Wing Chun Sydney, Australia

Etymology… The occult (from the Latin word ‘occultus’; lit. ‘clandestine’, ‘hidden’, ‘secret’) is “knowledge of the hidden”. 

Hey guys, let me start by saying that there is no side to be taken with this post, no need to agree or disagree, it is just thinking out loud, and thinking should always be free to wander where it wishes to wander, and land wherever it wishes to land.

If you have done even the lightest study of Sacred Geometry you will see Wing Chun in the diagram at the head of the post, and as such there is nothing more for me to say.

If not read on.

This post has taken me more than 30 years to write.

And to be completely honest it has only crystallised in the last few years with my re-engagement with drawing and building sculpture.

If it does not make any sense at this time that is perfectly fine, just do not discount it out of hand because you do not understand it.

Something that I have told you all, in one way or another, is that we cannot hope to understand Wing Chun if we only use Wing Chun to try to understand it by.

In Neuroscience there is something called Gödel’s theorem.

This IDEA states quite clearly that no system is able to comprehend itself fully.

In short.. the brain cannot understand the brain.

As deep, nerdy, and perhaps even fluffy as this sounds it colours everything we see and think.

Which on the other side of the coin colours everything we think we see.

Wing Chun is a ‘CONCEPT’ driven martial art.

A concept is essentially an IDEA.

An Idea is a fundament of the ‘MIND’.

It is THINKING.

If we hope to understand Wing Chun as it was meant to be at its inception, surely we should start by trying to appreciate how Dr Leung Jan saw his place in the world.

To get some measure of understanding of the science and philosophy that permeated the society that Dr. Leung Jan was a part of.

Wing Chun was not a unique creation, it was a deviation from normal Kung Fu, a different type of thinking, a modernisation if we would like to think that way.

But its roots came from and cannot escape from the classical IDEA of Kung Fu, which itself was influenced by the philosophical cornerstones of Chinese upper society.

This strata of society possessed knowledge that was not common knowledge.

To the general population, it was looked upon as hidden knowledge, even secret knowledge. 

When these IDEAS are translated into Latin-based languages they are termed as OCCULT.

Etymology… The occult (from the Latin word ‘occultus’; lit. ‘clandestine’, ‘hidden’, ‘secret’) is “knowledge of the hidden”. 

In today’s common usage, occult refers to “knowledge of the paranormal”, which of course leads in the direction of ‘magical thinking’, as opposed to “knowledge of the measurable”, usually referred to as science.

It is so important to not conflate the modern IDEA of ‘knowledge of the hidden’ which always slips into magical or spiritual connotations, with the IDEA of ‘knowledge of the hidden’  from 17th century China, which for its time was actually science.

The Geometry and Mathematics of Chinese Architecture would have been considered occult thinking.

Gunpowder was a product of occult thinking.

It was not possible for their language to avoid being cloaked in what is now looked upon as spiritual terminologies, and spiritual theorems.

Whether we are pro-spiritual thinking or anti-spiritual thinking it is detrimental to our progress because BOTH lead us in an unintended direction.

Our challenge is to be able to connect today’s training to the thinking of 17th-century China, ignoring ‘New-age’ explanations and bring it into normality.

An example of how the ancients could translate religious IDEAS into secular methodologies that resonate with Wing Chun can be found in the Buddhist Heart Sutra that reflects…

Form is no other than emptiness.

Emptiness no other than Form.

Form is only emptiness.

Emptiness only Form.

If we can step away from even the lightest religiosity, this statement could be about the Sil Lim Tao, which in one old-world translation becomes the ‘Way of the Shaolin’.

Spiritual people living in violent times would, without thinking, use spiritual language about non-spiritual things, because that was simply how they spoke.

We should work diligently to not be moved in the wrong direction by words.

What was hidden knowledge to the ancient people of our world, and was still thought of as almost sacred in the time of Dr. Leung Jan is now taught to schoolchildren as a part of basic education.

Physics, Geometry, and Mathematics.

