chum Kiu is the “B” Section and Biu Gee the “C” Section.
Only on completion of the Biu Gee set have we seen all of the components of the Sil Lim Tao Form.
The Dummy, the Knives and the Pole are three semi-practical methods/constructions for exploring the “Little Idea” with a more physical agenda.
Seeing the S.L.T. Chum Kiu and Biu Gee as different levels of the same thing makes it easier to understand the unified nature of Wing Chun and from there to engage in deconstruction and reconstruction which is the only way we can coax them into life.
Break them down and build them up better than before.
To do this we need to have a deep understanding of what the Forms are, how they fit in the system, what the critical components are and how they inter-relate.
During this awkward time, we have a chance to really engage with the Bio-mechanical aspects of the Wing Chun body without the distraction of trying to solve aggressive physical problems in that thing we call training.
If we can all get into this it will save everyone years of stumbling in the dark.
It should not be too long before I can film but in the meantime, I will put up the new page and populate it with some of my previous videos.
We do this by sourcing good quality information from reliable sources.
Hi Guys.
It looks certain that at some time soon we will all need to isolate ourselves in the face of Covid – 19, the Carona virus.
The question that arises is how do we maintain our training without supervision, how do we prevent ourselves from undoing all of our good work?
There are numerous answers to this question but first and foremost the best way forwards is to improve our knowledge.
We do this by sourcing good quality information from reliable sources.
This immediately disqualifies most Martial Art / Wing Chun promoters, {including me if you are not one of my students and up to speed with my thinking and methodology} at best all it can bring is confusion.
Most Martial Art / Wing Chun promoters are just advertising their product, a very large amount of what is sold as Wing Chun on the Internet is rubbish that will not work.
I hate to inform you of this but you cannot use the Law of Attraction to learn how to fight, I have been a Chef since 1970 and something I know is that you cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs.
Over the next few days, I will put together a number of short videos with suggestions on what to do if there is no training available, fun things that will advance your ability and teach new skills at the same time.
Not boring pointless advice like “Just do the Form”.
These geometric concepts of Wing Chun are presented in relatively fixed positions and shapes congruent with their respective Forms but they need to translate to all Forms
We had a great nights training on Monday, it was very theory-heavy but all the guys were up for it so it was a real eye-opener and very enjoyable as the teacher.
This post is, on the whole, a memory aid for my guys to go back and refresh their thinking because there was way too much information to take in in one evening.
Theory can be dry, and it is always tricky because only people with genuine fighting experience understand that theory and reality are in no way related, so we mixed it up with a lot of live contacts to feel the IDEA.
Of equal importance, we worked hard on creating a language to describe the work that we could all understand.
One of if not the first theory we encounter is “Centreline Theory”.
What is a centreline?
The definition of a Centreline is a line that bisects a plane.
The Wing Chun Centreline bisects the Coronal or Frontal plane of our body dividing us into left and right sides.
An imaginary line connecting ourselves to an opponent is not a centre-line, this is a common misunderstanding that leads people down the wrong path, in theory, our Centreline acts like a plane {Sagitalplane} extending forwards so it is easy to see how this confusion arises.
The use of the term Centre-line for a line from person to person is a misnomer it would be easier to grasp if we called it centre plane.
If this is confusing ask yourself “If a line from myself to my opponent is a centreline, what plane is it the centre of? What and where are the two halves”?
This may seem like a triviality but if we do not understand what a Centreline is how can we understand Centreline Theory?
This line that our perception creates that we think links us to an opponent can be anything we want it to be because it does not exist, I like to think of it as the line of mass, this IDEA can tie into other aspects of our strategy and theory.
Line of Mass is just a name we came up with on the night, if it does not work for you pick a different name, just not Centreline.
The reason I chose Line of mass is that irrespective of what type of movement is being used the opponent’s body mass follows this line, and as for ourselves, this is how we promote our body mass toward an attacker even as we appear to be avoiding an attack or moving away.
Then there is the attack- line, this is a line that runs fro the shoulder or the hip of an attacker in toward us.
An opponents attack aways finishes at a point on this line, even from a wildly swinging punch or kick, redirecting this line, and not the arm/fist/weapon using this line is the purpose of our defensive manoeuvres.
Intercepting the attack line and not the arm/leg is the most effective way to defend.
Chi Sau helps us identify and understand this and it also shows us how to create diagonal movement by the use of circular arm motion and curved arm paths.
The proximal to distal {in to out} direction of our action is always in a straight line even from a curved movement, i.e. Bong Sau travels in a straight line.
Try to not confuse straight with being parallel or perpendicular to an external reference point.
Single Arm Chi Sau essentially moves or redirects an intercepted attack-line up and down on our centre-line.
Double Arm Chi Sau moves or redirects an attack-line from the “inside gate” out to the periphery of our structure or from the outside of our structure into our centre effectively breaking both the attack-line and the line of mass of our attacker.
In a real-world application, we would combine a little of both IDEAs, for example in toward the CL and down or out away from the CL and up.
In a poorly trained person, the attack-line is rarely separated from the line of mass.
As a Wing Chun fighter on the attack, we cannot maximise our output if we do not understand the geometry and how to combine the line of mass with the attack-line while at the same time creating torque through “muscular” rotation.
