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.