All of our knowledge, all of our training and pretty much our only hope is in the ZONE.

There is an obvious contradiction when we try to talk about what we could/should do in a dangerous, violent situation, and then use a safe, non-violent situation, i.e. training, to explore this.

As Sam said at the end of training “It is really just about composure”, and that is bang on the money.

But we must ask ourselves, ‘how can we practice regaining composure in a safe training environment where we are, if nothing else, composed’?

Even a style that uses full-contact sparring has this problem, we can always walk away if we are not having fun.

Believe me, being on the wrong end of a kicking is in no way fun.

Walking away is simply not on the table, running perhaps, but even then we need to engineer our escape.

And to do that we need as much composure as we can muster.

How do we develop composure?

How do we regain composure in a Shit-Fight?

Once regained how do we maintain composure?

No matter which style we train, it is just not possible to come close to the reality of this in training, there is no other choice but to imagine it, to set up scenarios where we can play-act what we think will go down.

This is not as bogus as it may first sound, reality only happens ‘in the moment’, and after that it is stored as memory.

Neuroscientists have shown us that the human brain sees memory and imagination as the same thing.

And all of the ancient wisdom traditions tell us that “We are what we think”.

Since the time of the Stoics in ancient Greece, the philosopher Epictetus told us that how we think changes how we feel, how we feel changes how we think, and that they both affect how we act/ behave.

In today’s psychology, this is the core of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy C.B.T.

As you know I am not a supporter of the notion of “Internal” Kung Fu, by which I refer to the act of generating a force from an unknown origin to power our attacks, to me, is just magical thinking.

But there is, beyond doubt, a non-physical side to training that should not be ignored.

Only a fool would say that fighting/violence is a purely physical experience.

There is a definite emotional aspect and a definite mental aspect, that we simply must find a way to accommodate.

For ease of explanation, I refer to this emotional/mental aspect as “Mind Boxing”

I do not use the term Mind Boxing because I can somehow box with my mind, that is just as bad as any other kind of magical thinking, I call it Mind Boxing because I believe we need to observe, understand, and train our minds as a separate, yet inclusive, part of our {Chinese} Boxing.

I believe this topic to be so important that I have a stand-alone website CLICK HERE.

To paraphrase and contextualise Epictetus…

How we feel in a violent situation will influence how we think in a violent situation.

How we think in a violent situation will influence how we feel in a violent situation.

They will both, in their own way, influence what we do in a violent situation.

It is important to not only accept this but to also understand that the quantity/quality of the effect of how we think and the quantity/quality of the effect of how we feel when under pressure is a sliding scale.

As such no one-size-fits-all solution.

The challenge becomes ‘Can we come up with a generic method that can provide value for all of us’?

We are not alone in this quest, every Elite Sportsman knows this search and luckily for us the Internet is awash with information from Sports Psychologists to aid in eliminating, what in less dangerous environments, might be referred to as ‘performance anxiety’.

To take a leaf from the book of Sports Psychology we need to create a template that we can slip into whenever we need to perform a specific task.

This is where a layman’s understanding of how our Mind works becomes essential to progress.

Everything happening to us ‘in the moment’, all stimuli, are processed by our short-term memory.

The short-term memory is our director, our captain, it calls the shots.

But the short-term memory has minimal storage capacity, by some estimates, short-term memory can only hold around seven items of information at one time. 

Anything deemed not mission critical is shunted off into storage, into our long-term memory, where the brain permanently stores the information for future recall when necessary.

How we deal with what is happening right here, right now, right in front of us is the remit of our short-term memory.

But if we get in strife and hope to call on our training we need to access long-term memory.

While we are actively training all of our training information is stored in our short-term memory, but as soon as we leave to go home that info is moved to long-term storage.

When we think about an elite sportsman playing flawlessly, and effortlessly, we say that they are in the ZONE.

Being in the ZONE is being in unobstructed, unfettered contact with our Long-term memory.

How do we access the ZONE when we are in the middle of an active shitstorm?

