Wing Chun Sydney, Australia

I do not think there is anything to gain by taking away the padding, but awareness of it certainly helps.

Training is a habit, break that habit, it dies.

This became an Australia-wide possibility in March, with the ‘Lockdown’.

I realised from day one that the situation needed approaching with urgency and diligence.

And a plan.

Every Monday evening, Thursday evening and Saturday morning I would be found in the Studio, training for the two hours that I would usually be teaching.

Finding meaningful things to do for two hours solo was a far greater challenge than I anticipated, especially as the lockdown stretched on without an end in sight, month after month.

One of my favourite tools in training is Occams Razor, so out it came and in I went.

I did not intend to undergo a total reset, but that is what happened, as a result when the ‘Lockdown’ lifted it was less a restart and more of a reboot.

I had a brand new O.S.

My take on Wing Chun was forever a gently evolving process, but I came out of the enforced isolation with something lean, mean and ‘very’ practical.

I have always seen Wing Chun as physical activity, so that is what went under the microscope first.

What I found was a lot of ‘dead wood’.

I.M.O.

From earlier research grew the understanding that initially there was only one FORM, the Sil Lim Tao.

This overlong Form proved hard to teach, it was cut into three sections, the later sections becoming Chum Kiu and Biu Gee.

It would appear that these sections were too short, so they underwent a certain amount of padding to give them gravitas.

All the Forms were extended to 108 moves in line with Budhist Sacred number thinking.

I do not think there is anything to gain by taking away the padding, but awareness of it certainly helps.

After all the movements themselves are not the purpose.

All journeys begin with a single step, by default, this is the most important step.

How we set our body up is the beginning and end of everything.

On seeing this, all of the Forms become tests to see if we can maintain this set up during movement that escalates from simple through to complex.

It is tricky to put a name on this setup, is it posture, condition, shape, structure?

It is all of the above and more, I call it ‘Putting on our Crazy Horse”.

The world has changed since Leung Jan, Chan Wah Shun and Ip Man.

The atomic explosion of money on offer in modern sport has meant that there has been unprecedented research into how the ‘Human Body’ works and how to maximise its potential.

Quite remarkably, Wing Chun was always on the same wavelength.

It just got a bit left behind, like all Kung Fu.

So it is into the DeLorian and back to the future.

One FORM only, with modern Sports Science Influences.

Always…

TRAIN YOUR WEAKNESS’ – WORK TO YOUR STRENGTH.

Indian Clubs, Maces, Persian Meels or Gada have been the choice of strongmen and warriors for centuries.

A couple of the guys asked if I could make a video the next time I made some Indian Clubs, so here we are.

Indian Clubs, Maces, Persian Meels or Gada have been the choice of strongmen and warriors for centuries.

The total cost of a pair of these clubs can be as little as $20, much cheaper than buying them if you have the time and are just a little bit practical.

As I was surfing the net to find a few exercises to recommend I came accross a really cool product called a Pahlavandle, it is a handle that fits to a soda bottle and instantly turns it into an Indian Club, it is from Denmark so getting it into Australia by post may not be possible at the moment due to Covid restrictions. Here is a link.

Here is a pick, check them out if you do not feel like making some.

As always…

WORK ON YOUR WEAKNESS; – PLAY TO YOUR STRENGTH.

“Who decides where we hit the Bad Guy”?

Solo training is a double-edged sword, if we get it right, it can open everything up and make even the most difficult things seem simple.

If we get it wrong, we are almost doing a different Martial Art that at best can only offer confusion.

The difference between our training being on the ‘Fairway’ or being in the ‘Rough’ is not physical, it is intentional, just like the golf analogy it is all about direction.

Direction only comes into being once we know the destination, where are we trying to send it to?

Solo training is small picture stuff, just us, on our own, doing some movements, making some shapes.

But even small pictures live inside the big picture.

Why are we in this place doing this thing?

Here is a thought to engage while looking at the small picture stuff.

It may help with context and clarity of vision.

Then again it may not.

“Who decides where we hit the Bad Guy”?

Wing Chun is a counter-attacking Martial Style, everything we do is in response to what someone is trying to do to us.

It is a little bit like Chess, he moves we move in a better way.

The Bad Guy decides where and when we hit him, think about that.

TRAIN YOUR WEAKNESS’ – WORK TO YOUR STRENGTH.

“turn on, tune in and drop out”.

To understand Wing Chun, we need to understand or at least reconnect with something we have always known.

An aid to this end is to think like an Artist, not a Martial Artist, but an “Art” artist.

We need to be more like a playwright, such as Bill Shakespeare.

Or a visual artist such as Mark Rothko.

Or even better a poet such as John Keats.

It was Keats who coined the phrase “Negative Capability”…

for a writer to pursue a vision of artistic beauty even when it leads them into intellectual confusion and uncertainty, as opposed to a preference for philosophical certainty over artistic beauty.

J.K.

