Getting the most from our Blog.

Often after training things occur to us that we would like to say to your Wing Chun Brothers but they are not there, this is what happens when I post to the Blog, at the bottom of every post there are the box's to mark your reactions that many of you use, but also there is a highlighted Comments link next to the time, often it says 0 comments, if you click this it will allow you to make comments or ask questions about the post, even start a conversation about the post with other followers, Wing Chun more than any other M.A. I know improves with thinking and talking. Use the comments button.

Derek

Meetings with a Grand Master

We have all just been treated to some help and information from a member of Wing Chun Royalty, our Sibak, Grand Master {Frederick} Mo Chiu Po who was over here as a guest of our Wing Chun Brothers Tony Chiu and William Leung of the A.W.C.A.  Mo Sibak is a senior disciple of our Sigung Tsui Shun Tin and as such he is an exponent of Nim Lik, the mysterious internal energy of Wing Chun. I was lucky to have 3 Private sessions where we went over what I knew and understood of Wing Chun and of course of Nim Lik. Some changes where made to the Forms that I had been shown by my Sifu, some refinements and improvements that I will implement with my Group the INCa's as soon as possible, most of the Group have not been training for more than 3 Years so the changes should be easy, but for the rest of us making changes to long held ideas can present all kinds of problems, loss of confidence in the rest of what our Sifu taught to mention the least. There where other Wing Chun Brothers at the A.W.C.A. over this period that expressed disappointment at the fact that we appear to have not been taught everything we should of been by our Sifu, but I personally think that this is an unfair accusation, Mo Sibak spoke to me of things in a different way than my Sifu did, he went into greater detail and appeared to really want me to understand what he was teaching, and he is a gifted Teacher, but he did not say anything that my Sifu had not told me at least once, so perhaps the fault is mine for not fully comprehending what I was told, and even Sibak said that he was just expanding my Knowledge and not teaching anything new.

One thing I do know is that I need to find a way to join the two trains of thought, to bring them together as one otherwise there will only be confusion, and this is the same for those of my group that met Sibak, our teaching comes from our Sifu Jim Fung, we cannot just throw it away because we have been told something more up to date, we cannot change Horses in mid-stream, it is easy to get impressed by someone of Mo Sibak's knowledge and to think that this is the new way, but this leads nowhere, unless we can have regular almost constant contact with Mo sibak we must stay with what we know, you can only follow one Path at a time if you wish to not get lost.

This reminds me of a time good few years back, our Sigung Tsui Shun Tin was brought over by Sifu Jim and we where of course all overwhelmed by him, at a Seminar for Instructors he gave an open invitation to visit him and experience his way of training in Hong Kong, Sifu Jim said he would allow this so a fair number of Instructors started making plans to visit, one evening a few weeks after the Seminar Sifu asked me if I intended to go over, I replied that I did not mean any disrespect to Sigung but that I had no reason to go to H.K. I had everything I needed here with him, he smiled and said that I was better off not going for another reason, he told me that I should observe the Guys that come back from Hong Kong on their return, he said at first they will be all fired up and be at training every Day and be keen to show off what they learned in Hong Kong, but soon many of them will get confused, train less and some will even leave the School, and those that stay will go backwards for a long time before they start going forward again unless they already have a very high level of knowledge, it is not possible to keep two different ideas in your Head for very long, soon they eat each other.  Sure enough these things did happen as he said, so I asked him to expand on this, he said it is not possible to train with two different People at the same time, it has nothing to do with Skill or Ability, it is just that every individual sees and explains things differently to the point that even though they are talking about the very same thing it all sounds a bit opposite {some times this is even noticeable with Senior Instructors teaching the same Syllabus}, and that to benefit you need to stay long enough to loose the old way and absorb the new way or at the very least work hard at finding the point where the two thoughts are the same and work from there.

This is what we need to do, find the point of most similarity and then work backwards to where we have always been.

Simultaneous Attack and Defence? Really?

As I mentioned in the last post in my own opinion "Simultaneous Attack and Defence" is effectively impossible in situations of extreme stress {for example when some ars*h^le is trying to beat your Head in} due to the different Mental states that you will inhabit when attacked or attacking,  the totally different outcomes that you are looking for with your own action and the diametrically opposed use of body Weight that you need to employ.

So when I am teaching why do I say that Wing Chun makes use of "Simultaneous Attack and Defence"?

As with most things it is the Language that confuses us, the term "Simultaneous Attack and Defence" leads us to believe that we are in fact performing two very different operations at the same time when it is more accurate to say that on studying what we did the result fell into two different categories.

If someone throws a Punch at me and I chop off his Arm with a Sword, have I defended myself from his Punch or have I attacked his Arm? This is an obvious candidate for "Simultaneous Attack and Defence" but more than likely not what we think of when we hear the term.

Once you have been training in Wing Chun long enough to understand and trust the Concept of our defence mechanism {the sliding Triangular Structure} and you have learnt the ability to absorb and transfer Force, it becomes clearer that we use our Structure as a kind of Shield that we present to any incoming Weapon, as we concentrate on our own attack inside our opponents action {Classic Counter Attack, hit inside the opponents hit} focusing on landing our blow and allowing our Defensive Structure to simply get in the way and deflect or obstruct our opponents attack.

 If you are were able to look inside the Mind of a Wing Chun operator during a fight you would see that it is "Attack and only Attack" that is the Focus with very little thought to defending against the incoming Punch or whatever, but if you were to just make your judgement by what you witnessed you would say that he did in fact employ "Simultaneous Attack and Defence" due to the fact that he intercepted the attack.

A very large part of training people is to get them to trust the things you are teaching them, to get them to believe that they will work, "Simultaneous Attack and Defence" sounds a lot more believable that "Just stick your Arm in the way of their attack and Punch them in the Face".

Humans have been using Shields of one sort or another for thousands of Years, this type of action is pretty much "Hard Wired" into each and everyone of us from a Roman Soldier with a "Scutum and Gladius" through to a "Lion Tamer with a Chair and a Whip", every 5 to 7 year old boy knows this from his first pretend Sword fight.

I will still tell prospective Students that Wing Chun employs "Simultaneous Attack and Defence" because it is what they want to hear and it breeds confidence, but I will train them to attack from behind their Shield.