Because this is more important than anything else.

All of our knowledge, all of our training and pretty much our only hope is in the ZONE.

And as the ‘Brown Becomes Airborne’, we are not.

If we return to the Sports world we see suggestions of setting up cues or triggers, single movements or thoughts that call up complex actions, and complex movements without complex thinking.

If we think about our computers, we click an icon or an alias to open a program.

Addressing the Ball in Golf, preparing to take a penalty in football, waiting for a delivery in cricket, taking a set position in a foot race, and waiting to return serve in tennis are examples many of us will have experience of from school if nothing else.

In these ready positions, the emphasis is as much on setting the tone of our emotions and settling into a pre-trained mindset, only once we are happy that we have adopted these positions do we engage in our trained skill.

Self-Defence Martial Arts are anticipating being surprised, but I think we all know that we cannot expect the unexpected.

The only thing we can expect is some level of surprise/shock.

Do we have any IDEA how to move into and adopt a ready position whilst in a state of surprise/shock?

HOW WE FEEL CHANGES HOW WE THINK.

HOW WE THINK CHANGES HOW WE FEEL.

THEY BOTH CHANGE HOW WE ACT.

EPICTETUS. 130A.D.

Rule #1, move as well as a normal person can move when they are just being normal.

Hey Guys, picture this.

We are watching a sporting event, pick your favourite flavour on this, and one player catches our eye, they are not doing anything outrageously special, but everything they do is effortless, smooth, focused and uncluttered.

Our thought is that this person is an elite sportsperson.

Why?

Because they move so well.

This thought exercise holds true for any sport, so it is obviously not the movements themselves, after all, different sports use different actions.

Rule #1, move as well as a normal person can move when they are just being normal.

As I mentioned, different sports use different moves because they have different goals and agendas.

So do different martial arts.

But in their hearts, they are all just the same human movements.

The takeaway from this thought experiment is that nothing we do will be of any benefit to us if we do not move well as a person.

Despite the hype around Wing Chun Forms, they are just our IDEA of a normal movement that meets our specific needs.

like most of the posts on FaceBook this sounds good, but, it is actually Bullshit.

Hey Guys,

Just a quick post to keep in touch.

Sam, Costas and I were working on stuff on Saturday that I thought was quite important to share, we lost the sound early into the piece so there is no commentary on the practice, all the same I am posting a few frames of what we did, with a bit of Timo Mass playing, to seed the water so to speak.

We will revisit this on Thursday evening so if you can, be here, and get all the information instead of just about 5% which is all we really put in these videos.

The heart of this matter is a better understanding of the whole idea of being fast.

Mark Zuckerberg once stated that his motto for Facebook was “Move fast and break things”, like most of the posts on FaceBook this sounds good, but, it is actually Bullshit.

Wing Chun does not attack, Wing Chun counterattacks.

I have mentioned before how intercepting an incoming strike is essentially a ‘Hard Block’, something that we do not do with Wing Chun, and a major misunderstanding about contact.

This is not just a stylistic interpretation, it is a fundamental aspect of what Wing Chun is.

To intercept an incoming strike we must firstly be aware of the event as it unfolds, and secondly, be moving towards the contact.

Moving in towards contact is off course an act of attacking.

Wing Chun does not attack, Wing Chun counter attacks.

Many students struggle to appreciate the true nature of a counter-attack and fail to grasp some very basic even bedrock IDEAS that result from operating from a counter-attacking perspective.

Everyone pays lip service to the notion that we cannot counter-attack unless an attack has happened.

But few join the dots and arrive at the conclusion that an attack has not happened until a strike lands.

Nor do they understand the implications.

If we are in a violent situation we are not bound to only use Wing Chun.

If I choose I can intercept or block an incoming strike or even initiate a preemptive strike of my own, options that may be the better choice in situ.

If I am using Wing Chun Fist Logic the situation has been taken out of my hands, I am already the victim of an attack.

I can only counter-attack after an attack.

