Shapes
8/17/2018
I think most people have got wing chun wrong, in fact traditional martial arts can be so misinterpreted it risks the whole point of them becoming ineffective. If we take fighting strategy out of the equation for a moment, what we have left is body mechanics. If you do not have good body mechanics, your strategies and techniques will never work. Look at successful fighting arts like boxing, BJJ and wrestling, they have good fundamentals, they emphasis physical conditioning, they use there bodies well (good alignment and leverage relative to the opponent) and they stick to basic principles. They may be ‘external’, but they are effective and the fighting strategies of the arts are relatively easy to apply to the mechanics. I look at wing chun and I see crazy ideas about optimal angles, perfect shapes etc. What? Optimal relative to what exactly, to who? How can you have an arm shape which is fixed using muscles intended to retard your movement and then call that logical. Why is using your lat muscles to pull your arm into the centre of your body effective in dealing with a force directed at you? Force will come at you from multiple angles and will be ever-changing, and so shape is fleeting. Someone I have always admired a lot is Tony Psaila. Like me he is a grand-student of Chu Shong Tin, although he has trained a lot longer than me and has taught at a high level for many years. A line in one of his videos has always stuck in my head ‘it is not the shape of the arm, it is the state of the arm that matters’. Although shapes are talked about a lot even within my lineage, if you look at greats like CST, Tony Psaila or Sifu Ma Kee Fai, they do not keep static shapes, their movement ebb and flow, arms adapting to the pressure relative to the opponent. And this is my point, your arm position has to be relative to what it is doing, relative to where you are in space and where your opponent is. I would go as far as to say ‘it is not the shape of the body, it is the state of the body that is important’, on the basis that you cannot treat your arm as not being part of your body. The biggest mistake I see with people trying to use relaxed body structure within their wing chun is that even when they start to tap into using their body mass, they then return to putting their arms into shapes not relative to the situation at hand. Why do a tan, fook or bong if that involves removing your focus from your opponents centre. As soon as you chase the hand you are aligning in the wrong direction. You undo your good work. Instead of trying to do wing chun, you should work the fundamental training processes and let your body do the wing chun for you. Ultimately we seek a method where are no techniques, no hand positions, just point and made the decision as whether you strike. If a bong or a fook shape appears, so be it. This probably makes little sense to people who have not practiced this way. From experience I know it does not come across in words or even video, you have to feel it and do it before you can intellectualise it. One thing I will say is that you do need to think through some basis fundaments. Namely, how does your body deal with force? You only have two legs so a horizontal force is always going to put pressure on your shoulders, lower back and hips. You can use a ‘rear leg’, but that will start the process of alignment which will be only strong in one direction (unfortunately people will adapt and move when they want to hit you). Everyone into ‘internal arts’ now says ‘use the floor’ or ‘jin path’. This may help you avoid localising force and getting it locked in your joints, but even if you direct it to the ground from the contact point unfortunately the ground will not magically eat it up; it will not seep to the core of the earth. In fact all that ultimately gives you is an anchor point but you will still have to deal with an equal and opposite force existing between the floor and your contact point with the opponent. Even when you punch someone you have to deal with that equal and opposite force. Fine if you have the conditioning of a boxer, but not fine for those who do not train that way. What we are left with is our relationship with gravity, our relationship with the opponent and how we deal with the two. Arm shapes do not really help with this. It comes back to the work we do with standing practice, our relationship with ‘up’ and how you have ‘make’ your opponent carry your weight. That I can only teach with hands on experience. The shapes you eventually make may look like in the wing chun forms, but it is how the joints and the body reacts to force which is more important. A final few questions to anyone still reading. Do you practice CST wing chun and if so is standing practice a core part of your training? Do you really understand why you do it, in the sense of why it will help you deal with force? If you don’t do standing practice, it you do not understand why you do it then my final questions to you are why? Are you sure it is CST wing chun? 
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UP!
