More on "What are you Training"?

I am sure you aew well aware by now that a pet theme of mine is

 “Do you know what you are training, and why you are training it”? 

  In 17 years helping with peoples Wing Chun training it has become very obvious that few people do. 

Most people completely miss the point.

I watch Students hitting Bags and Pads as hard as they can and then not even making contact in normal training, I watch people posing Bong Sau or Tarn Sau and still getting hit. I see Students with absolutely no Structure in their Arms and when questioned they say they are working on “Softness” and not using force.

Q. What are you training?

A. Wing Chun Kung Fu, a Martial Art.

Q. When we Strike someone what are we trying to do?

A. Hit them, Duh.

Q. When I intercept an opponents Attack what am I trying to do?

A. Prevent him from hitting me!!

This is what we are training, to hit and to not be hit, everything else is just how we do it, and there is always more than one way, that is why we have so many ways to do it.

So when you are training any Strike you need to be really aware of the intended objective, which is usually to drop your Body weight through the contact into the opponents Body/Face/Leg. 

If you have been doing Wing Chun for more than 6 months then you should be well aware that we aim to hit the same Target multiple times in rapid succession, the reason for this is that trauma is cumulative,  it builds up, when someone tries to hit something really hard what they are trying to do is get more weight to land on the Target at the first chance, so let us say that a really hard Punch is 40Kg. Punching really hard is almost impossible to do simultaneously with your defensive posture, it is always just coming from one side, it usually requires Strength, Strength creates Tension, and Tension prevents us from dropping our Body weight through our Frame, it also requires a huge commitment and is unsuited to a follow up Strike, but lets pretend it lands, bang 40KG {that is of course if our opponent has not stopped it because they are also often telegraphed}, on the other hand a fast 10Kg strike can be done simultaneously with our defence, and can be easily followed up with 7 or 8 more strikes, so I can in fact deliver twice the payload for a fraction of the effort and with a far greater success rate.

When you are training your defensive postures, lets use Bong Sau as an example, the objective is to avoid being hit and not to make a good Bong Sau, and remember that Bong Sau is a movement not a shape, so the rotation up from Tarn Sau to Forward Guard {Man Sau the Asking Hand, and very important and often overlooked position} is Bong Sau, and the rotation down from the shape many refer to as Bong Sau down to Forward Guard is also Bong Sau. Any Strike is a Force Vector from my opponent to myself, my objective is to change this Force Vector so that the Strike misses, Bong Sau will change the Vector by rolling it out and away from the Target in the Tarn Sau upward rotation and inward and away from the Target if I use the downward rotation.

I am sure we have all heard of “Mind Power” or “Nim Lik” in Wing Chun, my Sifu used to call it “The Power of Intent”. We must be aware of what we intend to do, we must be aware of our objective in both attack and defence. In many ways Wing Chun is just a Tool we use to achieve our intention.

Focusing on the Mechanics will help you understand better how to use these Tools but without the intention of achieving the objective it becomes just an academic study and is no longer a Martial Art.

I hope this post raises some questions in your Mind, write them down and bring them into training.

Do you know what you are training?

I have a couple of weeks off work so I am really trying to get my self Healthy, no Booze, walking everyday and watching my food intake, I fasted all day yesterday and I intend to go without food until tomorrow morning {I do this on at least one Day most weekends if I am not working, it increases the bodies production of H.G.H.} with just Water, some of it flavoured with Coffee Beans. It is a lovely Day out there so I extended my Walk to 6km, with it being Sunday there was of course plenty of "Joggers" to keep me company, thump, thump, pant pant, wheeze, wheeze they go as they limp past me, most looking in some kind of Pain.

This made me think of something I have spoken of before, and it crosses borders so it is relevant to our Wing Chun Training,

1.  Do People really know why they are training the way they train?

2.  Do they know what they hope to achieve by doing these things?

3.  Do they think that what they are doing is actually achieving their objective?

4.  Is there a better way to get the same result?

5.  Are they just following someones Bullshit?

I know a few "Joggers" so I have asked them before "Why do you do it, why do you Jog"? The usual stock answer is for some sort of Health reason, to which I point out that "Jogging" damages your Ankles, ruins your Knees and creates life long Back Problems so I cannot see how it is any way related to the pursuit of Health.

