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 wethink 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 ofrightly 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 ofWing 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?
Treatingmovement as a concept instead of a methodology will revitalise and enlighten the Forms.
By far the most important and misunderstood aspect ofWing 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.
WE MUST UNDERSTAND EXACTLY WHAT IT MEANS TO COUNTER ATTACK.
This month, April, we are focusing mainly on the whys and wherefores of kicking in Wing Chun, and my guys are asking some interesting questions and making strange observations that show a general misunderstanding about the where and why of kicking.
A great deal of this misunderstanding stems from the fact that many studentsdo not understand what comprises an attack and why we choose to not go down that path, as a result they do not properly understand what it means to counter attack.
Some teachers are naturally aggressive, some are naturally defencive, and this is reflected in how they approach kicking, we really need to see that both of these approaches are equally wrong from the perspective of Wing Chun’s counter attacking philosophy, this is compounded by the unavoidable fact that the reality of kicking or facing a kick is difficult to explore in training without a genuine attack taking place , a method that when employed usually freaks people out.
There are some unwritten, unbreakable laws in Wing Chun that we must never stray from in any of our training.
Example. … Wing Chun is governed by Fist Logic, it should therefore be obvious that if we are using our feet in any way it is to support or complement our Fists.
Example. … Wing Chun is a Counter Attacking Martial Art, we genuinely believe that to commit to the first strike places us in a weakened position.
How do we resolve these examples when kicking?If we fail to resolve them we are moving away from Wing Chun, away from our core training values and to a certain extent now training a different Martial Art. On face value this may not appear as a problem, it works in the M.M.A. But in the split second we have to decide on our response to an attack do we choose Wing Chun’s philosophy or our new kicking philosophy.
Wing Chun does not attack!
We Counter Attack, this is not some clever word play there is a world of difference between the two approaches, a difference that will do more than just influence our decisions.
Without meaning any disrespect to anyone the majority of Wing Chun Instructors have never been in a serious fight, their ideas and philosophies are heavily influenced by action movies and watching Competitive Sports Fighting Styles such as Muay Thai, Kyokushin Karate,Kick Boxing, T.K.D. and M.M.A. where kicking is used to great effect mostly because of the competition rules that make kicks a viable option.
In my own experience of chaotic street fighting people only kick to start the fightor to finish them off if one guy is on the ground, very rarely do people kick in the meat of a fight, it is just to risky, if someone is kicking they are now fighting on one leg, something our brain will abandon the second we think of it.
In a Street Situation, with the participants in normal pants and heavy shoes it is super simple for either person to catch the incoming leg and then it is game over.
WHY DO PEOPLE KICK?
The foremost reason people try to kick is simply to be able to attack while out of Arms reach, for any kick to be effective requires perfect positioning, perfect timing and perfect contact, there is very little wiggle room when throwing a kick.
The easiest and quickest way to neutralise any kick is to control the space. Move in, move out it doesn’t really matter just move.If we ever get kicked it is not because the attacker was skilful, it was because we were negligent, asleep at the wheel or maybe just lazy.
An average fighter can more easily land 2 or 3 powerful, technically good, quite accurate punches than they can pull of a half arsed kick.
It is a difficult task for a Top Professional Fighter to pull off the “perfect kick”, even the mighty Baas Ruten missed a good few.
If we are counter attacking then like it or not first we respond to someone else attack, this is the core of what we do, over time our we developed a clever and sophisticated system ofjamming, redirecting and generally out thinking incoming kicks, it is a system that allows the Bad guy to be the architect of his own downfall.
Our own approach clearly demonstrates the many weakness’ and dubious value of kicking , if we can defend against kicks so successfully, and we can without doubt if we stick to the prescribed Logic, why would we ever expect them to work against someone else?
Why would we choose to kick in the first instance?
IS THERE A PLACE FOR KICKING IN WING CHUN?
Absolutely.
All of our kicks are support actions that allow us a better opportunity to counter attack with punches.
Bridge the gap if there is one with a feint kick as in Chum Kiu, land and punch, if a kick is inbound jam it then step in and punch, if the opponent controls our arms in some way either hook or stamp kick to the lower legs as he releases the arms punch and punch some more.