6/8/2018
The one constant factor we all have to deal with is gravity. You can perceive this pulling down as an enemy, as a fight to stay upright, but this is incorrect. Every creature on and plant on earth has evolved to deal with gravity, we are the only creatures which make it a problem by misusing our bodies. When you stand properly the anti-gravitation muscles which surround your bones are activated. You cannot feel them, you cannot consciously alter them, but you can interfere with them by misaligning other parts of your body. Perhaps our eyes and arms are the problem, because they are orientated the front of the body we are constantly drawn forward and down. Even typing this I am looking down, holding my arms up and putting strainn on my hamstrings and back (I am typing at a stand up desk). CST wing chun offers us a way to deal with this. The standing practice is there to allow us to shed the unnecessary tension, to allow natural balance and lengthening of the muscles. Your undue tension comes from your mind, no where else; standing gives a chance to stop, to say no to tension. Do this long enough and the body will get more support from the ground and your limbs will feel lighter and looser to you, whilst others will feel your connected body as dense. You can use your conscious mind to influence the subconscious. How important is standing? Relaxation and standing are a conduit for us to get that up flow through our body, to shed the pulling down. That is more than 90% of what our wing chun is. The forms are there to test that ability when you extend your limbs (does the weight of your arm drag your body down?) and test us whilst we move. Even chi sau is a test of how much we can stay back in ourselves; maintain the state. My aim in chi sau is to maintain the state I have as best as I can, not to beat the opponent. In fact I use the partner to unwittingly help me release up. When you do this well it feels effortless and hitting is easy, that is unless you are drawn in to the target, if you align to the fist you loose all that you have worked on. This is why Sigung had students stand for a year before chi sau; it is so easy to go back to detrimental habits unless we have a clear idea of what we are doing. People talk about rooting; that is fine if you are a tree. But remember that trees are always going up, branches and roots extending away from each other. That is not tension it is a type of tone. You do not need to push the floor or drill yourself into the earth, the anti-gravitational system of the body has got it covered if you can accept force in the correct way. Even better than using the floor to bounce back force, you can use you body mass to disrupt your opponent so their own system is unable to generate force. But that is only possible if you can do they other bits first. This way of wing chun, this way of thinking, differs for other wing chun systems. Good for them! If the arm skills are sufficient for their needs and are not causing them long term body difficulties then no problem. Hopefully their methods also allows for improvement and better body use as they get older. A martial arts system that does the opposite is not a fit system of self defence. So, find some time, find a quite space, let go of your ankles, your knees, your lower back, your tail bone, think up through your spine, think open chest, let your shoulders be supported by the body below it, be supported by the up thrust of the anti-gravitational muscles. Let go of your neck, allow the head to release from the spine, the arms to hand lightly from the back; no tension in the jaw. Don’t pull yourself down, you have no idea of what your body will feel like, its relative shape, when you start to release more tension, so just take up all the space you were born to occupy and give yourself time to release. It is an investment which will pay dividends.  2019 - Sung's European CST Gathering
6/4/2018
 On the request of about everyone who attended this year's gathering in Hathersage, I have preliminary booked the same place for next year. This is the only available date which avoids the Easter and May holidays and will hopefully give us similar weather to what we had last April.
