MOVEMENT – Wing Chun Sydney, Australia

FIST LOGIC

THINK IT, SEE IT, BUILD IT, BE IT.

January 22, 2026 The "D" Man

Expert level performance is as much about internal communication as it is about external movement.

This is a re-run, but the info is important.

FORMS AS A MEMORY FUNCTION

Something that is not in our face and as such often overlooked is that FORMS are also DRILLS.

We repeat the same set of movements over and again to “GROOVE” that action.

Performing a perfect movement may appear to be a physical thing but in reality all movement is a product of our thinking, an output from our C.P.U.

Our Brain.

Expert level performance is as much about internal communication as it is about external movement.

Think – send the memo – move.

Understanding the movement that we wish to perform is essential if we hold any hope of doing it correctly.

There are great gains to be had when we use our FORMS as a drill to aid and enhance our memory.

When I was quite serious about playing tennis I would spend hours working on just my service action, as a result my serve rarely let me down in matches when the pressure was on.

There is no difference between a body playing tennis and a body doing Kung Fu, or a body fighting.

This may sound a bit like compu-tech babble but better memory equates to higher competancy rates and better completion rates, vital stats in a violent encounter.

PHASE 2 [this is just a wee bit weird].

A deeply important aspect of FORMS training is that we are quite literally building a new person, and building a new universe for that person to operate in complete with new rules and new expectations.

This Universe is the Chum Kiu / Biu Gee Universe, if it helps in any way think of it like the ‘Marvel Universe’ and we are developing a new character to go help save the world.

This is not as ‘OUT THERE’ as it may sound, we have no REAL proof that we exist in this universe.

If we are training our Wing Chun for practical competency in fighting, which is of course the only goal to train for, the end game is to arrive at a predictable, repeatable, powerful, correct position and ‘physical end-state’.

It is all and only about the ‘END GAME’!

Do I hear you ask why?

Because where we begin any action will not be in our control as our action will be a response to an oponents action.

This is called ‘Counter Attacking’, wait a minute, that sounds a lot like Wing Chun.

And as such all of our training is about achieving the desired ‘end state‘ on the fly.

The SHAPE THAT WORKS.

In the place it works best.

As I frequently mention we need to be capable of thinking flexibly, of performing some at times tricky bits of mental gymnastics

It is an absolute ‘No Brainer’ that if we expect our training to work when we are in a perilous environment, then that environment needs to reflect, as much as possible, our training environment.

Most students shy away from even considering this.

But in reality, this is where the rubber meets the road.

MENTAL GYMNASTIC #1.

There is no way on Earth that the environment we find ourselves in will reflect the environment we trained in.

The task becomes being the same person doing the same thing in these diverse environments.

That Marvel Hero, doing marvelous things, in ‘our own’ marvelous universe.

MENTAL GYMNASTIC #2.

“The only way that we can live is if we grow.

The only way we can grow is if we change.

The only way we can change is if we learn.

The only way we can learn is if we are exposed.

And the only way that we are exposed is if we throw ourselves into the open.” — C. Joybell

FIST LOGIC

THINK IT, SEE IT, BUILD IT, BE IT.

October 29, 2021October 29, 2021 The "D" Man

Expert level performance is as much about internal communication as it is about external movement.

I know that this hot on the heels of yesterday’s post but I wanted to address something before I became distracted and forgot about it.

FORMS AS A MEMORY FUNCTION

Something that is not in our face and as such often overlooked is that FORMS are also DRILLS.

We repeat the same set of movements over and again to “GROOVE” that action.

Performing a perfect movement may appear to be a physical thing but in reality all movement is a product of our thinking, an output from our C.P.U.

Our Brain.

Expert level performance is as much about internal communication as it is about external movement.

Think – send the memo – move.

Understanding the movement that we wish to perform is essential if we hold any hope of doing it correctly.

There are great gains to be had when we use our FORMS as a drill to aid and enhance our memory.

When I was quite serious about playing tennis I would spend hours working on just my service action, as a result my serve rarely let me down in matches when the pressure was on.

There is no difference between a body playing tennis and a body doing Kung Fu, or a body fighting.

This may sound a bit like compu-tech babble but better memory equates to higher competancy rates and better completion rates, vital stats in a violent encounter.