After a strike has landed or is at the very least microseconds away from landing.

If the choice is mine {which it will not be anyway} my best option is to let the strike land and not try to prevent it from landing.

Before everyone loses their shit over this comment this is not advice on what to do, it is simply pointing out the conditions needed for counter-attack and as such the conditions needed for Wing Chun.

Letting the incoming strike make contact does not mean that I just stand there and take it, it is more that I control the time, place, and manner of contact.

This is a strategic approach that once understood aids us in being in the best place, at the best time and doing the best thing. 

Although this is most definitely a strategic approach it is not about pre-planning or trying to force the attacker into moving how we wish them to move.

It is strategy from the perspective of knowing our options.

Like so much of Wing Chun this IDEA is counter-intuitive but once explored becomes the go to choice.

Sticks and Stones were the first weapons man ever used.

RANGES AND STICKS.

I always get bemused when people who claim to know things about violent physical interactions with other people start to talk about fighting ranges.

Anyone who does know about violence knows that there is only one range.

Contact.

When we consider the range that Wing Chun operates at as a self-defence-oriented martial art, what we are talking about is the other end of an attack.

Even if the initial strike is from what is sometimes called long-range, the follow-up is right down our throats so we should settle down and settle in.

Into being up close and personal.

Our very own Dai Sigung Isaac Newton and Sibak Albert Einstein made it very clear that time and space are two sides of the same coin.

When we are short of one we are short of both, so whatever we do it needs to be very quick, and very close.

There is a great deal of well-intentioned but misguided information kicking around the self-defence community, most of it can be blown away by basic high-school-level physics, and the rest by common sense.

We get out of bad situations by putting the bad guy down, it is not the best thought, but it is the truth.

Sticks and Stones were the first weapons man ever used.

And more than anything else, the only wrong move is not to move.

SPEAK SOFTLY AND CARRY A BIG STICK.

Theodore Roosevelt.

Concepts are IDEAS, seed IDEAS, that provide a departure point for exploration.

As a ‘Concept Driven’ Martial Art, we can and do, use training methods that are as much about understanding thought processes as they are about fighting.

Especially if we are digging deep into the theory of our FIST LOGIC.

Some of the more nuanced aspects such as INTENTION, which due to the peculiarities of the English language is always tricky to explain, and understanding what it means to release a strike and not push it are areas where a different approach can pay dividends.

Using IMAGINATION is one such tool.

It is important to come at this training with an open mind, but it is equally important to understand that this is just a TRAINING TOOL, a method to help us make a breakthrough that we can then work on with more familiar approaches.

As baby humans, “Play Acting” is how we learn all of our earliest lessons, it is something we all know how to do, and if we can allow ourselves to access this very old skill it can help us see things we would never see by other methods.

But as I say, this is just a training method, I am not suggesting that should be something we do in a dire situation.

All this kind of stuff is working on the conceptual aspect of Wing Chun, and as such we should not make the mistake of thinking that a “CONCEPT” is in any way real or what we are after.

Concepts are IDEAS, seed IDEAS, that provide a departure point for exploration.

REALITY: WHAT A CONCEPT.

ROBIN WILLIAMS.

We could ask ‘How long is a piece of string”?

 If we simplify wing Chun the training objective is to minimise incoming force while maximising outgoing force.

This is a game of opposites, accept incoming force with cotton and issue force with steel.

All techniques and strategies pay fealty to this IDEA.

Our concepts are suggestions and not directions, this leaves a great deal of room for interpretation, adlib, and creativity, but it also leaves us open to misunderstandings and working against ourselves.

One concept, ‘Wing Chun does not use Hard Blocking’ is a potential misunderstanding.

What is a ‘Hard Block’?

We could ask ‘How long is a piece of string”?

So what is a Hard Block?  A ‘Hard Block’ is a clash of Arms.

Question.

Is there a time and place of contact where we move from Soft Block to Medium Block? 

Or a transition from Medium Block to Hard Block?

