Category: FIST LOGIC

All the Kung Fu movie actors, Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Donny Yen even Bruce Lee were dancers that would get owned by a genuine fighter.

The internet Martial Arts sensation that is D.K. Yoo has sadly joined the ranks of failed defenders of the Traditional Chinese Martial Arts flame.

We need to address this.

This result is no surprise as D.K.Yoo was fighting someone much younger, much heavier, and much stronger.

Also, his opponent, Bradley Scott, is a credentialed fighter and not a fellow demonstration athlete, or one of his students or awestruck visitors.

The Glass Ceiling is a real thing.

But it was D.K. Yoo’s choice, if you ask me a stupid choice.

Anybody that chooses to pit themselves against such an obviously superior opponent only has themselves to blame when things go south.

The fight was really embarrassing from the point of view of a person that respects Kung Fu.

Many inexperienced students, inexperienced with violence, look at people like D.K. Yoo and think ‘shit yeah, this is the stuff’ and feel very deflated by the result.

Don’t be.

We can still respect the movement and fluidity of D.K.Yoo, he worked hard to get where he is, his ability did not come in a show bag, but we must understand that what he does is dancing and not fighting.

All the Kung Fu movie actors, Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Donny Yen even Bruce Lee were dancers that would get owned by a genuine fighter.

Pro or street.

So would I.

So would you.

Get over it, we are not training to challenge genuine fighters.

We can gain something from this believe it or not.

We can understand that looking good is only for the bedroom.

Escaping a violent situation in one piece, which is what we are training for, ESCAPE, is more about understanding and controlling the environment we find ourselves in than physical skill.

Wing Chun is a somewhat specialised Martial Art that exists in a very specific environment/space, if we can create this environment/space Wing Chun works as well or better than most other styles.

Below is some footage from Saturday’s Junior Master training, the first thing to note is that the training is relatively slow and relatively easy.

Single Arm Chi Sau is of immense value for genuine violent encounters, much more valuable than doubles.

The aim is to be in control of what we do, moving slow and easily takes more control than rushing.

Adrenalin and the actions of your opponent dictate what speed you need to be operating at, your nervous system will understand what is needed.

When we consider that all movement is initiated by our thinking, acting fast requires us to think fast, not move fast.

Thinking fast requires a calm head and as few choices as possible.

If our head is in the right place when using these IDEAS in a violent situation everything we do will take place in a millisecond, that is the whole IDEA.

At 24 minutes this is a long video, consider it a Christmas present.

In case you live in a cave with only the N.B.N. here are some links to follow.

D.K. Yoo’s fight. Keep in mind that this is his own highlight reel, he was proud of this, and do not be put off by the fact that he looks like Freddy Mercury. Fight highlights HERE

This is a breakdown from an active M.M.A. Fighter and coach that is worth listening to, at least the first half which is par for the course with his stuff. He loves the chat. Ramsey Dewey Roast, HERE.

If in doubt, run away. D.K. Yoo.

Everything that happens to us happens because of a choice we made.

What is this thing we do?

THIS WING CHUN THING .

Before we respond, we must answer a different question. 

What do we think this thing does?

And before that, we must ask, ‘for what reason did I choose to push my Canoe down this particular stream’?

It was always OUR choice.

I have helped enough people on this journey to know, without any doubt or malice, that most people lose sight of what they want to do the moment they are told what they need to do.

Most.

Not all.

But we must not, even for a single second, place ourselves with the ‘Not all’ as opposed to the ‘Most’.

But we will.

I did.

I still do.

If we do not choose to think in this way, how do we proceed?

 How do we go forward?

This – is the WORK.

Who is at fault here?

The teacher that says ‘This is the way”?

Or the student that does not listen and so does not hear?

This – is the WORK.

As I have already said…

It was always our choice.

This is not some new age, Kung Fu Master, Zen shit.

This is not Mindfulness.

Everything that happens to us happens because of a choice we made.

It may have appeared as a small choice.

I will get the train and save the cost of Taxi.

Even smaller, I will turn left onto Goulburn Street.

A few moments later it is like that early Batman series, “Boom, Bash, Crash, Capow.”

Who created the violent situation that occurred a few moments later?

We did.

IF WE WERE NOT THERE IT WOULD NOT/COULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED.

Open your mind before employing your preferred bias.

Face it.

That other dude did not make us take the train.

That other dude did not make us turn left.

Deal with it.

Understanding this, accepting this, controlling this…

… is the WORK.

Wing Chun is just a method to use the WORK.

IN THE WORLD OF THE BLIND.

THE ONE EYED IS KING.

Wing Chun cannot be all things to all people, but if you find the right teacher it can be exactly what you need it to be.

Emerging from the Covid 19 lockdowns my understanding of the best way to teach people Wing Chun has changed dramatically.

My understanding of Wing Chun itself is unchanged, I just no longer see the value in carrying on the old method favoured by Yip Man and his disciples.

A list that by lineage includes my own Sifu.

Before Yip Man opened his first school he was just as you and I are, a Wing Chun Man carrying his teachers knowledge.

But there is serious doubt that he passed on this knowledge, at least not as he had been given it.