PHASE 2 [this is just a wee bit weird].

This Universe is the Chum Kiu / Biu Gee Universe, if it helps in any way think of it like the ‘Marvel Universe’ and we are developing a new character to go help save the world.

This is not as ‘OUT THERE’ as it may sound, we have no REAL proof that we exist in this universe.

It is all and only about the ‘END GAME’!

Do I hear you ask why?

Because where we begin any action will not be in our control as our action will be a response to an oponents action.

This is called ‘Counter Attacking’, wait a minute, that sounds a lot like Wing Chun.

And as such all of our training is about achieving the desired ‘end state‘ on the fly.

The SHAPE THAT WORKS.

In the place it works best.

As I frequently mention we need to be capable of thinking flexibly, of performing some at times tricky bits of mental gymnastics

It is an absolute ‘No Brainer’ that if we expect our training to work when we are in a perilous environment, then that environment needs to reflect, as much as possible, our training environment.

Most students shy away from even considering this.

But in reality, this is where the rubber meets the road.

MENTAL GYMNASTIC #1.

There is no way on Earth that the environment we find ourselves in will reflect the environment we trained in.

The task becomes being the same person doing the same thing in these diverse environments.

That Marvel Hero, doing marvelous things, in ‘our own’ marvelous universe.

MENTAL GYMNASTIC #2.

“The only way that we can live is if we grow.

The only way we can grow is if we change.

The only way we can change is if we learn.

The only way we can learn is if we are exposed.

And the only way that we are exposed is if we throw ourselves into the open.” — C. Joybell

FIST LOGIC, VIDEO

CONDITIONING, A CONTINUATION.

June 20, 2021 The "D" Man

Force summation of a rower. (source: sportsmedbiotech, 2009)

Up goes the cry ‘Wing Chun does not use strength”.

Guess what? Conditioning and fitness are not just about strength!

This is a reposting from 18 months ago, but this is a vital piece of the puzzle. Rule #1 if you wish to win a blue, be a better human.

I want to spend a few weeks looking at various types of and approaches to conditioning to make the most of our training, this may sound off-key but there is a great deal more to being effective at Wing Chun than just learning Wing Chun.

Fighting is a physical experience, so surely there needs to be a physical element to the training.

It makes no difference what so ever if we do ‘Internal’ or ‘External’ Wing Chun. If we depend on ‘Thought Force’ or ‘Physical Force’

If our body is not up to the task of performing as the blunt instrument needed to deliver our force of choice we could be in serious trouble the day we need to use it.

Hands break when they hit faces, this is the real reason Boxers wear gloves.

Talking to certain sections of the Wing Chun community about the need to introduce strength and fitness is as difficult and fruitless as talking to an Australian Liberal politician about the need to phase out coal.

Up goes the cry ‘Wing Chun does not use strength”.

Guess what? Conditioning and fitness are not just about strength!

It is just as much about building mobility to get out of the way, improving our VO2 Max so we do not gas out in 5 seconds or developing the resilience to not fall in a heap if we fail to get out of the way and get hit in the head.

Wing Chun very strangely does not have specialised training regimes such as Chi Kung of other T.C.M.A.

I have no idea why this is, it makes no sense.

But perhaps it does, perhaps we have just stopped identifying them as such, upgraded them to something else, helped of course by the post-war Hong Kong entertainment industry.

If we had not all fallen the romanticised exploitation of Chi Kung and Kung Fu that was perpetrated by the Shaw Brothers beginning in the early 1950s perhaps we would have realised that Chi Kung was a precursor of today’s sports science and maybe, just maybe Kung Fu would not have slipped into obscurity and disregard compared to Modern Combat Sports.

The idea of a genteel scholar defeating thugs was such a breadwinner for the Shaw Studios it was pretty much the theme of every movie, perhaps unintentionally it allowed weak unfit people to think they could compete if they just played Kung Fu.

Many still do.

Many are still wrong.

What conditioning do I think we need?

This is a very difficult question to answer, it all depends on what type of trouble we think we will get into.

I am sure we all think different things.

Do we need to be steady, stable and strong?

Do we need to be mobile, quick and adaptive?

Can we be both?

If we can begin to see all of the Forms as being conditioning exercises, at least at a base level, we are at least starting from a sound base.

