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What we are seeing is the Disneyfication of Wing Chun, 

This is a re-posting from April of last year, this subject is of even greater significance now that we are training without guidance.

Let me state clearly that I am a great believer in the Deeper Philosophy of Wing Chun, when used correctly as a Martial Art I think it is nothing short of remarkable.

However….

To a large section of the Australian Wing Chun community the Sil Lim Tao is the beginning and end of everything.

So much so that they only train the Sil Lim Tao at the expense of the other more applicable Forms.

How did a ‘little idea’ become such a big deal?

It has gotten to the point that if you go to a workshop with a senior master all that is worked on is actions from the First Form, nothing is ever spoken about violence.

I was recently at such a workshop, when I pointed out that the exercise being shown had no practical value I was nearly mobbed by the more zealous attendees.

In fact there is a consensus that Wing Chun is not just for fighting.

But of course it is, fighting is all it is for.

What we are seeing is the Disneyfication of Wing Chun, the complete watering down of a once effective fighting system into a parody of itself, there are even national Chi Sau competitions, something that flies in the face of Wing Chun’s own principles.

The bigger problem though is that this is not a slow decent into obscurity like T.K.D. and Tai Chi this is a swan dive from a great height that just keeps picking up speed, helped along by Facebook and Youtube.

A question must be asked.

How can a Martial Art not be for fighting?

Can we call ourselves Martial Artists if our aim is not to improve Martial Skills for the only outcome of being more effective fighters?

I have a longstanding friendship with the senior instructor for a very large Wing Chun School who holds the idea that Wing Chun is not just for fighting, even if he does not impart this thinking to his students it must be obvious by his example, this is how the rot spreads.

I am in the process of reading a book called Wilful Blindness by Margret Heffernan, it is this book that has driven me to write this post, although the book has nothing to do with the Martial Arts it describes the malaise Wing Chun faces perfectly.

Heffernan argues that the biggest threats and dangers we face are the ones we don’t see — not because they’re secret or invisible, but because we’re wilfully blind.

Without meaning to students put as much effort into avoiding the reality of what we do as they do into learning what we do.

They turn a blind eye to the truth and ignore the obvious.

Wing Chun is not the culprit here, it is the victim, in a market economy it is the customer that shapes the inventory, the man who pays the piper calls the tune.

Wing Chun becomes what we think it is and how we think about Wing Chun will not only shape our own training but the very future of the style.

Do we think shallow or do we think deep?

A shallow thinker sees only one problem and they answer in only one way {one Form}.

A deep thinker approaches multiple problems from different angles.

Far too often students refuse to engage their minds.

They swallow up instruction and information, but never question the thinking behind it or make the effort to analyse and quantify what they have just been taught.

Facebook and Youtube are echo chambers that allow them to obsessively seek out truth that confirms their world view and cling to it with little room for awareness and understanding of their own thought processes

The biggest barrier to deeper understanding is confirmation bias.

In Wing Chun this happens with a deep belief in lineage.

The Sil Lim Tao Form is not a shadow boxing form, this is well known, it is not intended to make contact, this also is well known.

How can training this Form help us fight?

Heffernan argues that the biggest threats and dangers we face are the ones we don’t see — not because they’re secret or invisible, but because we’re wilfully blind.

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.

STAY HEALTHY.

This is a quickie to help everyone correlate throwing punches with the dynamics of athletic throwing, in particular the discus.

In the video the mention to separation and stretch reflex should not be something to cause concern, they are present every time we defend and attack even if we are not aware of it.

Pay special attention to the weight shifts and the torque creation, in physics talk this is the summation of forces at play, and it translates to power.

Observe how the upper body balance is conserved even as the lower body is dynamically mobile, and then observe the weight transfer as the athletes lower body stops causing immense acceleration of the upper body in the same way that a Trebuchet works.

In the discus the sinking and rising is really quite pronounced, but sinking and rising is an inherent part of both Chum Kiu and Biu Gee, just much subtler.

Relate this to your Knife and Pole forms to get the most benefit, then go hit something.

it is so much more important to understand the philosophy of what we do as opposed to the methodology.

For many years now I have been attempting to explain to my students the philosophy of Counter Attack.

Whenever we try to get deep in to it we are confronted by the fact that we need additional information to put it into the correct context.

It is just not possible to talk about Counter Attack without a concrete reference of what an Attack is, and this of course opens up the need to have a concrete reference to what Fighting is, the different phases of Fighting, the difference between Attacking and Defending, Fighting and Attacking, Fighting and Defending in short we need to have at least a personal opinion of the dynamics of violence.

Without any intention of criticism to anyone and how they teach or approach Wing Chun it is important to be aware that I teach and approach Wing Chun as an answer to Violence.