Even with the legs we still use FIST LOGIC.
WE MUST UNDERSTAND EXACTLY WHAT IT MEANS TO COUNTER ATTACK.
As the month proceeds and me and my guys dig in to what it means, what it’s worth and any other whats including Alan, I am sure I will find more to ruminate on, stay tuned.
Sadly a lot of Wing Chun students are very lazy, focusing on Form practice exacerbates this.
As a generalisation Wing Chun players are the least fit and most ill conditioned of any Martial Artists that I have personal experience of, part of this stems from the misunderstanding about do not use Brute Force.
There is a consensus that just becoming proficient at Wing Chun will be enough to get the job done, this is a BIG call, dangerous ground.
Let’s look at it through a different prism.
I can swim, I have been able to swim for so long that I do not remember learning, there was one period of my life that I swam a kilometre every work day in my split shift, I would use different strokes for different laps, freestyle, breast stroke, backstroke even butterfly so there is no doubt about my ability. I no longer swim with this intensity but I still have the physical skill.
Today if I fell from a boat just half a kilometre from the shore would I be able to swim to safety, I have the skill, but I do I have the conditioning?
It would not be the best time to find out.
I have played a great deal of sport that required running, when I was involved in these sports it was standard to run 3 to 5 kilometres per day at a reasonable pace, easily enough to escape a gang that meant to hurt me and maintain the gap between us ’til I reached safety.
Could I do that today? Anyone could find themselves in the middle of a riot, or even more scary in this day and age a terrorist attack.
It would not be the best time to find out.
Just training Wing Chun will be fine and dandy if all you need to deal with the problem is Wing Chun, but it wont be, just Wing Chun is never enough, violence is complex.
How about the whole do not use Brute Force? Often misunderstood as do not use strength.
The argument for not using strength is not very convincing, why should we not use strength?
The standard answer is that if we do a stronger man will always win, I have to call B.S. on this one, yes he would win if it was an equal test of strength, but it will not be, it will be a fight, first in best dressed.
How do we know he is stronger?
Looks cannot be trusted, many well muscled, strong guys that lift metal do not know how to use that strength in other situations, like a fight.
If he is weaker why chance the odds on having more skill when we can pick him up and throw him out the window?
With regards to smaller opponents Manny Pacquiao is a smaller man, how would our skill go against him?
One of the main reasons serious Martial Artists laugh at Wing Chun is because of the lack of physical conditioning required to reach the intermediate and advanced levels of Wing Chun training.
The overwhelming reason when Wing Chun fighters lose to other styles is always conditioning, never skill, this calls into question the value of a high skill level in Wing Chun if there is no conditioning to go with it. Fighting and training are two very different things.
Sadly a lot of Wing Chun students are very lazy, focusing on Form practice exacerbates this.
Life does not resemble training, never did, never will,
I think that as a result of the focus on Forms, Kata, Drills, Chi Sau or whatever we call them, as Martial Artists we are guilty of overlooking the obvious, it is only the end result, the PRODUCT of all of our training that really matters.
You disagree, then imagine this, we find ourselves in a situation were violence is unavoidable, inevitable and we are given the following choice beforehand ……….
To perform our chosen Martial Art flawlessly without error in accordance with everythingthat the Martial Art stands for displayed and intact for all to see, but sadly get the living shit beaten out of us.
To fight in a way that made us look like we had never undergone a days training in our life but finish victorious without a single scratch, bruise or blemish to our person with the opponent left as a crumpled mess in the dirt at our feet.
I know my choice.
If you chose “3” to fight perfectly and win you are living in dreamland, and I hope you know it.
People in the Martial Arts community that have never had fights, let alone lost one or two badly, develop distorted ideas based more on hope than genuine expectations.
They have no idea how foolish they sound to people that have experienced violence first hand when they go on, and on, and on, and on, and on about how Forms, Kata, whatever { insert favourite word here} are more important than Function.
Forms, Kata etc are important without and beyond any shadow of a doubt but how can any type of training be more important than the ability to win?
WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO WIN?
If we are in a sporting contest then skill is often the deciding factor, if it is a chaotic street encounter then the deciding factor is more often than not luck.
CAN WE TRAIN TO BE LUCKY?
There is a well know and often used maxim / quote that goes “The harder I train the luckierI get” that somehow implies that training itself is enough, that does not sound quite right to me, however there is an earlier similar maxim that says“The more you know, the more luck you will have” which to me speaks of experience and understanding over simply training.
I like maxims / quotes, they act on me as seeds of creative thought that allow me to look at the same thing in many different ways, getting this post back on track with Product over Process in respect of being in a violent situation two more maxims / quotes come to mind.
Maxim #1. “It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”
This Darwinian sounding quote begs the question “how does building the basis of our training around the uniformity of doing the same or similar Form or Kata day after day, week after week, year after year in any way prepare us for change or equip us with the tools for change”
The absolute opposite of change is uni-form-ity.
Maxim #2.“The race is not always to the swift,nor the battle to the strong, but that’s the way to bet”.There is something about this maxim that just makes sense, skilled or not, lucky or not we need the physical wherewithal to both deliver and take a blow, being attacked is the impetus for all our training.
I have had the misfortune to lose a fight badly, in competition and in the wild.
It sucks.
And for a few days so did I because I could not chew.
I have hit men hard, real hard and watched them take the best I have and spit it back at me, like it or not this is what we train for, everyone gets a turn at losing.
It is how we come back from defeat that really makes us what we are.
Think on that and ask “will my Process in any way help me recover”?
“Will the trust in my Product survive for me to fight again”?
Life does not resemble training, never did, never will, sitting in the comfortable centre will not prepare us for when the going gets weird, but how do we prepare, is there even a way?
Training uniformly in the comfortable centre will not prepare us for what happens out at the edges, we must mix it up before we are pushed over that edge.
I cannot resist a last maxim – quote
The Edge… there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.
I want everyone to improve their conditioning, we do not do Hong Kong style Wing Chun so we need to have a decent baseline conditioning and know how to activate the kinetic chain.
Everyone including seniors will be expected to do the small circuit before commencing training in the studio, it should not take more than 5 minutes, but feel free to do multiple circuits, remember this is conditioning and not strength training so use lighter bands as opposed to heavier bands.
Hopefully this will inspire some of you , although I would like it to be all of you, to buy a couple of resistance bands and set up a space at home, bands cost between $5.00 and $20.00 and the anchors, which are just heavy duty door handles, cost me $10.00 so there is no large outlay.
Not using BRUTE STRENGTH is a governing principle in our FIST LOGIC, however never doubt that a conditioned person can produce more base load power cruising without using overt effort than an unconditioned person can produce flat out using BRUTE STRENGTH.
Train hard, fight easy, the opposite of this is just not very attractive.
I am working on some footwork drills that you can do at home so watch out for them.
Everything begins with Intention, we must know what it is we wish to do
BE HERE NOW.
From the outset we must realise that there is no way to talk about the Warrior Mindset, all we can hope for is a way to talk about approaching the Warrior Mindset.
We do not seek it out and find it, the Warrior Mindset finds us as a result of our work.
The Warrior Mindset is open to two very different interpretations, a Martial Warrior is a soldier that fights other soldiers, and a Spiritual Warrior is a man that fights the baser elements of himself.
Martial Arts conflate these two ideas with very mixed results, mainly due to unrealistic expectations of progress through mystical osmosis.
Martial Arts are the messenger and not the message, but they do provide the tools to translate the message.
Translate not interpret.
Wether we are a Martial Warrior fighting for our lives, or a Spiritual Warriors fighting self ignorance it all hinges on being in the present, the Here and Now, at all times.
Martial Arts provide this by giving us a ritualistic training method, a way of developing singular focus by working hard at performing all of the movements flawlessly, by focusing on what we are doing to the exclusion of all other distractions.
It is simpler than it sounds, it could be any movement, any shape done in any way but as human beings repetition and ritual are very powerful aids to success, this is the genesis of all Martial Arts Forms.