Yip Man changed Wing Chun to such an extent that when his two sons reunited with him after 10 years of enforced separation they did not recognise what he was teaching.

Two of Yip Man’s more renowned students, Wong Shun Leung and Chu Shong Tin made serious departures from Yip Man’s teaching to the extent that they became different enough to be looked at as separate practices.

Initially, my Sifu always taught Wing Chun the way he had been taught by his teacher Chu Shong Tin.

He was a true disciple. If there was ever any doubt during training he would refer to then defer to his Sifu.

But in 1999 he refused to change the direction of his teaching when Chu Shong Tin changed the direction of his Wing Chun.

There is nothing amiss with a Master changing his methods or his way of teaching in his own school, but we should wonder “what was left out that was originally Wing Chun, or what was added that takes things in a different direction”?

And of course, we should ask this of every Master that makes any changes.

This ultimately leads to the question ‘what is Wing Chun’?

There are well-regarded teachers that present Wing Chun as a Combat oriented Fighting Art.

There are well-regarded teachers that present Wing Chun as a Pseudo-Spiritual Self Improvement method.

There are well-regarded teachers that present Wing Chun as a Counter-Attacking Self Defence System.

Can it really be all things to all people?

History paints a very different picture of Yip Man than those silly films.

He lived in difficult times and to survive he needed to make difficult decisions.

We live in easy times, we can make easy decisions.

The first decision is to ask ‘smart questions’ of real people instead of listening to Youtubers.

The first smart question should be to ourselves and it must be “What do I want Wing Chun to be”?

Once we know this we can pose real questions to real people.

Wing Chun cannot be all things to all people, but if you find the right teacher it can be exactly what you need it to be.

The most important attribute for a Martial Artist is honesty.

We begin training in Martial Arts and as such become fledgeling Martial Artists, the moment we decide to seek training.

If we cannot be honest with ourselves, honest about what we want from the training we have no right to expect a teacher to be honest with us.

Staying the course is the most important work we can ever do, if we hope to become Masters.

HEY GUYS.

Here we are at the doorstep of the Holydays.

Normally this would just be a hiccup but this year, post Covid 19, it could morph into a projectile vomit.

And by the time we wash that sh*t off of our shoes we will be long gone and thinking of other things.

This year more than any other year we must be aware of how easy it is to simply drift off course.

As you all know I have varying amount of experience in Eight {8} Martial Arts.

So I really do know what I am talking about when I talk of losing my commitment to a goal that I previously thought was so important.

Staying the course is the most important work we can ever do, if we hope to become Masters.

BREATHE.

CHILL.

KEEP TRAINING.

Letting the Mind do the work begins with thinking about the work.

LET THE MIND DO THE WORK.
What IDEA does this statement lead us to?
There is no doubt that the mind plays a vital indeed critical part in all and any movement.

If we do not think it, it simply does not happen, quite literally.

So on one level LET THE MIND DO THE WORK could be as straightforward as being aware of what we intend to do.

INTENTION is most definitely a component, but there must be more for it to manifest itself dynamically.

All movement is the result of an impulse from our brain that informs the nervous system to move the muscles.

VIDEO

Letting the mind do the work is not Mindfulness.

Be very weary about Mindfulness, my advice is to avoid it, and any that speak it.

Letting the Mind do the work is not circulating Chi or any other esoteric IDEA.

Be very weary of talk of esoteric forces, again, avoidance is advised.

Letting the Mind do the work begins with thinking about the work and nothing else.

It begins with simply thinking anything and seeing if it resonates with the work.

The ultimate aim of training is INCLUSION.

How do we include all of the attributes of all of the FORMS into one single whole, it is only when we do this that we begin to approach what Wing Chun IS.

This is where the work begins.

This is where one movement lives.

This is the Mind thinking.

The closest we have to a working history of our style is the Kuen Kuit, a ‘Grab-Bag’ collection of training ideas and maxims created by numerous authors over different generations and situations.

Something that becomes obvious after time studying and teaching Wing Chun, is that none of the original ‘Fist Logic’ was passed down in any kind of stable or readily definable condition.

The IDEAS were passed down more like pieces of poetry than as an operating manual.

This is complicated by several magnitudes simply because we work with translations of the original ‘Fist Logic’.

Mandarin Chinese, and even more so Mandarin Chinese from before the mid-20th Century, does not translate well to English, this is the fault of English, the language is too compact and bereft of the necessary tools to accurately describe poetic nuance.

This is hampered even more because the same piece of Mandarin script can be read in different ways.

Even by native speakers.

Add to that that each speaker translates the script differently into English we end up with nothing concrete to work with.

The closest we have to a working history of our style is the Kuen Kuit, a ‘Grab-Bag’ collection of training ideas and maxims created by numerous authors over different generations and situations.

My Sifu {Jim} Fung Chuen Keung who was born and raised in Hong Kong and spoke excellent English said that even in Chinese they were not meant to be taken literally and that most of them did not make direct translations.

For instance take the maxim ‘Loy Lau Hoi Sung, Lut Sau Jik Chung’

One of if not the most pertinent of the Battle Songs.