We do not propose any major changes to the format, the last one went really well so if it ain't broke I will not fix it. Although we may have more mini seminars, as I think they are an efficient way to pass on knowledge. I let the last one get complicated for myself by letting people book with or without food, only one or two days etc, so this time I want to keep it simple for myself. I will keep the price as low as possible, but the venue cost has gone up as will the food as Steve may not likely be around to do his bit. So booking is on the following basis: - Price is £175 to include 3 days of training, all food and accommodation. Deposit of £40 is needed to secure your place. - Those who came last time have priority of booking. - Cost for those not staying but coming each day is £100, including all meals. Deposit of £25 is needed. - If you want to only come one or two days, let me know but it is likely you will be last on the list as others are prepared to come and participate all weekend and they get priority. - Numbers will be restricted to 40 attendees with previous experience in CST wing chun. There will only be about 20 staying at the venue, so to not let it get too cramped, so I if more people are travelling I will help sort out local cheap accommodation. - First come first served, so get your deposit to me ASAP as last year I turned quite a few people away who left it too late. I can do Paypal bank transfer or cash. Sung's European CST Gathering - 2018
4/27/2018
The April 2018 Gathering was only meant to be a small affair where our local students and a few who travel further could meet up and train in a relaxed environment for a long weekend. Due to demand it did rather grow; it was limited to no more than 40 each day but we still had people from England, Scotland, Wales, The Netherlands, Czech Republic, Poland and Australia! Not so much a European gathering but an international one. For me it was a nervous time just before kick off as I am a bit of a control freak; I wanted the conditions to be right so that people with a similar goal could train, share and relax (including me) . I do not how but I got it right, the weather, facilities and food was perfect. But most importantly the people were all great. There must have been 300 years of combined experience there over the weekend and it really showed. Particular thanks has to be given to Mark Allanson for coming and helping, including giving two kicking seminars. He is a fantastic instructor and a great person. One of my previous blogs was called the ‘Oh Moment’ – I think a few people had such an experience over the weekend. https://www.sungwingchun-sheffield.com/our-blog/the-ow-moment We had a picture of Sigung Chu Shong Tin watching us the entire weekend; it is because of him we were there, because of him I practice wing chun and because of him I have such great friends in Mark and John. I am not religious but I consider these are all blessings which have enriched my life greatly. The weekend was to honour his legacy and pass it on as well as we can (which is the whole reason for Sung Wing Chun). My promise is that we will do it again next year. I do not want it to be much bigger (if it is not broke do not fix it), ideally we will get the gang back together and maybe have more mini seminars, breakouts and chances to explore this great art. RIP CST  why is this stuff so hard
3/27/2018
You know intuitively that you can produce a lot of power by pushing and pulling. If you have practiced this type of martial art before you also know that by relaxing and being a bit clever with subtlety, position and timing, you can make that pushing and pulling be very effective. In fact this is the basis of most martial arts whether they claim internal or external. There is another way which does not involve pushing or pulling, but it is so different it is hard to see. The brain tricks us because we can hardly perceive our own effort so we think we are totally relaxed. We are still tricking ourselves. If you really commit to giving up, then your mind will perceive great risk. With no pushing or pulling what is left? Your mind will believe you will be hit or knocked over and tension will kick in. If you can just hold out for a bit longer the muscles have a chance to elongate, to balance and a structure can take shape which is innate within you, the same structure that stopped you falling over when you learned to walk. Our wing chun takes place at that point where you neither push or pull, you just set up your structure and allow movement to happen. Any force acting on you is dealt with by the bodies balancing mechanism. It takes a strong will not to react with habit, fear, compliance or anger; it is hard to hang onto an idea when faced with force and risk. But the whole point of training is to introduce these ideas in a safe environment and develop them. If you do not try it in class, how can you expect it to work anywhere else? This is not a lecture, I am talking to myself.  Connection
3/9/2018