By all means, keep seeing them as ways to circulate Chi if that is your approach but first let them be simply physical.

In my last post, I mentioned the ‘Stretch Reflex’ and how in some situations it can have a negative impact on our actions.

That does not mean that the ‘Stretch Reflex’ is always negative, there are many situations where it can be used to our advantage.

Understanding the ‘Stretch Reflex’ and how we condition our body and our thinking to work with it, and of great importance understanding that we cannot influence it in any way.

No matter what some people may say or even claim, we cannot train a reflex. Training is a conscious action, reflexes are unconscious actions.

To think otherwise is to pursue a fantasy.

But once we identify, understand and can predict the effect of a Stretch Reflex we can adapt our training so that it has less of a chance of working against us.

So that we have less of a chance of working against ourselves.

CONDITIONING – STRETCH REFLEX from WC INCa’s on Vimeo.

There are a lot of people that say Wing Chun does not work on account of some very sad YouTube fights, the simple truth is that a hobbyist, a weekend warrior, no matter how skilled or capable will always loose to a full-time combat athlete.

Survival of the fittest is not a cliche, neither in the ring or on the street.

If we wish to do better we must become more athletic, more dynamic, more physical, the whole IDEA behind the do not use strength argument is a misrepresentation, it should be “do not depend on strength”, which really is just another way of saying trust your skill first, however, if your attacker is smaller and weaker there is nothing wrong with using strength, it will work.

The popular sales pitch representation that doing Wing Chun will “level the playing field” against a stronger, bigger, faster, fitter opponent only works if the opponent has no skill, only brute strength.

Being faster, fitter, stronger does not guarantee a win, but it helps.

Get fitter, get stronger, get faster, get conditioned, and of course, keep improving your skill.

Learn how to walk and chew gum.

TRAIN YOUR WEAKNESS, WORK TO YOUR STRENGTH.

FIST LOGIC

WHERE ARE WE NOW?

June 25, 2020June 25, 2020 The "D" Man

Once we change Wing Chun it is no longer Wing Chun.

At the heart of my own training is the practice of ‘Deconstruct – Reconstruct’.

During ‘Lockdown’ this has been elevated to a much higher level.

Instead of being a weekly practice, it is now more often daily.

Whenever I deconstruct what I know and then reconstruct the components there are always a few bits that I realise are not needed, so they get discarded, and my training becomes streamlined, more compact, more concise.

Occam’s Razor.

I am at a very different place than where I was before COVID 19.

Something that I have always known is that training is training and nothing more.

Nothing we do in training will be usable in an environment that is different than the one we train in.

A violent encounter is a ‘VERY’ different environment than our training environment.

The usual response to this statement by most people is that when needed we will just adapt our training to the new environment.

Really?

Are we to become some kind of Kung Fu Flying Fish.

To adapt means to change from one state of being to another.

Once we change Wing Chun it is no longer Wing Chun.

If what we depend on to get us out of a dangerous situation is not Wing Chun why are we training Wing Chun?

The most obvious example of this is Chi Sau.

Chi Sau has no connection to reality, in fact, Chi Sau only works when playing Chi Sau.

Chi Sau is a game.

Surviving violence is not a game.

to be continued…

WORK ON YOUR WEAKNESS’

PLAY TO YOUR STRENGTH.

FIST LOGIC, VIDEO

BECOMING DYNAMIC.

April 6, 2020April 6, 2020 The "D" Man

Getting a handle on these will teach you more than I ever can.

Hi guys,

I am changing the format of these posts, we have plenty of time so instead of the usual brief videos to fit the idea of a quick visit to the Vlog I am making longer more detailed videos, I will post less frequently so that there is no information overload, and inside of the Videos, I will repeat information so that there is less chance of something going through to the keeper.

Things to get your head around and develop a deep personal understanding of are…

“How does a Counter Attacking Style operate and why.”?

“What does it mean to not carry an opponents weight”

“Why was Isaac Newton the greatest Wing Chun Sifu of all time”?

Getting a handle on these will teach you more than I ever can.