There is a great deal of wisdom available to us from such diverse sources as the Toltec Shaman of Mexico, the Buddhism of Tibet, the Egyptian Book of the Dead and of course all of the Martial Art Classics, but there is also new knowledge from more recent travellers on this road from both he military aspect such as Lt. Col. Dave Grossman to the more cerebral approach of Dr. Gavin Becker.
We would profit greatly from visiting more than one library.
This essay is intended as an entrée to encourage and entice you to seek out the Grand Buffet.
SETTLE IN, SETTLE DOWN.
Everything begins with Intention, we must know what it is we wish to do, what we hope to find, if we do not know beforehand what we are looking for we will walk right past it when it turns up.
The next step is CENTRING.
It will more than likely take longer to read how to do these exercise than it will to do them, they can be looked at as a suite of exercises all interchangeable with each other or as one big extended exercise. Intention is the key so we must decide how we wish to proceed, know what it is we want to do.
Are we centring our body awareness? Are we centring our mental awareness? Or are we centring our spiritual awareness? Do we even know if there is any difference?
The thing we are after is what T.S.Elliot referred to as the Still Point of a Moving World.
At the still point of the moving world, there the dance is ……… except for the point, the still point, there would be no dance, and there is only the dance. {Burnt Norton 1935}
The ultimate aim is to BE HERE NOW,
Your breath is always in the here and now, you can’t pay attention to a past breath so if you are paying attention to your breath, you must be in the present.
As simple as the following exercise is it is exceptionally powerful.
This exercise is best done outdoors standing upright but it is just as effective sitting in a chair even laying in bed.
Breathe in through the nose, a full breathe, hold for a second or three and breathe out through the mouth, breath it all out hold and repeat, and repeat and repeat.
I do not recommend attaching any importance to the actual breathing, no Wim HofMethod or Pranayama, as wonderful and powerful as they are they are intended for different outcomes and could end up both distractive and destructive.
While you breathe observe your breath, feel it, hear it, watch it as it moves through your body like a living thing.
What effect does your breath have on different parts of your body, do your shoulders move as you breath?
Do they tense? Do they relax?Do they behave the same on Inhalation and exhalation?
Get to know your breath and how every part of your body reacts when you breathe, even down to your toes.
Your body is a bellows, feel your chest widen sideways as you inhale and recognise the muscles that do this, then feel it naturally contract as you exhale.
This exercise can be done for a minute or an hour.
This is not centring, this is just us settling in and settling down preparing the body and mind for centring.
The 5 Sounds.
Breathe, settle in and settle down, keep breathing.
Locate and identify a sound that is near you, for instance the sound of your own breathing, listen to it for a short while.
Find a second sound slightly farther away, perhaps a bird, a creaking branch, identify it and place its position in space and notice its relationship to you, is it in front, behind, higher, lower, left, right that kind of thing, listen for a while.
Find a third sound again farther out, maybe a door slamming, a motorbike, identify it and place its position in space and notice its relationship to you and its relationship to the last sound. Listen.
Find a fourth sound even farther out, identify it and place its position in space and notice its relationship to you and the other sounds. Listen.
For the fifth sound listen right out at the edge of your hearing, it may be just a rumbling, identify it and place its position in space and notice its relationship to you, listen to it and let it fill the air. Breathe.
Think again of the first sound, it is still there at the centre of all that is around you, as are you.
The 5 Feelings.
Breathe, settle in and settle down, keep breathing.
In a purely physical sense feel something affecting your body, it could be the wind on your skin, the sun on your head, your feet pressing the floor, if you are sitting or lying down there are many other possibilities, your shirt collar on your neck in short anything, firstly feel everything separately one at a time, just like the previous exercise feel it, identify its position is space, listen to it.
Repeat 5 times and then finally feel all 5 things simultaneously.
The 5 Expansions.
Breathe, settle in and settle down, keep breathing.
#1. Close your eyes and see yourself as if from above, see the immediate space around you on all sides, this is well suited to doing indoors sitting down, see the room, see the furniture, breathe easily as you observe the surroundings. Realise that even from here you can still see yourself.