These geometric concepts of Wing Chun are presented in relatively fixed positions and shapes congruent with their respective Forms but they need to translate to all Forms, all planes and directions of action, this is the heart of the work.
This is one of the principal learning objectives of Chum Ku, understanding how to support the actions {arm shapes} with our body mass as we make contact with an opponent.
Anything that makes contact with an opponent in any way, either defending or attacking creates a bridge and as such is Chum Kiu.
The following video is not the best I have ever done if you are a visitor I apologise, for us INCas it is a fairly accurate representation of what we worked on all week, I will repost it to the BODYWORK page so you can revisit easily.
“Once your opponent moves, his centre of gravity changes”.
I have said on many occasions that I am not a Wing Chun disciple, rather I am a Martial Artist that studies Wing Chun.
This allows me to explore outside of the box, allows me to step into the 21st century, embrace advances we all know are out there.
It seems to me that the average Wing Chun student would rather go backward than forward, new IDEAs are looked at as blasphemy, as a result, there is not a great deal of love for boat-rockers.
A great deal of this discord stems from the fact that we have no “Official Bible”, the closest we have is the Kuen Kuit, and even this gets translated differently by different lineages with different agendas, and now there is “Internal Wing Chun” yet another pointless bifurcation that does nothing but muddy the water.
Like it or not the only link back to the old ones is the Kuen Kuit.
Here is as good a song to sing as any others…
“Once your opponent moves, his centre of gravity changes”.
This is obviously correct and well noted because once any Human Being moves, their centre of gravity changes.
Even a Wing Chun Man.
It is up to us if this works for us or against us.
Many Wing Chun people say that Chi Sau is nothing like Tai Chi ‘Push Hands’, they say ‘Push Hands’ is not real and Chi Sau is, but of course they are the same, if not brothers close cousins.
This is just some free-thinking that I have come to from studying W.C. for many years.
Reading in between the lines and using comparisons I have always had the feeling that something was possibly missing in Wing Chun when compared to other styles I have studied.
As any Wing Chun person will tell you Wing Chun is a ‘Counter Attacking’ Fist Style of Kung Fu, keeping this description front and centre we find that several sequences in our Forms do not fit with the image of a ‘Counter Attacking’ Fist Style, especially in the Biu Giu.
The standard explanation that these BiuGee anomalies is that they are ‘Emergency Techniques’ makes no sense at all, this sounds like a lame excuse for not having a suitable answer.
In my more than 25 years in Wing Chun I have had the help and advice of some of my lineages top masters, my own Sifu Jim Fung, his Sifu Chu Shong Tin, C.S.Ts senior students Mo Chiu Po and Peter Wong, on many occasions my questions about the impracticality of certain aspects fo the Forms were met with the response that these are just exercises, or preliminary movements leading to the next Form.
But this flies in the face of Wing Chun’s innate Fist Logic, Wing Chun is supposed to be all business, nothing unnecessary, practical and direct, a true fighting art.
I have heard many senior people scoff at styles like Tai Chi and Ba Gua saying they are all flowery movement and no substance, claiming that Wing Chun has nothing like this.
But it appears we may after all.
The only possible alternative is that something has been either lost or removed.
Why does Wing Chun have no grappling concepts?
If we are honest Chi Sau has very little to do with fist fighting and a lot to do with grappling.
It is easy to imagine that someone like Yip Man, a gentleman of particularly small stature and minimum body mass would lean away from an aspect of the style that did not favour him, and develop only the stand-up fist fighting aspect.
Being a wealthy young man from a wealthy Foshan family I very much doubt Yip Man foresaw the need to teach his fighting style before the Chinese Civil War of 1927, so he would not have felt any requirement to learn an aspect he would never master.
Foshan was a melting pot of Chinese Kung Fu and as such styles would frequently test each other in public exhibition bouts, styles such as {Southern} Praying Mantis, Hung Gar, Tiger Claw, Leung Ying {Southern Dragon Kung Fu}, Bak Mei, Fujian White Crane, Choy Li Fut these were all popular styles and they all contain elements of grappling from joint locking {Qin Na} to takedowns/throws {Shuai Jiao}, it is hard to imagine any style existing in this environment without some grappling.
Although I cannot be sure I am pretty certain that there would have been some northern Kung Fu in Foshan, some Shaolin or Tong Bei and of course some Tai Chi, and with that ‘Push Hands’ would have come south.
If we explore the Biu Gee Form from the perspective of the moves being to help grappling, most if not all of the ill-fitting IDEAS begin to make sense and come to life.
Many Wing Chun people say that Chi Sau is nothing like Tai Chi ‘Push Hands’, they say ‘Push Hands’ is not real and Chi Sau is, but of course they are the same, if not brothers close cousins.
‘Push Hands is all about body manipulation and issuing of force. If you have ever played ‘Push Hands’ with someone that has the skill you would never doubt its functionality, Chi Sau with force issuing instead of force redirection is a subtle yet powerful form of grappling that does not require great physical strength.
Why would Leung Jan have created Chi Sau to be so one dimensional when ‘Push Hands’ was well known to Chinese people from the 17th Century, 200 years before Leung Jan and 300 years before Yip Man?