My Sifu could translate this to be applicable to just about any situation.

Three that I can remember are

1. Stay when he comes in, follow when he goes out, break contact and attack.
2. Escort what comes in, follow what goes out, when the hands are free strike.
3. When they advance, do not retreat, when they retreat advance. Discard the hands and rush straight in.

Subtle but genuine differences can make a very big difference in understanding.

Other Maxims worth thinking on are ‘The Wing Chun Punch comes from the Heart’, add to this ‘Wing Chun does not take a backwards step‘, my reading is that this was not meant as a positioning advice or a restriction on movement but rather what we English refer to as ‘Bottle’.

There are many more, Google Kuen Kuit and pick one that spikes your interest.

Exactly what does ‘He walks the bow but I walk the string’ mean to you?

These Battle Hymns, these Maxims can of course mean anything you want them to mean, choosing what you want them to mean is how you develop your own Wing Chun.

“Out of every one hundred men, ten shouldn’t even be there, eighty are just targets, nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior, and he will bring the others back.”
Heraclitus
.

 From day one, we are told that Wing Chun does not use two hands to defend because we use ‘Simultaneous Attack and Defence’.

As we all know and tell anyone that is willing to listen, Wing Chun is a concept-driven Martial Art.

 Therefore everything we are taught is a CONCEPT.

A suggestion not a rule.

Nothing is set in stone.

This can induce bewilderment, on one side of the coin nothing is wrong, on the other side of the coin nothing is right.

It is our job to think and decide.

The decisions we make will change from one situation to another and be dependent on context.

Tricky stuff this context stuff.

At the centre of Wing Chun’s “Fist Logic” we have a number of ideas/principles that are meaningless without context.

Simplicity. What is simple for one person is impossible for someone else so what do we teach?

Practicality. We do not know if something is practical until we use it, and only then if it works and we live to tell the tale.

Economy of Movement. Is ‘continuous punching’, a mainstay of our attack, Economy of Movement?

It is a minefield.

Another pillar of our Fist logic is ‘Simultaneous Attack and Defence’.

 From day one, we are told that Wing Chun does not use two hands to defend because we use ‘Simultaneous Attack and Defence’.

And it makes perfect sense.

 Until we forget.

Wich does not take very long.

By the way, it is never pointed out but we do not use two hands to attack for the same reason.

‘Simultaneous Attack and Defence’

But then we have Chi Sau, the Chum Kiu Form, the Biu Gee Form, the Mok Jan Jong Form and the Baat Cham Dao Form all two-handed exercises.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.

There is a good reason for this two handedness, it is because even when we train we should try our best to be aware of and adhere to the Principles, to make them second nature instead of just a suggestion.

Paradoxically the principle in this instance is Economy of Movement.

We are not learning to use two-handed defences or two-handed attacks we are practising single-handed moves with each hand simultaneously, maximising our training time.

Our supervised training time, where we can learn new stuff or just get our homework marked, is a limited resource, so it is wise to maximise it.

Our solo training time is practically limitless.

Wherever possible do everything with just one hand, especially the Forms.

Think about it.

It changes everything, and it changes it for the better.

“this is the thinking, this is the shape, plug and play”.

This is a short clip from a private session I had with my student Rick.

Rick is new to Chum Kiu so it presented a perfect opportunity to change my methods from traditional approach of…

“this is the Chum Kiu Form, learn it, study it and in 10 years you may be able to use it”

…to how I think it should be taught from the perspective of Sports..

“this is the thinking, this is the shape, plug and play”.

If we can separate the primary aspects of a sequence and see them simply as “Shapes That Work” transitioning from one shape to another in any way that feels natural, instead of trying to make it look like a FORM, results in power and speed.

In Sports if we are trying to learn the motor function of an action it is broken down into shapes we should be in at certain points in the progression/sequence.

Think of FORMS as throwing a Discus or Swinging a Bat to hit a Ball.

If we practice progressing the shapes of

1. Neutral stance {Crazy Horse}

turn left into

2.Huen Ma {Cat Stance}

from here pose

3Hanging Horse Stance {Crane Stance}

step down into

4. extended Huen Ma {Reverse Lunge}

square up into

5. Huen Ma {Cat Stance}

turn back into

6. Neutral Stance {Crazy Horse}

Rinse and repeat in the opposite direction.

Make the transitions in any way that feels comfortable and in any direction that takes your fancy, this covers just about all moving possibilities we may need in any environment.

WORK ON THE SHAPES.

DO NOT STRESS ABOUT THE TRANSITIONS.

We will work on this for the next few weeks.

Watch the vid and lets get a healthy chat going, this really is the pointy end.

A common thread since the end of ‘Lockdown’ has been trying to understand how to actually make use of all of this sometimes exotic information.

Last night at training Saleh brought in some video capture of genuine street violence and it encouraged a decent conversation.

As hard as it is to understand and justify we will never use anything we learn in class out on the ‘Pavement Arena’ as Geoff Thompson calls it.

Watch the vid and lets get a healthy chat going, this really is the pointy end.

Many men appear calm for the simple reason that they have never faced a storm.

But when the storm comes they falter.