Not Using Strength

I know from Years of Teaching that Students get confused about the whole "Do not use Strength" idea, firstly we should realise that it should be described as "Do not use too much Physical Strength" because we all use Strength, using a Strong Structure is in fact still using Strength, just like a strong Focus, so we need to separate Physical Strength, also we all know that if we do not use some Physical Strength then we will not be able to move at all, we will always use a certain percentage of Physical Strength but our aim should be to use less and less Physical Strength as we continue on our Wing Chun Journey, there are a number of reasons for not using Physical Strength, but the most important is that using Physical Strength activates your Muscles, and an activated Muscle does not work as well as a Relaxed Muscle, so using Strength prevents our Muscles from doing the job that we want them to do, and ironically that is the reason we tense our Muscles in the first place, to do a Job that we believe needs Strength, we just tend to use way too much to get the Job done. When we strive to remove the use of Physical Strength what we are trying to do is find out the minimum amount of Strength needed to perform whatever it is we are attempting, this is usually a great deal less than we are willing to believe and so we spend Years and Years taking away a bit at a time.
And then there are some people that immediately stop using all Strength and then they have nothing to defend themselves with, if your Arms have no Structure, and no Natural Strength then they will just become Spaghetti, and if you try to defend your self against someone with Spaghetti Arms they will just have you for Dinner. We must never forget the Wing Chun has a specific task to undertake, to stop us being Hit, deep down we all know this of course and this is one of the reasons we have difficulty taking Physical Strength out of our Arms and our Wing Chun.
The best way to begin to reduce Strength without loosing the ability to keep the Dogs at Bay is to pick one exercise that you are willing to do every time you train for at least the next Year and consciously use less and less Strength / Effort, it is only when you do the same exercise that you can tell if you are really reducing the Strength. The biggest trap and the worst practice is to use Strength in Chi Sau, because Chi Sau is in contact with another Person it is a bit more "Real" than other training and is more affected by your nerves, if you are mentally tense when doing Chi Sau this will result in Physical Tension that will prevent your Muscles from working efficiently and cause you to use Strength. It is really, really important that you do not hit each other in Chi Sau, just Roll.

Wearing Protection when training!!

Last week at a training group session I noticed that someone had leg Protectors in their Bag, they did not get them out but it does prompt me to Blog this.

I am against any type of Protectors {Mouth Guards excepted} in training, this is not because I am so tough I do not need them, but because as far as I am concerned they promote an environment of unreality, I have expressed my opinion many times that we gain confidence in the functional ability of  Wing Chun more from the perspective of the Bad Guy that does not successfully land his strikes or find any way through our Training Partners Wing Chun set up than by being the Good Guy that stops our partner who may just be throwing Half Arsed generic attacks.  Pads prevent you from realising that it is painful to make contact with Good Structure, that this contact can be debilitating and actually take away any chance of a good follow up to the present attack, and this can work at deep levels upon you to stop you having the confidence to offer “Structure” instead of “Strength” in your defence.

From the perspective of a Wing Chun Man attacking a padded Partner, when our Partner can just keep throwing Punches and Kicks without stopping due to injury it can lead to us to believe that we do not have enough “Fire Power’ and this again can lead to the use of Strength and loss of belief in our Wing Chun. I also believe that it takes a far greater amount of “Be Here Now” to strike softly than it does to just go off, and a great big piece of our Relaxation is in the “Be Here Now” and in not loosing our Emotions / Head. 

Lastly, it is only training, do we really need to hurt each other?

Simultaneous Attack and Defence in Chi Sau

Following on from the last post, do we use or can we find Simultaneous Attack and Defence in our Chi Sau practice? Lately we have been having a closer look at Chi Sau and Chum Kiu especially focusing on the Concept of the "Spinning Ball" for defensive duties and the "Spinning Cone", or "Witches Hat" for attacking duties, but what about Simultaneous A & D? Sometimes we forget that Chi Sau is nothing more than a Drill, a dynamic environment in which we can explore and try out the things that the various Forms show us, and that it is up to us to look for our training in Chi Sau and not just be shown "Moves". If the "Spinning Ball is defensive and the "Spinning Cone" is attacking then Simultaneous A&D must contain both. In Chi Sau the first part of the Taan Sau / Bong Sau rotation is the Man Sau or  Searching Hand, when intercepted this redirects the force away by turning into Bong Sau, but if it is not intercepted it continues forwards to strike, while this is happening we are applying pressure through our Fook Sau to our Partners attempt to roll from Bong to a striking position, at this point we are utilising the concept of "Simultaneous Attack and Defence", if we think the situation is open to perform the Basic Fook Sau Latch it is usually here, and of course any other Gwoh Sau application is also using Simultaneous A&D. Often advances in understanding come from simply looking closely at what you are doing, observing your actions and reactions to the dynamic exchanges that make up Chi Sau and then doing them deliberately when the chance allows.