These videos are for your benefit to assist with your “Solo Training” during the lockdown, I have no personal agenda, if there is anything at all you would like me to cover hit me up, there is no reason for some sort of orderly progression, if you have a question on the knives or the pole do not wait until I start talking about the knives or pole, the dummy is difficult to set up and film as a one-man band but I am working on it William.

STAY FROSTY.

STAY HEALTHY.

STAY INDOORS.

FIST LOGIC, VIDEO

“Understanding the real and implied geometry of Wing Chun”

February 21, 2020 The "D" Man

These geometric concepts of Wing Chun are presented in relatively fixed positions and shapes congruent with their respective Forms but they need to translate to all Forms

We had a great nights training on Monday, it was very theory-heavy but all the guys were up for it so it was a real eye-opener and very enjoyable as the teacher.

This post is, on the whole, a memory aid for my guys to go back and refresh their thinking because there was way too much information to take in in one evening.

Theory can be dry, and it is always tricky because only people with genuine fighting experience understand that theory and reality are in no way related, so we mixed it up with a lot of live contacts to feel the IDEA.

Of equal importance, we worked hard on creating a language to describe the work that we could all understand.

One of if not the first theory we encounter is “Centreline Theory”.

What is a centreline?

The definition of a Centreline is a line that bisects a plane.

The Wing Chun Centreline bisects the Coronal or Frontal plane of our body dividing us into left and right sides.

An imaginary line connecting ourselves to an opponent is not a centre-line, this is a common misunderstanding that leads people down the wrong path, in theory, our Centreline acts like a plane {Sagitalplane} extending forwards so it is easy to see how this confusion arises.

The use of the term Centre-line for a line from person to person is a misnomer it would be easier to grasp if we called it centre plane.

If this is confusing ask yourself “If a line from myself to my opponent is a centreline, what plane is it the centre of? What and where are the two halves”?

This may seem like a triviality but if we do not understand what a Centreline is how can we understand Centreline Theory?

This line that our perception creates that we think links us to an opponent can be anything we want it to be because it does not exist, I like to think of it as the line of mass, this IDEA can tie into other aspects of our strategy and theory.

Line of Mass is just a name we came up with on the night, if it does not work for you pick a different name, just not Centreline.

The reason I chose Line of mass is that irrespective of what type of movement is being used the opponent’s body mass follows this line, and as for ourselves, this is how we promote our body mass toward an attacker even as we appear to be avoiding an attack or moving away.

Then there is the attack- line, this is a line that runs fro the shoulder or the hip of an attacker in toward us.

An opponents attack aways finishes at a point on this line, even from a wildly swinging punch or kick, redirecting this line, and not the arm/fist/weapon using this line is the purpose of our defensive manoeuvres.

Intercepting the attack line and not the arm/leg is the most effective way to defend.

Chi Sau helps us identify and understand this and it also shows us how to create diagonal movement by the use of circular arm motion and curved arm paths.

The proximal to distal {in to out} direction of our action is always in a straight line even from a curved movement, i.e. Bong Sau travels in a straight line.

Try to not confuse straight with being parallel or perpendicular to an external reference point.

Single Arm Chi Sau essentially moves or redirects an intercepted attack-line up and down on our centre-line.

Double Arm Chi Sau moves or redirects an attack-line from the “inside gate” out to the periphery of our structure or from the outside of our structure into our centre effectively breaking both the attack-line and the line of mass of our attacker.

In a real-world application, we would combine a little of both IDEAs, for example in toward the CL and down or out away from the CL and up.

In a poorly trained person, the attack-line is rarely separated from the line of mass.

As a Wing Chun fighter on the attack, we cannot maximise our output if we do not understand the geometry and how to combine the line of mass with the attack-line while at the same time creating torque through “muscular” rotation.

These geometric concepts of Wing Chun are presented in relatively fixed positions and shapes congruent with their respective Forms but they need to translate to all Forms, all planes and directions of action, this is the heart of the work.

This is one of the principal learning objectives of Chum Ku, understanding how to support the actions {arm shapes} with our body mass as we make contact with an opponent.

Anything that makes contact with an opponent in any way, either defending or attacking creates a bridge and as such is Chum Kiu.

The following video is not the best I have ever done if you are a visitor I apologise, for us INCas it is a fairly accurate representation of what we worked on all week, I will repost it to the BODYWORK page so you can revisit easily.