Notes from Training.

These are the notes I used for the class on Monday 9 / 10 & Tuesday 10 / 10, they may not make total sense if you were not there to work on the idea's but if you were they will help you remember what we did and hopefully understand it a bit better.

Woo Sau and the Third Rotation.

The three rotations of our Arm structures in Wing Chun can be seen for ease of explanation as ;

1. The Shoulder rotates the upper Arm.
2. The Elbow rotates the Fore Arm.
3. The Wrist rotates the Hand.

The above explanations are not actual, they are just Ball Park descriptions for ease of explanation. We should all know what they are in reality from our analysis of Tarn Sau. If for some reason this does not make sense talk to me.

When posing Woo Sau {the Guarding Hand} we need to take advantage of the fact that the Wrist can actually extend as it rolls inward, rolls outward or even rolls sideways so that it can activate the whole Arm.

Despite the fact that most People view the Wrist as being similar to the Elbow or Knee in the fact that it functions as a Hinge, it is in fact a very complex joint that is made up of 13 bones {15 if we count in the ends of the Radius and Ulna}, multiple muscles and ligaments and is in all probability the most variedly mobile of all the joints in the Body.

As we present the Palm in Woo Sau we should be extending the underpart of the Wrist and not just folding the Hand backwards and compressing the rear of the Wrist, this will bring about the feeling that you are actually pressing something or emitting energy from your Palm.  One way to observe this is to do an exercise were the tip of the Index Finger stays in the same place in Space so that the movement causes the Wrist to move forwards to stop beneath the Finger tips that have not moved, and not that the Fingers move backwards to sit above the Wrist that has not moved. Words are complicated, movement is not.

Woo Sau should illicit the feeling that there is a Ball on our Wrist that the side of the Ball touches the back of the Hand, it should feel circular and not like a Right Angle. If we imagine the Ball to be a powerful source of Energy or Radiation it would emit the Energy / Radiation forwards through the back of the Hand and out of the Palm.

Fook Sau should illicit the feeling that there is a Ball on the inside of our Wrist that the front of the Ball touches the Palm of the Hand. it should also feel circular and not like a Right Angle. If again we imagine that Ball is a powerful source of Energy or Radiation it would emit the Energy / Radiation forwards through the Palm and out of the back of the Hand.

This is the beginning of Nim Lik.

 {Thought Force. The Force of Intention. Pick a Word that makes sense to you}.

In Dan Chi Sau as we change from Fook Sau to Woo Sau in response to the attempted Palm Strike the action should be formed by bringing the base of the Hand forward and rotating the Shoulder and not by tilting the fingers backwards and dropping the Arm. The incoming Strike tends to raise our Fook Sau  and compress our Angle, as we become aware of this we extend the base of our Palm forwards into Woo Sau {a bye product of this will be that we regain our Angle} and not use Force by extending the Elbow, something very strange occurs now, the feeling is that our our Hand is rotating upwards and forwards in relation to our forearm but at the same time the Hand is rotating forwards {and of course sideways as I regain the Centre} and downwards in relation to the my partner / opponents body.  This of course is the essence of how we intercept and redirect everything, and that is why Dan Chi Sau is so important and also so misunderstood.

Because Dan Chi Sau appears to be a Cycle where student “A” does this and then student “B” replies with this Ego tends to overcome intelligence and the whole idea behind Dan Chi Sau is lost.  Just like all of our Forms the apparent pattern to is simply to aid memory, there is no reason why Students cannot just work the Fook Sau / Woo Sau transition in isolation without needing to take it to the next phase of the exercise, and in fact it is only when this very thing happens that progress becomes possible.

As I tried to point out in Class, all Chi Sau movements are in essence the one move, It is a much more powerful learning aid when Students are asked to discover why all the moves in the Dan Chi Sau Cycle are exactly the same.  

Perhaps they are not, even that will teach you something.

But of course I would not suggest it if it was not the case.

Both the replying Punch and the passive Bong Sau are products of the 3rd Rotation.

Hearing it is one thing, seeing it is a totally different Fish.