#2. Inhale and expand to a height were you can only see the house that has the room you are sitting in, see the space around the house, trees, cars, neighbours, breathe easily as you observe the surroundings. Realise that even from here you can still see yourself.
#3. Inhale and expand to a height were you can only see the city or area where your house is, breathe easily as you observe the surroundings. Realise that even from here you can still see yourself.
#4. Inhale and expand to a height were you can only see the country you live in, breathe easily as you observe your surroundings.
#5. Inhale and expand to a height were you can only see the planet Earth from space, breathe easily as you observe your surroundings. Realise that even from here you can still see yourself. At the centre of it all.
The 5 Positions of a Warrior Mindset.
Breathe, settle in and settle down, keep breathing.
#1. Measure every decision, every action against the undeniable fact that you are going to die.Maybe not right now, today, but quite possibly later on today.When measured against our ultimate demise all problems are seen for what they really are and shrink into insignificance.
#2. Always do your best. Your best is going to change from minute to minute; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to when you are sick. Whatever you are doing, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgement, and the negativity that goes with it.
#3. Realise that it is not about you. Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own story. When the actions of others have no importance there is no self doubt. Even in a antagonistic situation it is not about you, a soldier just kills another soldier, not a singular individual person.
#4. Understand the power and greatness of not knowing. All of our problems arise from known things, all of the great answers are as of yet unknown, the things we think we know are the cages that we bind ourselves with. Not knowing is not just a state to be endured; it’s a state of possibility and, a state of power. Creativity is a consequence of not knowing.
#5. Be impeccable. This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man. Hamlet Act 1, scene 3, 78–82.
Warriors have an ulterior purpose for their acts which has nothing to do with personal gain. The average man acts only if there is a chance for profit. Warriors act not for profit, but for the spirit.
Using our training to do the work.
Opening up the way to translate the message, how to do the work that will hopefully lead to the Warrior Mindset manifesting.
As I have already mentioned first of all comes INTENTION.
Do we intend to be Martial Warriors or Spiritual Warriors?
The training is the same, so right here right now we do not need to choose, but be assured the final set of stairs are very different.
Let’s make a start, although it is in no way a prerequisite most of the people that will even attempt this work usually have a decent level of basic training, some knowledge of Forms or Kata and a level of understanding about the effort and commitment needed to be competent in the Martial Arts.
Q.Why are we training?
A.Hopefully to develop a Warrior Mindset.
Q.What is training?
A.Training is way to become better, not a chance to prove how good we are.
Think a while on that last statement “Training is way to become better, not a chance to prove how good we are”.
For a student that has been training for 12 months to a master that has been training for 60 years this statement holds true.
The main aim is to take ourselves out of the equation, to become a witness to the unfolding event and not a participant, only in this way can we respond as opposed to reacting.
This is a life skill, not just a martial skill.
I teach, and we train Wing Chun so I will use Wing Chun references but it is just a method and could of course be used with any style, any system.
Pick a movement from any of the Wing Chun Forms, just one movement, get access to as much knowledge and understanding that you can about this particular movement, get it straight in your head before you attempt to force it on your body.
As Human Beings everything we do is a complete body action, if your Form of choice is the First Form where the only moving parts are your arms, do not make the error of not seeing this as a complete body action.
Stillness and movement are part of a singular continuum, just like sound and silence, hot and cold, they both describe each other, no matter how still my body is my blood and spirit still move.
Let us use the most basic and well known movement, Tarn Sau.
As we perform Tarn Sau what is the top of our head doing? What is the arch of our foot doing? What is our spine doing?If we happen to be a person that agrees with the idea of circulating energy what is our Chi doing?
So much to think about, so many body parts to track, so much to be aware of and yet we have not even mentioned the shoulder or the elbow or any other part or aspect of the arm, still we are without doubt talking about Tarn Sau.
It can be any movement from any Form, it is always our whole and complete body, no gaps, no omissions, this in turn creates a condition of singular and concentrated focus that removes us from the world of not doing Wing Chun and drops us squarely into the world of doing Wing Chun.
