Prelude to Week 5's Lesson.

CHI SAU

WHAT IS CHI SAU,WHAT DOES IT TEACH US AND HOW DO WE USE IT?

Chi Sau is first and foremost a drill, it is not actually fighting, it is “a means to an end and not an end in itself” as Sifu Jim would often tell me early in my training when I turned it to some kind of Arm Wrestling . As a drill it is difficult to say what exactly it is it teaches us as it teaches so much, many aspects of Wing Chun training can be explored and refined in the Chi Sau drill, the obvious exception being Striking, Chi Sau does not incorporate hitting at all, Chi Sau is used to open up the partner so that if we wish we can strike, but once we strike we have for all intents and purposes stepped out of Chi Sau.

1. Softness and Stance Stability; in Chi Sau rolling we accept our partners force into our own structure through our Arms, if there is tension or misalignment anywhere along the network from Wrist to Shoulder the incoming Force will accumulate there, either collapsing the structure or moving the Body, to be able to absorb the incoming Force through the Arms and into the Body we need to develop softness in the Joints and maintain the Shoulder ⇒ Wrist alignment,  once the incoming Force has entered the Body if the Spine is not vertical the Force will accumulate in the Arch of the Back with the same result, it will bend you or move you,  if the Spine is vertical the Force will be transmitted into the Legs and then to the Floor, if the Hip Joint is not soft the same thing will happen again, to absorb Force we first have to accept it and not try to repel it, often this is a personal issue with the Ego and not really a Wing Chun Problem, our Arms fulfil the role of a Crash Barrier in the way that they absorb and redirect force and not a Bull Bar that crashes through or bounces force away. Softness is a difficult concept to put into writing, many people mistakenly confuse softness for lack of firmness and have no structure to their Arms, which is completely incorrect, it is an absence of imposed tension, strength or extra effort, when we walk we do not add extra strength to our Knees and yet we do not worry that they will collapse beneath us, our Knee joint is relaxed and soft and we keep it extended with just our intention and an alignment that does not put them under excess stress, it is the same for our Arms in Chi Sau, we keep our Elbows soft and relaxed and if we have the correct alignment then no amount of force will collapse them. It is important that at the early stages of Chi Sau, the first 5 years that we do the drill as much as possible in a stationary position, in this way we will be able to work on our stability, our softness and learn how to absorb and redirect force.
2. The Ball Concept; central to W.C’s defence is the thought that we have a large rotating Ball in front of us, this ball redirects incoming Force and rolls over obstructions, if this is not understood then moving from Taan Sau to Bong Sau and Bong Sau to Taan Sau will always be a mystery, once we have established Taan Sau in the correct position {Ultimate Angle} and we simply rotate it through the range of movement that is called Bong Sau by doing so we redirect Force that was coming into my Centre away in a less threatening direction, the reverse of Bong Sau to Taan Sau does a similar thing, just a different redirection. One reoccurring confusion is that the Ball is made up by both Arms, this is incorrect, each Arm is in fact an individual Ball on an axis that runs from the Shoulder to the partner, if this was not the case the Bong Sau to Taarn Sau transition would require us to move inside our own Ball.
3. Triangulation; if we extend our Arms out in front of us and place our Palms together we create a Triangle with our conecting C/L as the axis, this Triangle allows our Body weight to be transmitted evenly down both Arms into our partner {or down a single Arm with our C / L becoming the longer side of this Triangle, be aware that because the Triangles are mental constructs there can be multiples of them existing and operating at the same time in the same place} our defensive Ball can be seen to inhabit the space inside the Triangle and the rotation of the Ball creates the Taan Sau ⇒ Bong Sau transition from the walls of the Triangle with the guard being in the middle of the transition. By their nature Triangles prevent force from being applied evenly to their surface and act like a wedge opening up your partners Arms and allowing you to get at their Centre. Once we combine the Ball and the Triangle what we have is a cone shape that can rotate like a Ball but maintain the properties of a Triangle.
4. Correct movement of the Arm in the Shoulder; when we rotate our Arm from Taan Sau through to Bong Sau we are describing the shape of an Arc that moves around 180º, but our Elbow is only rotating through 45º, this is brought about by the rotation of the Arm in the Shoulder Socket and not by twisting the Elbow or Wrist and is part of the natural way that our Arm operates when movement is initiated from the Shoulder, this rotation allows the Elbow to raise up in a forward spiral towards our partner while maintaining the Wrist on the same level as it was in relation to the Shoulder, if there is a lot of tension in the Shoulder joint this rotation is inhibited and the result is that the Elbow tends to be lifted and twisted, this in turn tends to drop the Wrist below the Shoulder ⇒ Elbow axis, when this happens you are “Rolling Squares” and it is no longer possible to absorb your partners weight / force through the Arm into the Body and strength must be used to stop the Arm structure collapsing. If we again extend our Arms forward and touch our Palms together, if we rotate each Arm separately on an axis from our Shoulder through our Wrist until the backs of our Hands are now touching we have effectively moved from Man Sau to Bong Sau simply by rotating the Arm in the Shoulder socket.
5. Avoiding Force; Sifu Jim said to me on many occasions “if you could just understand what it really means to avoid force you would not need my help”, obviously I still do not fully understand but I am getting a lot closer, in Chi Sau we are using the rotation of our Arm structure to prevent me from running Head on into my partners force, I can avoid my partners force by redirecting it away from me, away from my C / L but I can also be more proactive and use my rotation to make his force go somewhere else instead of in my direction, and by force we mean the body weight of our partner, when we roll we must be rolling at our partners Centre of Mass and not just at his Arms, we must be attempting to upset his balance and structural stability, to achieve this we need to firstly apply points 1,2,3&4. 
6. Sticking Hands; by far the biggest misunderstanding is that Chi Sau sticks to and controls our partners Arms, our goal is to open up our partner to find a place to strike, when our partner feels our intention it is they who stick to us, if they fail to stick to us they get hit, we cannot possibly hit someone by sticking to their Wrists, so we need to pay attention and only stick to our partner when they are actually trying to strike us, this of course is the sensitivity that Chi Sau teaches.