This affects everything we do and everything we train, and it unavoidably creates a bias towards Function and Application.

I have been involved in enough violence to be acutely aware that no man can ever truly understand or in fact prepare for violence, it is just too expansive, its appearance is random and unpredictable but as individuals we owe it to ourselves to try to understand what we think violence is.

To be expected it will be different for every single one of us, this is why it is so much more important to understand the philosophy of what we do as opposed to the methodology.

At my school a decent amount of our training time is spent in attempting to relate what we are training to where and why we think we would use it, we often learn more about the practicality of our training from exploring our conversations than exploring the physical aspect of the training.

As a teacher I find these conversations so engaging because I find myself in a position where I am trying to answer many different questions with the one simple answer, this leads to my own further development.

Before we talk about the Philosophy of Counter Attack, let’s talk about the dynamics of  rightly or wrongly expected violence.

VIOLENCE – A GENERLISATION.

Violence is multi faceted, layered, it comes in many shapes and sizes, one on one, many against one, gang on gang, country against country every event is a new event that has so little in common with what came before prior experience is practically non existent.

From a M.A. perspective we will just focus in on personal violence, the stuff we could end up facing.

In general terms violence comes in two flavours, let’s call them Social and Anti – Social.

SOCIAL VIOLENCE,

This is a FIGHT.

Fights are events between two people that have agreed to fight, a Match Fight, a sporting competition or when outsides of sports someone says to the other something along the lines of ….

’I will meet you at such a place at such a time and we will sort this out’.

In this type of engagement both parties know why they are there and what is about to go down, it is consensual, they have given each other permission to use violence, there is no surprise here, there is usually some kind of support and a designated end point such as a knock out, one person being unable to continue or a submission and then the thing is over.

If one of the fighters is injured help is never far away.  Schoolyard fights fall into this category unless it was a bully situation.

ANTI-SOCIAL VIOLENCE,.

This is an unprovoked ATTACK, and in general what Martial Artists train for, only one of the people involved knows the reason for this, only one person knows what the end point is, and it is usually incapacitation, there is very rarely support for the person being attacked and if at the end that person is left injured there is no guarantee of help.

This is a bad headspace that has a dramatic often debilitating effect on performance.

In the middle of this event the intended victim may get the upper hand and turn the tables on the attacker, but only the roles change, the outcome remains the same, the victim simply becomes the attacker, and the attacker becomes the victim. This is not defending.

ANATOMY OF A VIOLENT EVENT.

Fighting, Attacking and Defending are three very different situations that cannot and should not be looked at as components of the same thing.

Fighting is when two people are both engaged in the same event, trying to reach the same goal,  for the same reason, it is consensual, usually preplanned and allows for strategies to be thought out and implemented. This is primarily a competition mindset.

Attacking is when one person without any thought or concern for the other uses violence to further their own agenda. This is predatory behaviour, a predatory mindset.

Defending is when a person that is under attack tries to prevent an attacker from hurting them.  This is a survivalist mindset.

It is important to acknowledge that defending does not mean fighting back, to fight back requires a change of mindset, this is the problem with thinking that Wing Chun’s Simultaneous Attack and Defence is a methodology instead of a concept, to be able to implement S.A & D we would need to be in two different mindsets at the same time, being in two minds is an expression used to illustrate indecisiveness or confusion.

MINDSET.

Mindsets govern how our body works, how it reacts to stimulus, what hormones the body creates and how much control we have over our movements.

There are major physical, emotional, mental and physiological differences between the mindsets that automatically develop when Fighting, Attacking or Defending, they are not even close to being the same thing, and they are not capable of being combined.

Do some research, check it out.

PHASES OF A VIOLENT EVENT.

From the Wing Chun training perspective of what we think we would face in a violent event would have three distinct phases that require different thinking and application.  This does not include totally random surprise attacks, they are undefendable, most violence has some kind of precursor so we will at least be aware of the possibility of violence.

Phase #1.

Attacker is aggressive and animated, Wing Chun man is passive and ready, attacker mistakes passivity for weakness and launches the attack without fear of retaliation, W.C man intercepts and presses forward with relentless attacks, possibly ending the threat there and then.  If successful move to Phase #3.  This is a typical training scenario.

Phase #2.

W.C.Mans first response did not end the threat, both men separate and regroup, the element of surprise is gone, the attacker knows the game is afoot and will now be cautious, possibly use kicks, possibly try to rush in and overwhelm us, possibly set in for a long thoughtful brawl, Mano e Mano.  This  phase is completely unpredictable, and as such is rarely if ever approached in training.

Phase #3.

W.C. Man ends the threat, enacts preplanned exit strategy. 