The term ‘Hard’ is an infinitely variable metric that can never be in the same place on two successive instances or be the same quality or amount of HARDNESS for two different people.

Blocking is contact, and contact is a clash.

And clashing invokes the Law of Action/Reaction.

It is a shared event that is determined by two separate sides.

We need to re-explain this Concept as Wing Chun does not Clash with our opponent’s Arms.

One of the most overused cliches in Martial Arts is that of building a House.

When building a house, there are hierarchies that if avoided or approached out of order the task becomes infinitely more challenging.

We could for instance begin by building a roof, then suspend it and build walls down from that roof.

There is no getting away from the fact that a house is made of a roof, walls and a floor, eventually, we need to create all of these to have a house.

Conventional wisdom, and more than likely experience, favours building a slab, erecting walls, and then adding a roof. 

Learning Wing Chun is just like building a House.

We can work on and learn the Forms in any order we choose, but some ways are easier than others.

As wildly confusing as it may sound approaching Wing Chun as a Martial Art in a physical sense is beginning by moving in the wrong direction.

It is not possible to learn the truth of Wing Chun by studying shapes and movements alone, the shapes and movements that are most commonly used are, in all truth, shapes and movements taken from other styles that were popular at the time.

We could just as well use any known style.

Shapes and movements are important, but as keys and not as weapons.

The shapes and movements open doors upon practices that refine and improve those same shapes and movements.

I genuinely believe that we could begin our study of Wing Chun with any of the  Wing Chun Forms, even including the Mom Jan Jong, but just like the house, it is easier if we start with a good foundation.

This foundation is what I refer to as ‘CRAZY HORSE’, a device to hang the clothes known as Sil Lim Tao, Chum Kiu, Biu Gee and Mok Jan Jong on.

Once we have developed ‘CRAZY HORSE’ we could well start with Bill Gee.

But staying with the house-building analogy for a moment, to achieve good foundations it is vital that we build on solid ground.

The ‘solid ground, that we build on in Wing Chun is a previously learned skill set.

If we do not have a previously learned skill set then it stands to reason that we first must develop one.

The physical aspect of Wing Chun training, the aspect that so many people, especially YouTubers, think is what makes up Wing Chun, you know, the making contact bit, is nothing more than the setting up of solid ground to put our foundations on.

The real work begins once we have shapes we trust, once we have an effective way of moving.

In short, the real work begins once we know how to fight.

The video below quickly became longer than I intended so I will cover the manifestation of weight and how to use it at a later date, it is a really interesting and powerful topic which is relatively easy to grasp.

The audio volume in the following clip is a tad too much so lower your volume before clicking the play button.

https://videopress.com/v/ewLInQMX?resizeToParent=1&cover=1&autoPlay=0&controls=1&loop=0&muted=0&persistVolume=1&playsinline=0&preloadContent=metadata&sbc&sbpc&sblc&useAverageColor=1

NOTHING HAPPENS UNTIL SOMETHING MOVES.

ALBERT EINSTEIN.

No matter what we may think we are doing there is something happening that is real, measurable and usually contrary to what we think we are actually engaged in.

Body Alignment for instance, is an important topic in any Martial Art, most styles have their own particular approach that is usually played out in different stances and movement patterns, but in this Universe the only thing we ever align ourselves with is Gravity. 

Because we have lived with Gravity for every second of our lives we tend not to notice it, and we need to.

Gravity infuses everything we do, constantly.

Gravity is pulling us down towards the centre of our planet’s mass, the reason we do not end up flat on the floor is that all of our collective body parts are FALLING into our Feet in such a way that they stack up on top of each other to create a balanced structure.  This is the same with buildings, trees and even mountains.

In most Martial Arts the first learning objective is to be able to stand in this Balanced State that prevents us from falling over, there are numerous ways to achieve this, but they all have the same Goal.

Aligning ourselves with Gravity so that all of our weight FALLS into our Feet. 

 If our balance is correct we will not require any tension to hold us still, if there is tension then you are not in balance.  