In many ways, this spins me back to the heady days of my misspent youth, to the hip ‘Harvard’ professor Timothy Leary who advised us all to “turn on, tune in and drop out”.

Every time we get astonished by some new information from our teacher, when we cannot believe we can do so much with so little we are in the universe of “Negative Capability”, and the citizens that thrive there.

What did these diverse individual entities such as Shakespear, Rothko, Keats and Wing Chun have in common?

The Human Condition.

The most amazing, and perhaps perplexingly disturbing thing about the Human Condition is that we are all born with it.

There is nothing to learn.

Just acceptance and understanding.

If we wish to understand Wing Chun, we must first understand what it is to be human.

We should work on this.

As always…

WORK ON YOUR WEAKNESS – PLAY TO YOUR STRENGTH.

This new normal

Hi Guy’s.

If you are a visitor to this site, and I do get many, this post is for mostly for my students, you are more than welcome to enjoy it but it may have little of interest in it, plus the video is a tad long at 15 minutes.

This new normal, this post covid experience is a test for all of us, those that have not completely given training away, and here in my school that is almost 50% of pre-Covid numbers, have reduced their attendance to just one session a week, and of course modern life being what it is, this often means that this becomes zero sessions a week.

Solo training is more important than ever.

Over the next few weeks i will re-visit all of the information on Solo Training and bring it up to date, in the meantime…

As always…

TRAIN YOUR WEAKNESS’ – WORK YOUR STRENGTH.

“Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.”
– Japanese Proverb

HI GUYS,

Just a simple method to help you get the most out of your solo training.

Covid has brought about a lot of changes but the one that i think has the potential to derail us the most is that most people have moved to only having one session a week of supervised training.

Obviously this places greater emphasis on what we do on our own.

If there is a secret to moving forwards it is working on expanding our understanding of the knowledge we have and not the pursuit of new knowledge.

Working alone is not always a negative, but to prevent it from slipping off into the weeds concentrate on what is available to you in the here and now, the difficulty is attaching context to things that are really only going on in our imagination so as always ask…

“Why would I be doing this, what would need to be happening”?

Create an imaginary scenario th measure your IDEA against.

“Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.”
– Japanese Proverb

WORK ON YOUR WEAKNESS – PLAY TO YOUR STRENGTH.

The author is a Social Scientist that has a deep professional interest in S.E. Asian Martial Culture

To anyone with an interest in Wing Chun and an interest in the reality of Southern Chinese Martial Arts, this is one blog that is a must to visit.

https://chinesemartialstudies.com/

On the home page, linked above, there is presently an article on Chan Wah Shun and the creation of Wing Chun Kung Fu that is well worth the 8 minutes or so it takes to read.

Here is a direct link to that particular post in case the homepage has been changed by the time you visit.

https://chinesemartialstudies.com/

My advice is that it is worth reading all of the posts on this blog referring to Wing Chun.

The author is Ben Judkins Ph. D. a Social Scientist that has a deep professional interest in S.E. Asian Martial Culture with a personal investment in Wing Chun, he is one of us, his stuff is well researched and unbiased unlike people like myself that in reality just offer opinions.

Here is a link to Bens C.V… https://chinesemartialstudies.com/cv/

As always…

TRAIN YOUR WEAKNESS’ – WORK TO YOUR STRENGTH.

WORK ON YOUR WEAKNESS – PLAY TO YOUR STRENGTH.

These two videos are from over 24 months ago but they are in line with what we are working on at this present time, they need updating and I will, as promised, get this done but until then check them out as it is what we are currently working on.

WORK ON YOUR WEAKNESS – PLAY TO YOUR STRENGTH.

In Wing Chun, in particular, there is a perception that using “Softness” translates to there being no need to be fit, fast or strong.

As you all know in the 60 years that I have been a practising Martial Artist I have explored many variations.

Different styles and different approaches within styles.

Some, such as Bagua Zhang, Xing Yi Chuan, Kali {Doce Peres} and R.M.C.C.Q.C. for less than two years so I do not consider myself proficient at these but their influence was valuable.

Others like Western Boxing, Judo, BuJutsu and Wing Chun I trained in for quite extended periods, as such I consider myself knowledgable and capable in this space.

In the competitive arts, Boxing, Judo, there is an equal weight given to non-specific physical conditioning training as there is to skills specific training.

In my experience, this is missing in the “Real World, Real Self-Defence Style” training that Kung Fu inhabits.

In Wing Chun, in particular, there is a perception that using “Softness” translates to there being no need to be fit, fast or strong.

We should think about this and determine our own position.

I can, if needs be, hit someone softly with an Iron Bar, but I doubt that I could knock them out with a Foam Pool Noodle.

When I did these videos this morning my intention was to cut and paste them into one video, however when I did this the result was uneven and the ambience was a bit off so all three of these videos are essentially the same but with some differences that may just make one of them easier to understand.

At the end of the day it is only your understanding that will take you forwards.

This is the same info delivered a little differently.

WORK ON YOUR WEAKNESS – PLAY TO YOUR STRENGTH.