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....
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