This is another aspect that does not get enough time in most training, it brings its own bundle of questions, the most pertinent being……..

What constitutes a win?

Do I stay or do I go?

To be continued in part 2.

COUNTER ATTACKING DOES NOT REQUIRE DEFENCE, ONLY THAT WE ARE UNDER ATTACK.

We must decide if we are learning to fight or learning Wing Chun, there is a difference, and the devil is in the details.

MANIFESTING THE FIST LOGIC OF WING CHUN.

A lot of the things we are shown, especially in the beginners phase, the  first 5 years or so,  are ways to explore the IDEA of  Wing Chun, an introduction or prologue and not in fact directions to take forwards and most certainly not techniques, I have for a long time now been of the opinion that there are no techniques in Wing Chun at all. 

The methods we learn should be looked on as ways to handle force, once we do this we see that they all do the same thing, and to a certain extent that there is only one movement in all of Wing Chun.

When we watch videos of Wing Chun people in fights against other styles the ones that do poorly are the ones that try to use their Wing Chun training, the ones that never managed to move on from the preliminary introduction.

The Wing Chun people that win in these fights, and there are many, usually just fight and allow their choices to be influenced by their Wing Chun training, in a fist fight adhering to the principles of Wing Chun is far more effective than using specific moves from specific Forms.

Fighting is always about the choices we make, not the moves.

Wing Chun is a concept based Martial Art, or at least that is how the story goes, but who out there actually knows the concepts?  I have trained with some of the worlds top Masters and when I asked them they just shrugged and said S.L.T.

But what does that mean?

If any one does know the concepts please leave a note in the comments.

If we genuinely do believe that Wing Chun is a concept based martial art we need to accept the position that there is no ground zero, there is no single Big Bang Theory to back us up, to have any hope of understanding Wing Chun we must firstly understand what OUR OWN CONCEPT is.

A concept is an abstract notion from which we can formulate Ideas, the more abstract the notion is, the more creative and numerous are the ideas formed.

By their very nature concepts can create movement in opposite directions to each other, IDEAS that when viewed side by side are contradictory or self defeating.

Internal – External arguments exposes this perfectly, in isolation they are both strong, exciting and fundamentally sound approaches but looked at together they clash, they both highlight the foolishness of the others approach and as a result tend to invalidate each other.

After more than 25 years continues training in Wing Chun I have come to the conclusion that it is what we do not do that defines us a great deal more than the Forms or Chi Sau, Internal or External.

What I see as a fundamental stumbling block with Wing Chun is the lack of meaningful contact in training, but ironically bringing meaningful contact into training would create major complications from the perspective of being a counter attacking martial art.

Sparring always becomes a mess that just looks like really bad boxing, Chi Sau sparring turns into grappling or some type of tug of war and Forms offer little if any interaction with opposing force.

How can Forms or Chi Sau bring genuine contextual understanding?

We must establish our own concepts to guide our own training.

We must decide if we are learning to fight or learning Wing Chun, there is a difference, and the devil is in the details.

FIST LOGIC requires that if we are touching an opponent then we must be punching them, this is the basis of simultaneous attack and defence, it could be any strike of course not just a punch, this is not always possible in the chaos of a violent encounter so simultaneous attack and defence becomes a concept to work from, to try to manifest.

This is all theory, reality is rarely similar, fights care little for style or lineage, to give ourselves the best possible chance of surviving a violent encounter we need two things above all others.

1, the ability to move efficiently so as to be in the right place at the right time to deliver the perfect shot.

2, the ability to be able to hit with power from the wrong place when we find ourselves there.

Both are skills that need developing, exploring and understanding, neither can be learned by moving slowly or standing still.

Most students think they understand motion but when you watch them practising there are some obvious grey areas, things like rhythm and timing, three dimensionality, how do we affect it and where does it fit in? 

Wing Chun footwork is portioned out in drips through the Chum Kiu, Biu Gee, Knives and Pole Forms, it is a conglomeration that is not plug and play, some assembly is required.

How do we deal with variability, accept it as a threshold and not allow it to become dogma and bully us? Is it more important to control our own movement or our opponents?

Treating  movement as a concept instead of a methodology will revitalise and enlighten the Forms.

By far the most important and misunderstood aspect of  Wing Chun is the concept of counter attacking, how we perceive this will change everything we do in an instant, counter attacking is not simultaneous attack and defence, we can counter attack without defending.

Exploring what counter attacking is will be a long post, one that I am working on at the moment, apart from anything else it is complicated by the very fact that it requires someone to attack us and that could take any shape or form that the other person can think of, it is multi layered, it is not attacking, it is not defending it is not even fighting.