This is easy to test, just stand still. 

 If you are out of balance you will use tension to stop you from falling, this will fatigue the Muscle providing the tension, when this happens your body will independently move to a new position that will also be out of balance and require tension to prevent falling over, you see this all the time, people shifting from one leg to the other, mostly unaware that it is even happening.

It is easy to think that we use the Muscular Tension to hold us IN balance, but this is incorrect, the tension is holding us out of balance.

When we are in balance there is no need for tension.

Gravity is always pulling on us, if we do anything to work against this we are fighting force.  

Think deeply about that.

 If you are engaged in anything except allowing all of your Body to sink down, to drain into the Earth, you are fighting force and cannot possibly be relaxed no matter what you may think you are doing.

Once we have established balance and stillness it is time to introduce movement.

All movement is a result of our interaction with the Planet, all power comes from our interaction with the Planet, being still is a result of our interaction with the Planet.

The first moves are usually small, minor, often just an Arm, if my movement takes any of my weight out of my feet, if it in any way interferes with the constant sinking into the ground of every part that is me then it is no longer working with Gravity but is in fact fighting it.

Wherever I may choose to move it the weight of my Arm, my Feet must go to, or at the very least the action must not take anything away from my feet.

As difficult as this is to imagine if you think deeply on it you realise that there is no other way if we are to remain in unity with Gravity.

Take 20 minutes every day for a week to think deeply about this, take notes discuss it with friends, use what you discover to examine what you think you know, examine what you think you understand.

It is not about me being right or wrong, this is the way our Universe works, agreeing or disagreeing will not change the reality of our Cosmos.

When you understand ……  things are just the way they are.

When you do not understand ……   things are just the way they are.

When we move we must move with Gravity, so every move begins as a downward move.  

My foot presses the Planet, and the Planet presses back. 

Even when I am standing still the stacking of my body that allows my weight to fall into my foot creates this press.

When still my foot presses the planet, this is the fundamental connection.

The more aware of this you can be, the more you can accomplish with it.

The most important aspect of any stance or any movement is the relationship between our foot and the Planet.

When engaged in Chi Sau, a dynamic drill that encompasses both accepting and issuing force, we lose all idea of gravity, it is now just Chi Sau, for Chi Sau’s sake.

is it even possible to monitor how we are dealing with gravity?

Ultimately if we lose our control of, on, or with gravity, whether we are in a violent situation or a training situation, nothing we attempt will be successful.

My teacher would often come up to me when I was engaging in Chi Sau with a schoolmate and ask “What are your ankles doing”?

A quick aside regarding the video below, especially for any guests that may get confused with this type of training, but also for students who forget that there is a step after this, the step where we develop our own way to turn this IDEA into a practical, physical application for use in a chaotic violent situation.

It should be no surprise to learn that our nervous system is seriously invested in our survival, and as such it will override our brain {and if it deems it is necessary to ignore our training} when it comes to deciding how fast we do things, it will however naturally strive to at least equal the speed of the incoming strike, so it is more important that we are moving with a smooth, even rhythm that can be upsized to suit our needs.

All of our training is a method to physically represent the IDEA behind the work, it is not techniques, it is Wing Chun Science if you would, our Fist Logic.

Isaac Newton, the greatest of all Wing Chun elders, taught us that it takes more effort to make a still object move than it does to keep something moving or even speed up that movement, think about pushing a car.

Any IDEA that we can make work against a static object/training partner will work even more effortlessly against a moving object/training partner, and never forget that speed is just a metric.

This video is just a record of a normal training session, we are working on understanding an aspect of “The little IDEA” and as such see how our “Fist Logic” works in any shape, from any position in any situation.

GRAVITY SUCKS.

THE “D” MAN.

the overriding intention is ‘do the work, do not hang around, go home’.

It appears to be that time of year again, the time when Kung Fu Masters choose to step into an arena to battle fighters from other disciplines.

The clip I have here was recently posted to our WhatsApp group by Sam, it is a Kung Fu Master vs a youngish Female Boxer.