Simultaneous Attack and Defence

I was involved in a discussion on this on another site and thought that I would post this here as well, "Simultaneous Attack and Defence" is one of the underlying attributes of Wing Chun, does it mean that we Strike and Defend at the same time? No it does not, sometimes it will be the case but most likely not, sometimes we will Strike before we Defend, what we do is begin the Process of "Simultaneous Attack and Defence" at the same time, what lands first will be determined more by the position and action of the opponent than by our design.

Knowledge, where does it come from?

I had a group of my more senior charges at my home over the weekend, we were going over some work on Chum Kiu and Gwoh Sau {crossing Hands, trapping}, it is really easy to teach intelligent people that actually want to learn, somewhere in the middle of the Day I suddenly thought to myself "how and when did I amass this knowledge"? I have not had much guidance since my Sifu passed away 3 years ago but I have moved forward and improved quite noticeably, and I feel confident in saying this, so it must at least be almost true.
Sometimes when you keep trying to learn new things you just loose some of the old things, I doubt that I know anymore today than I did the last time I spoke to my Sifu, but by continually trying to pass on his teaching through my own teaching I am beginning to understand it and make it my own, I still have a great deal to learn I know that, but I am happy with where my knowledge is at this time.
After my Sifu's passing there was a lot of negative talk about us not being given all the relevant information, in hindsight my Sifu was very frugal with information but if you asked a question he would answer it, happily I asked lots of questions, recently my Sifu's own Sifu had his book translated into English, I awaited its arrival with great excitement, I have read it a few times already and there is nothing in it that I was not told at least once by my Sifu, this is a cause of great Joy to me.  Even today when I make new connections, find new ways to understand my Wing Chun it is all based on the seed that my Sifu planted, and always will be.

YouTube Channel

I am starting a YouTube Channel, http://www.youtube.com/user/InstructorDerek  this is not meant to be a Wing Chun Instructional Channel, I am simply using the available Technology to keep in contact with all of the INCa's, often when there are some sticking points in training it is only when I get Home that I realise a better way to explain things or I remember something that I was told or shown at a similar point in my own training that made it a bit easier for me to go forward, and of course I completely forget before the next training session, so now I can quickly record something and stick it on YouTube. It is also a way for me to keep in touch with Guys that I used to train with that live in different parts of Sydney or even N.S.W. We still talk and ask questions on the Phone but words always fail when it comes to Wing Chun, Pictures make it so much clearer. Because what I post will be in response to something that we were either working on or talking about the segments may not hold up very well if you do not know what we are addressing, so turn up to training.  Or if you are awaiting Surgery to get the couch of your Arse and cannot make training give me a call or an E-mail.

Peripheral Vision

I was talking with someone the other Day and the old Chestnut of Peripheral Vision came up, I do not understand the thinking with many Wing Chun People that they say you defend yourself using Peripheral Vision, this is madness and will certainly fail if you are in Deep Poo. Peripheral Vision is very good and identifying even tiny movement in a wide Field of view, but once the movement is noticed you need to change back to focused Vision to see what was moving, this is what Eagles, Hawks and Army Snipers do, and many years ago when I was taught to shoot Game Birds this is what I was instructed to do, Peripheral Vision spots the movement and then Focused Vision Marks the Target. In Wing Chun I have heard even quite Senior Instructors say "Keep your Eyes on the Chest and pick up the attack with your Peripheral Vision", in a nice friendly session of 4 Corner Defence you may get away with this, but in a Street Encounter when someone pulls a Knife from out of their Jacket you will be going home in a Bag.