Then there are the ones that say it is for "Fitness", "Cardio" or "Weight Control", well sure you will get a little bit of these from "Jogging" but not very much, if we take my 6km Walk, more Kilojoules are burned by walking it than by running it, it simply takes more energy to move something that is still than it does to keep something moving, I am sure that at some time or another we have all pushed a stalled Car, it gets easier as momentum kicks in, so does running over walking, running is more about using strength than energy.  As for Cardio if you rode a bike for the 6km you would take your heart beat count higher and keep it there longer so get a much better Cardio workout, so "Jogging" really does not help them achieve their objective and neither is it the best way to reach these Goals. But if you try to tell them they become all Tribal and their little Ego's refuse to contemplate any other options.

Interestingly enough I know a couple of Runners, who Run as a Sport, Cross Country, Half Marathons and such, a large part of their training does not include Running, they do Pilates and Swim for suppleness, they do weight training for Strength, they ride Bikes for Cardio and Endurance, all of these regimes are aimed at helping them become better Runners, because they Run for Fun.

When I ask "Joggers" what got them started, who's advice are they following, most do not even know, they mumble something about "Sixty Minutes", "The Internet" or some skinny chick I  know Jogs so it must be good. Some follow the advice of Guru's in Magazines, no one appears to be working with any sort of qualified Trainer / Instructor.

All training needs to follow the same approach, Football, Swimming, Wing Chun, Playing Guitar, training is a method even if the content is varied.  Training is a "Means to an End" and not an End in itself.  Understand what it is that this training will show you, then understand the training, and then understand how to use it.

As an Instructor I benefit greatly by watching Students do things incorrectly, I then try to make sure that I am not making the same mistakes, usually I am, usually we all are, but some peoples Ego's make it impossible for them to see themselves as they see others, especially "Junior Others", so it helps to look at things we do not do, like "Jogging", and ask ourselves the same questions that I have asked the "Joggers".

1.  Why do you do the Form / Chi Sau / whatever  the way you do?

2.  Do you know what you hope to achieve by doing these things this way?

3.  Do you think that what you are doing is actually achieving your objective?

4.  Is there a better way to get the same result?

5.  Are you just following someone's misunderstanding?



By the way if you answer "Yes" to question 3, which by default answers "No" to question 4, then you are more than likely beyond help.

Advanced Information and Frames of Reference

Some of my guys have just completed the first big step in their training, in many ways the biggest step in their training, they have progressed to Level 1. It is quite reasonable to think that seeings as there are 6 training Levels in Wing Chun that Level 1 represents one sixth of the Journey, 16.66% , but in reality it represents something more like 80%.

Firstly I need to digress before I continue, many Years ago, when I was still in high School, we were studying the arrival of Corte´s and the Spanish into the Americas, one thing that always stuck in my Head  {apart from the fact that the Aztecs cooked Fish with Chocolate} was that my History Teacher told us that the Science of the Day {1967} believed that because the Aztecs had no previous knowledge of any kind at all of the type of Ships the Spanish arrived in they could not process the information when the Giant Ships appeared on the horizon, so their Brains just did not see them, so the Spanish appeared to just walk out of the Water like Gods, add to this the fact that they held Sticks that flashed and then people died and the Aztecs where well and truly Brain Fuged. They had no "Frame of Reference" with which to build a Mental Image, and without this Mental image there is no reality.  These Days this is often referred to as an "Out of Context Problem".

Back to Wing Chun, one of the reasons many Students struggle with the early stages {pre Level 1} of training is because to a certain extent everything we do is an "Out of Context Problem", it is all new and ever so strange, especially Single Chi Sau. Is it any wonder that it is slow and heavy going.