When you reach for your cup of tea, you can just use your arm to support the movement but as you accept the weight of the cup it will cause you to tense your forearm and shoulder. This is because the effect of gravity on the cup is slightly overbalancing you. No big deal with a small object, but if you are then reaching further, say grabbling a 2 litre milk carton across the table, the strain will have more on an effect on your balance and your lower back. Try thinking about this differently. Once in contact with an object it becomes one with you in respect of how gravity effects you. Instead of allowing it to pull you forward. relax and let the weight drop into your elbow, down your back and into the floor. Let your centre take the weight and allow your body to organise how it deals with gravity acting upon it. Gravity is the one constant in life your body is born to deal with. Several people have said to me that I chi sau differently from everyone else; they cannot work out what I am doing. That is because (good or bad) my movement is an expression of who I am and how I deal with gravity, it is not about contrived movement, position or technique. I do not want to conform to anyone else’s’ idea of what chi sau is, I want to make a connection so as to join you to my body’s own sense of gravity. I do not want to connect a tan sau or fook sau with your arms, I do not want to stick; if I seek your centre it is for you to try to stop me and in a sense your force decides what arm movement becomes appropriate. By joining for a brief moment gravity has an effect on both people and by accepting and aknowledging that bigger picture the choice then is to control and hit, or extend the practice for longer and engage in chi sau. You can take the force of the other person and allow the floor to support it, or allow your body to organise itself so the other person has to deal with your entire weight (without pushing). The true skill is then to maintain that control of how gravity effects both people throughout chi sau, so you cannot be hit but can choose to hit from as many positions as possible. Chi sau without this idea, without this concept is just chasing hands. It is virtually worthless unless any opponent you meet in life is smaller and less aggressive than you, otherwise they will overpower your arms and hit you. You have to see the bigger picture of how you set up your body to deal with gravity (through standing practice), of how you move your limbs and body whilst connected to your centre (SLT, Chum Kui) and how you apply your body mass to someone else (chi sau). Without that it is mostly grown men playing patter cake patter cake.  https://nextlevelwingchun.blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/review-of-my-first-lessons-in-chu-shong.html
Mark Allanson visit (2)
12/8/2017
Wow, what a great week it has been for the club. Our friend Mark Allanson returned for his second visit to share his vast knowledge and experience of Chu Shong Tin wing chun. Mark taught wing chun for 20 years in Australia as one of Jim Fung’s senior instructors before moving to Hong Kong to train with CST for about 3 years. He has massive knowledge of the structural, internal and fighting aspects of the art and he was kind enough to share some of that with us during both classes and well as spending the whole of Wednesday with Mark, Jon and myself. We were all buzzing by the end of the class on Thursday as Mark went around to every student to chi sau and offer guidance. I was not just impressed by his skill, but also his humility and kindness. The kind of teacher we should all aspire to be. For those who missed this week, Mark will be there for the gathering in April. He will be an honorary Sung Wing Chun instructor and has even offered to teach a kicking seminar. My name is at the top of the list for that one. Mark now lives in the Netherlands, if you are in Europe and serious about wing chun I suggest you seek him out for lessons. He is hard to find but most things good are. You can contact me for his details.   3 Years
11/23/2017
Starting a martial arts club was a risk, not so much financial but there was an element of burning bridges with our old training partners by rejecting their training methodology. Probably the biggest risk was to the ego; not attracting new students would feel like a rejection of not only the art but a thing which absorbs a large part of my/our lives. Also we did not want in any way to damage the name and legacy of Chu Shong Tin. Three years on and it is a relief to say that Sung has actually have had some success, we have infected the lives of at least two dozen people enough that they regularly leave the comfort of their couches to come and train with us Maybe they do not go to bed with wing chun on their minds and wake up with it still there (like me), but I have a suspicion that for some it may have moved from interest to obsession. I wish people could train more, come both nights of the week, but as students become part of the family you realise that everyone has their own lives and problems, work and kids etc, so I do really appreciate it when they come to class. The club has changed this year, Mark, Jon and I are very comfortable to teach what we believe without any nod to what will commercially attract students. We are probably the only club in the UK that has students undertake standing practice for 40 mins+ at the start of lesson, in fact probably one of the few in the world. As I say to every new starter, we do not do drills; CST wing chun does not have drills! We are all about learning to reconnect to our mind/bodies and utilise our mass in a manner which will not work if you drill it to fix it in habitual routine movement. Things I am proud of this year are seeing a couple of students make fundamentally important internal connections, moving a large group of students on to Chum Kui; making connections with Mike Arnold in Wales so his large club can become involved in CST methodology; Rini has started to teach Sung principles in the Netherlands and Mark & I have taught successful seminars in Prague. Our family is growing. Also personally I have invested a lot of my time and money to improve my body awareness by training in the Alexander Technique; most Wednesdays I have got up at 6.30am to visit Manchester to be part of an Alexander Technique