The difference in age, build, and weight is quite significant.

The only info I have of the two fighters is what is given in the video, but I have no reason to doubt the commentator.

The usual approach is to bag-out the Kung Fu guy for not being the second coming of Bruce Lee and generally covering him in scorn.

But why?

Even though it has been well over 40 years since I took someone on competitively, I remember the nerves stepping through the ropes, or onto that mat.

This ‘caper’ is not for the faint at heart, and we should at least give them some respect for this.

When Kung Fu practitioners talk about these events there is the suggestion that none of us cares about these fools and the games they play.

If that is the case why are the comments so brutal?

We do feel it, deep inside, we do get embarrassed, and feel ‘Tarred with the same brush’, and with a certain percentage of students, this creates a sense of doubt.

But I ask you, doubt about what?

Doubt about our ability to hold our nerves when we step into an area with someone that wants to hurt us?

Doubt about our conditioning to chase that someone around a ring for 15 minutes?

Doubt about our capacity to ignore punishment and carry on when the other fighter hits us?

This is not what we train for, so where does this doubt come from?

We should simply not go there.

What Kung Fu, and any other self-defence-minded Martial Art trains for, the environment we will find ourselves in so to speak, is a very short, very intense, unprepared-for attack.

The thing that makes this environment so difficult is that we will, to a certain degree, be caught out, be surprised, be shocked, the thing could be over before we know it has begun.

However, if we can reverse the flow, and surprise or shock our attacker, then the path ahead becomes much easier to navigate.

This is the concept of counter-attack, this is what we train.

It is not about swapping punches, is about turning tables.

If we look at the video we should ask ourselves….

Q. #1. Where are the Kung Fu skills?

All we see is an apparently untrained brawler trying to face off against a moderately trained boxer, which begs the obvious question…

Q. #2. Why is this trained Kung Fu Master choosing to brawl instead of using Kung Fu?

All Kung Fu styles, but particularly Wing Chun, operate from a position of responding to someone attacking us, that is the whole IDEA of self-defence.

It is hard to access self-defence IDEAs if we are the ones doing the attack.

If we look at this fight through the lens of our own ‘FIST LOGIC’ it is the young boxer, if anyone, that is employing Kung Fu philosophy.

This gets down to something I have been banging on about for years.

Kung Fu, and especially Wing Chun Kung Fu, does not fight.

Let’s spend a minute and clear this up a bit.

What is a fight?

A fight is an event where 2 people openly attack each other, that is it in a nutshell, attack, attack, attack, usually the closest anyone gets to defending themselves is through evasion.

‘Fighting‘ is not what Kung Fu prepares for.

What type of event does Kung Fu prepare for, and again, specifically Wing Chun Kung Fu?

It trains for an unwanted, unexpected, violent situation, and the goal is to get out of there as soon as possible, with a minimum amount of damage.

Obviously, to escape we may first need to incapacitate the attacker, but the overriding intention is ‘do the work, do not hang around, go home’.

Choosing to engage with another person in a fight, or trying to get ourselves out of an unwanted situation are two completely different environments with very different needs, and very different outcomes.

For every environment, there is an optimum way to interact with that environment.

Trying to use self-defence IDEAS for fighting is just choosing an inappropriate means of interaction with that environment.

A bit like Ballroom dancing in a wet suit and flippers.

I am sure someone could make it work, but why even try?

The skills we need are much less specialised physical skills, and more the ability to pick the right tool for the job.

This comes down to understanding what that job is, for example, are we choosing to fight someone as if duelling to defend our honour?

It comes down to detailing the outcomes we wish for, for example, are we looking to prove a point and set someone straight or just get out of there in one piece?

But most importantly, it is deeply understanding the capacity of what we are training to get us the results we want to get.

The video below is quite long, you will get what I am going on about in the first few minutes, but it is worth watching it all.

As always if this creates any kind of confusion we can do a training session to focus on this aspect.

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.

Winston Churchill.