Now that you have arrived if you think back over what you have been taught up to Level 1 it is not hard to see that it covers just about everything you would ever need in any given situation, so Level 1 is really about filling the "Tool Box", Level 2 is all about learning to understand the uses and applications of all of the tools in the Box, the big difference between the training in pre Level 1 and the training towards Level 2 is that now you have a complete and effective "Frame Of Reference" to help you "SEE" what you are trying to achieve, there is very little new information, you have all learned enough now it is time for understanding, in many ways the upper Levels represent no "New Knowledge" just deeper understanding of all the things you experienced in pre Level 1.

A great deal of what you have been through has been about establishing future "Frames of Reference", even in the very early Days of training you were being introduce to actions and concepts that you may not re visit and cover again until Level 3 or beyond, with the sole intention being that when the new information is presented to you it will not be so strange that you will struggle, you will have a "Frame of Reference" to hang your training on { and so you will see the Ships when they arrive, and not think that Gods have stepped from the Water}.  The attainment of Level 1means that you posses knowledge that not even you yourself are aware of at this point in time, by the time you all attain Level 2 you will be much, much better at what you do but will not really understand why.  By the time you attain Level 3 you will begin to understand and by Level 4 you will wonder why you could not see it in the first place.

If you think that training towards Level 2 is just another forced march forward, more techniques, more Chi Sau, in short more of the same then you will never bridge that Gap that you have just created, the physical work is almost over, stop pushing yourself, the whole idea of not using force applies even to how we approach our training.

It is time....

Turn off your Body.....

Engage your Brain....

Avoid Force....

The Principals of Wing Chun

Most Wing Chun People when asked about our style drag out the really tired cliche´ that Wing Chun is a "Concept" based Martial Art, while this is true it is also misleading, it allows Students to be sloppy as long as they are following the "Concept".

 But what are these "Concepts"?

And where can they be referenced from?

Most Students look at me as if I have started speaking Swahili when I ask them "Then where can we find these Concepts to show our Students"?

Even the idea that Wing Chun is based on a set of "Concepts" appears to be a "Concept" itself, so what do we have to base our training and our Future on?

At its Genesis Wing Chun was heavily connected to the Secret Societies committed to the overthrow of the Manchurian oppressors, as such little if anything was written down, add to this the fact that few Chinese could read or write it is no surprise that the information regarding Wing Chun's workings were passed down orally from Master to Student,  to try to avoid the natural entropy of "Chinese Whispers" they where formatted into sayings or songs, the Keun Kuit,  training hints that of themselves give away little but with the help of a good Instructor can contain all the information needed.  But it should be obvious that different people will quite naturally translate the same thing in a slightly different way, so from the outset these Songs where never meant to be a definitive guide.

A quick search of Wing Chun Principles on Google and you become aware that just about every School has its own idea of what the Principals are, some have 5, some have 7 some even have 13, indeed the Concept of there being a Concept is just a Concept itself.

In my Sifu's School we had 5 "Core Concepts", Directness, Simplicity, Practicality, Economy of Movement and Non use of Brute Force, through these my Sifu would explain the workings of Wing Chun, often when he was expanding on something he would say something like "Conventional Wing Chun Wisdom" offers us this suggestion, in time I realised that he was referring to the Keun Kuit but he seldom mentioned it by name, the things he mentioned the most where having a Body that holds no tension and the avoidance of force, both incoming and outgoing.

Of course we have our Forms, and for each School there is only one way to do the Forms, and for all Schools they must be done correctly, because our forms are the blueprint for how we move our body, both in shape and effort, after many Years of playing your forms it is hard to decide if the forms comply with the Principles or if the Principles are derived from how we do the Forms.

If the Principles do come from the Forms, then the Principles are real and actual, and not "Conceptual".

Wing Chun is a Circle that eventually returns to where it began, we ask a question, we receive an answer but the answer just creates more questions, more answers, and everything begins and ends in Stillness, or at least the idea of Stillness.

The Dictionary definition of a "Concept" is...

 "An  abstract idea, a plan of intention",

 I very much doubt that there is any coincidence in the fact that Siu Nim Tao translates to the way of the small idea.

Or to the fact that my Sifu used to refer to Nim Lik as the "Force of Intent".

Once my Sifu told me the "Secret" to understanding Wing Chun, he told me to turn up to his classes and pay attention.

Now there is a Concept.