We are removed from the world of NOT NOW and manifest in the world of ONLY NOW.
Being in the NOW allows us to witness what is happening and make a suitable response instead of just a hopeful reaction.
I will finish with two of my favourite quotes / parables.
Firstly the Taoist Scholar Chuang Tzu. This is a reworking of the Empty Boat Parable, I do not remember where it came from but I really get it.
A man is crossing a river in his skiff in a storm when suddenly another skiff collides with him.He becomes angry and begins to shout until he notices that the skiff is empty, that it has broken its moorings and is loose on the tide.Noticing that the skiff is empty and loose on the tide he stops shouting because there is no one to shout at, suddenly he realises that we are all skiffs in a storm loose on the tide and that there is no one to shout.
The second is from the great composer Igor Stravinsky, or quite possibly not the internet is a fickle bitch.
When rehearsing for the upcoming debut of the Firebird Suite, the first violin came to Stravinsky and told him that he was quitting the orchestra because the violin solo was just far too difficult for him to play, Stravinsky laughed and said “of course it is, what I really want is to hear someone of your skill level trying to play it”.
There is only one way a human frame can absorb force
There are some unavoidable problems when training Wing Chun, or probably any Chinese Kung Fu for that matter, if the instruction is in English.
The problem is the language itself, or more accurately the way we as English speakers use the language.
There are two areas in particular that misleading terms are used constantly in instructing Wing Chun, I will quickly repeat myself here, it is the fault of the way we use language and not the fault of Wing Chun.
This is when we talk about relaxation or talk about not creating tension.
We must understand some very basic things about muscles, they are either active or inactive, put simply we use them or we do not use them, the term for an inactive muscle, a muscle that is not used, is RELAXED.
If I use a muscle to the extreme of its potential of 100% activation it is being used 100%, obviously.
If I use a muscle to 50% of its potential activation it is still being used, in fact it is still being used 100%, I am still using the whole muscle I am just using it at 50% of its potential strength, this 50% is a measure of the level of output of that muscle in that activity, it is just a value.
If I use a muscle at 5% of its potential activation the muscle is still being used 100%, I am still using the whole muscle, but only at 5% of its potential strength, 5% of the potential output.
A relaxed muscle is not activated, it is not used at all, 0% of its potential strength, zero output.
Being relaxed is an end state, it is binary, a muscle is either on or off, active or relaxed, relaxing is not a doing thing, it is not a process it is a product, there is no sliding scale, we cannot be 25% relaxed.
We cannot relax incrementally, we are either relaxed or we are not but how often are we told or we tell others to relax and once they have relaxed tell them to relax some more?
This is a language usage problem that I have been guilty of myself, but all the same there is no avoiding the reality that it is wrong to tell students to relax.
All we can do is decrease the output level of the activity, which can be done incrementally and can be held at 25%.
In the same vein we tell students to not create tension in their muscles when the only way to activate a muscle, the only possible way to use it, is to contract it, to put it under tension.
How does this manifest itself in our training or teaching, is it really such a big deal?
Let us use as an example the analysis of Tarn Sau. When we instruct a student to relax, to remove the tension from their arm because they will not be able to absorb incoming force we are not telling them anything that is even close to what they need to do.
There is only one way a human frame can absorb force, this is human biomechanics, this is science.
Our body absorbs force by transferring the force to our muscles, where contractions in the opposite direction absorb the force. Some force is also absorbed by our bones and body tissue, but within sport most of our force absorption occurs in our muscles. In order to absorb large forces safely, our body seeks to absorb the force by increasing the time of absorption, increasing the movement length used to absorb the force, or increasing the area in which the force is absorbed. The body will also apply a force in the opposite direction, usually using an eccentric contraction.
This misunderstanding has serious and very negative flow on effects, some students develop the idea that they can be successful in physical situations without themselves being physical.
How does it end up being taught this way?
I have been training people in Wing Chun for well over 20 years, the vast majority of the hundreds of students that I have helped did not stay in training for more than a few months, a year at best, this is a well known issue in our community.