training school. I think that the 120 hours of hand on training I have had this year has improved my teaching so this is something I will continue to do. A club takes a long time to establish, entering our 4th year will mean that we have students with many levels of ability who can now pass on their knowledge to new starters. I am hoping that a handful of students will start the Bil Jee form. The most exciting event is likely to be the gathering in April 18. There will be 40 of us training over an entire weekend; we could probably get 50 or 60 people but I am actively turning people away or putting them on a waiting list. There will be an exciting group of people coming from the UK and Europe who have been and training with the likes of Sisuk Ma Kee Fai, Nima King, Alex Man, John Kaufman, Tony Psaila and of course Chu Shong Tin, so a fantastic chance to share and practice with our extended family. The only sad thing I take from this year is losing students. People need to move home to find work, they have children or illness strikes but it is hard to see someone who you have shared the investment in time and effort with leave us. The one thing I do hope is that they take with them some of the improved body awareness that they learned and it continues to help them in their lives, even if their wing chun never reached a level that they could use it in a martial way. I am pretty sure that we will have some other exciting events this year. Our friend Mark Allanson is visiting next month and so I am hoping he will share some of his vast experience of our lineage with us and our students. Also we have been asked about more seminars in the UK and Europe which we are keen to do. Ideally I would also like to think about either inviting one of CST’s students to give seminars here or alternatively organise a group to visit Hong Kong. Onwards and upwards!  Three relationships
11/2/2017
Internal relationship
The first stage (and for most the only stage they reach) relates to holding and moving positions; tan sau, bong sau etc. The development point from here is by learning to release associated areas of tension the movements it results in power improvements, enabled by letting go of the shoulder, scapulae, the hips etc. For most experienced wing chun students this is the peak of their internal journey. If you relax one muscle (or set of them) it will just move the tension somewhere else. It was tense for a reason (a misguided idea that it will protect you) and your body will lock somewhere else to do the same job. You have to learn the relationship between each of the muscles and how they can create a virtuous circle of shared ‘tone’. You have to accept force into your body, it is how you accept it in and deal with it which is the key to internal arts. Teacher relationship I do not think that you can do this work on your own, maybe one in a million can. Through body contact I can give you a feeling of how I deal with force, where I direct it and how I can give it back. I can then talk you through the process once you get an idea. It takes time but I can pass on that process and you can develop your own way. Doing SLT on its own without this guidance will not do this and relaxation without a guiding purpose will lead to collapse. This cannot work in a McDojo, your teacher has had to have followed a similar path or they are just reciting someone else’s words. It is very rare in wing chun, how many do you see teach like CST? How many can put a hand on you and affect changes beyond the contact point? Judge a teacher on how they feel and what changes they can elicit in you. Hostile Relationships I have recently read discussions on forums of how the chum kui form works. Do you move from your centre of mass? Do you move your centre of mass around an external point? Where is your centre of mass? Can you create a false centre? How does your centre change when in contact with someone else? You can happily do the chum kui form until you have worn a hole through the floor all the way to Australia, but muscle memory and theory will not help you deal with force. As soon as you are contact with someone you have entered a relationship. If you have not in someway mastered the basics of the relationships mentioned above you will tense up and you will push back. If you are not able to accept force and deal with it there can only ever be one direction of force affecting your opponent. Although it can be effective pushing in a diagonal is not multi-directional force. Chi sau is you forum to learn how to deal with force, if you know how to deal with it there is no need for a contrived plan about how to pivot, no thought of heels or toes or barber’s poles, this is just stuff for beginners to notice what they are doing and allow change to happen. Your own mind/body is in a constant flux and just trying to teach it a drill, or isolating a muscle in your arm or learning to hold your temper will not have much effect on how you hang together as a person. A more powerful method is observation, subtle direction (intention) and for WC students the indirect processes passed to us by CST which can elicit much bigger change to how to move and interact under pressure. If I have to punch you in the face, I do not want you to feel my hand but my unimpeded body mass going through you, and if I focus on localised body distractions this will make that impossible to achieve. Once contact has been made, a relationship has established and I need to ensure my system takes on control to my benefit and not the other way around. Perhaps it would be easier to get people to punch and kick pads for two hours! |
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