I can look back and see that without making a conscious decision about this I spent no time at all trying to introduce new students to the particular semantics of Wing Chun’s verbal instruction {I do these days from day one}.
Once someone had been with me for a couple of years I would go down this path with them, in depth, but subconsciously I did not see the value in expending the time or effort with people that may be gone in the next 12 months, I would justify this by telling myself that I did not want to overwhelm them with too much information.
If an Instructor does not speak English as a first language they may not even be aware of this problem because it is how they learned to describe the instruction from their instructor, so they just repeat what they were told themselves trusting that their own instructor was more familiar with English.
If this Instructor influences students that go on to influence their own students the problem grows exponentially.
As Students or Instructors we must work hard to not be that guy.
The most important thing is to know which path we wish to follow.
I was working with one of my senior guys not so long ago working on a challenging aspect of the Biu Gee Form when he said….
“but to do that I need to use strength, I feel like I am using muscle”.
My answer was to ask how else he expected to move his arm if he did not engage his muscle and use strength.
The idea that anyone can be competent at any physical activity without exerting physical effort, using strength, is a myth.
Before we proceed it is important to understand the historical difference between “External” and “Internal” Martial Arts in ancient China.
External arts were a Chan Buddhism way of preparing the body for combat, not only in dexterity and coordination of technique but also training the body to be able to withstand physical punishment while having the emotional detachment to be able to ignore the implications of that punishment, this is exemplified by the Shaolin Soldier Monks.
Internal arts were a Taoist way to prepare the mind-body for personal growth, a way of transcending as a human being into the ‘Superior Man’ , Taoist Alchemy as found in the styles of Wudang mountain, central to all internal arts is Zahn Zhuang, standing meditation, the ultimate goal in Taoist arts is to transcend not fight.
Throughout its short existence Wing Chun has always been about fighting, although it has no overt spiritual affiliations it has always been considered a Buddhist art more than a Taoist art.
The disparity between Buddhist and Taoist arts goes along way to explaining the mess that Wing Chun finds itself in and the differences of opinion from one school to another.
The Taoist method of training is often referred to as soft, the aim is that through years of training, of doing less and less, a truly relaxed state can be achieved, a state of stillness, of not doing, Wu Chi, this is of course a spiritual goal and is deeply rooted in circling Chi and energy work.
The physical aspect of the Taoist method is to use physical interaction as a feedback loop to explore the level of relaxation in your own mind-body to determine how close we are to Wu Chi.
If however Wing Chun is approached as a fighting art then it needs to include calisthenics and powerful physical exchanges, systematic recruitment of muscles, kinetic linking and deliberate introduction of tension to transfer the power of momentum brought to bear by rapid movement that can only be accomplished by using strength in a fit body.
The most important thing is to know which path we wish to follow.
Many westerners unknowingly undertake Taoist training methods but expect Buddhist outcomes.
This is a zero sum game.
My Sifu’s school was guilty of promoting this confusing nether world, telling students that they were learning how to fight while teaching them the methodology of how to aim at becoming more than they are.
The school was guilty of misrepresenting the use of softness as fitness,promoting relaxing as fighting.The school even had its own motto emblazoned on its badges, shirts and other merchandise “Fitness with a purpose”.
Students will always believe what they are told, it is after all what they are paying for, telling them that softness works really messes them up when they are confronted by the fact that it does not, through the years my partners would complain that I was dominating them because “I was using strength”.
They would get quite precious when I pointed out that in most street fights so will the Bad Guy and that their real problem was not what I was doing but what they were failing to do.
They did not have the skill, knowledge or ability to deal with incoming superior strength.
Due to the fact that everyone in the school was working on softness they had never been confronted by genuine aggression and as a result had no answer to it.
All martial arts promote self awareness, knowing ourselves.
We cannot do this if we do not know what we are training, or at the very least understand the relationship between the method and the outcome.
Buddhist method or Taoist method are both brilliant but also very different, they bear different fruit come harvest time.
If you wish to be a better human use softness, be relaxed.
If you wish to be a better fighter use physicality, be strong.
Wing Chun Sydney, Australia 