Shine a light or Cast a Shadow?
10/26/2016
If Chu Shong Tin's ability where compared to a tree, he was a Giant Redwood. He towered over those around him. Some chose to ignore him, but those who recognised his ability where soon to drawn to him in awe. Such an chasm in ability for students however can leave a shadow which is hard to get out of. Trying to emulate something you are not (yet) can be frustrating and draining.
Chu Shong Tin had two options, he could could stand with his back to the sun and always leave his students in the dark, show only his best side, or he could move aside and let his students shine. The former is what the majority of teachers do; do you ever see them on youtube let students win, or set them up so they are more powerful? There are now thousands of videos of Chu Shong Tin availabe where he is not only demonstrating unstoppable power but also giving hands on guidance to his students so they could learn to do what he did. I have huge respect for Chu Shong Tin's students, people like Nima King. They have devoted their lives to wing chun. I also understand how difficult it must be to live up to the great expectations they have in themselves, even in death his shadow still falls long. I hope that his ethos of training is evident to our students at Sung. It is not just 'look what I can do, isnt it great', but 'look what what the human body can do, look what YOU can do'. Humility comes from the fact that we understand how great we can be as human beings, but our own individual issues get in the way of ourselves achieving. Training for me is about getting out of the way of ourselves, finding clarity and harmony with body and mind. Shine a light on your potential.
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Is Wing Chun a Striking Art
10/7/2016
Everyone has heard the saying, to win the battle but lose the war. Last year Turkey shot down a Russian bomber, they may have felt a sense of victory for a few seconds, but quickly realised that hitting a soft target can leave you very vulnerable to retaliation. Especially if the opponent is bigger, stronger and meaner.
I can imagine that in almost every wing chun club in the world the same scenrio plays out. A guy from another school attends, they get a chance to try out chi sau with a regular student and a familiar pattern of escalation occurs. There is the preliminary few rolls, followed by a tit for tat exchange with increasingly harder hits. Unless there is a big difference in abliity neither party is particually happy, one complains the other 'took cheap shots 'and the other that 'he kept grabbing', etc. Because I practice with everyone in the club I know how potentially powerful some are. I have enough ability to get lots of cheap shots in on Daz say, but I know that if I leave a small gap and he steps out of the chi sau bubble, he has enough physical power to knock me out. I have seen Mark act as the patient teacher with students over the years, providing them with gaps and allowing them space; letting them feel they have a chance. Being a good guy he will not spring the trap he is setting but for me I know that there is one. If I try to enter that apparently clear zone his whole body mass will be on he and i will be pinned to the wall before I can blink. Exchanging blows with a stranger in chi sau is not always a good idea. The aim of wing chun is to put the opponent in a position that they no longer offer a threat to you in as quick a time as possible. In reality I will take your cheap shot, lock you up, destabilise you and if necessary smash you into the wall etc. Wing Chun is boxing, it is grapping, it can be throwing; it is the quickest least risk option of defence. A few months ago I saw footage of experienced wing chun guys chi sauing with relative strangers as part of the Chinese New Year celebrations. Clearly the skill level was better, but time and again there was a failure to appreciate the size of the stranger, the potential power they could create and their capacity to 'cheat'(grap, push, pull etc). The experienced guy would patiently explain why 'we do not train that way', but in reality the words could not be backed up by actions. Chi sau is in truth only a moment in a confrontation, a chance to destabilise and strike with minimal exposure to yourself. Whist training in the club we prolong that moment in order to better develop our own defences, to recoginse our bad habits and tensions with the help of a co-operative partner, but the escalation from that is into sparring and at that point an appreciation of power becomes paramount. If wing chun was just a striking art it would not have chi sau. However chi sau is not wing chun or in any way an end to itself. It just a tool we use to help to connect our body mass (which we have worked on with our form practice) to the opponent when in contact. None of this means that I am saying do not practice with strangers. Just aknowledge that it is not 'fighting' and determine the appropriate amount of defence and power required for the individual. if they are big, draw them in and destablise them; hitting is not required. If they are small leave them a gap so you can open them up when they fall in the trap. Every movement they make is an opportunity for you to work on the stuff you learn in class. But importantly, if they are a dick... just walk away. Life's too short. Chum Kui - part 2
9/23/2016
On the face of it the chum kui form is one of the strangest most abstract martial arts forms that there is. The first section all makes sense; it introduces the idea of pivoting around your own centre and adding a second or third rotation to power the movements of the arms, but thereafter it gets bizarre.
First the kick, not a straightforward front kick but one where you have first pivoted to your side. The angle impinges your hip and makes lifting the leg awkward unless you lean back. Then the step, not forward or back step but sideways like a crab! Strangest of all is the pivoting kick which you only practice with one leg; hardly appears to be a kick at all. It would be an easy option to just trust your sifu and believe somehow practicing the form for thousands of hours will infuse new ability. Alternatively you could dismiss having to learn it as a necessary chore to pass a grading. The third option is THINK... The straight kick is actually done from an awkward position on purpose, not because you would necessarily fight like that but because it makes you acutely aware of your balance, whether you are lifting or releasing your leg and whether you are leaning back. It is essentially giving as many tools as possible to assess your ability. Do it well from that position and from a more 'relaxed' position it will be a piece of cake. Similarly the side step is teaching how to move your mass, there is a small rotation from your centre and you learn to move from there and not push with your legs. Once understood from the side you can use in any direction. Finally the pivoting kick, this helps us work on pivoting on one foot, on intercepting a sideways attack and how to protect your centre. All done whilst maintaining your centre of balance. It even shows you how to release your mass when you lower your leg (a technique in itself). These are all abstract ideas, not necessarily applications which you would find with an ordinary martial art. I like to think of Chum Kui as a test of how well you have learned the lessons of Sil Lim Tao. If you cannot connect your arm movements to your centre of mass, then moving your body will only cause you more tension and impede your techniques. Silmilarily pivoting without relaxed hips will just mean you are pushing your body behind your arms (unstable). Perhaps it was a genius who invented wing chun, or a mad person, I am not sure. It is easy to look for things that are not there but at the end of the day it is best to invest the time in looking rather than believe everything you are told. Then again, perhaps I have made all this up... This is a question which most 'humble' martial artists ask before then rolling out the clichés that they are all equal, but it is how hard you train that counts. I am not convinced. How can a striking free art like judo be equal to boxing (no throwing). How can Olympic tai kwan do be equal to aikido when it has no hand work of any significance. If I invent my own martial art will it be equal to all others, or does it have to exist for a certain period of time first? Each art may be valid but the word equal does not really make sense in this context. To break this down I think it is best to separate out the two key constituents. The 'Martial' and the 'Art': Martial Martial is about fighting (the word is derived from Mars, the Roman god of war), the core components consisting of punching, kicking, throwing, joint locks and not much else. Children will do all if these things instinctively and we as societies have refined them so we can do as much damage to someone in as quick a time as is possible. All martial arts will have started employing the 4 key tools but over time began to specialise to suit the characteristics of the practitioners. Punching is the method of choice for those with little training, it is quick effective, powerful and is the least risk method to your own balance. When I have watched sparring from most intermediate level martial artists, whatever art they do, they usually settle into the default method of side on punch and kick, as the more complicated techniques of any system become more difficult to pull off in real time confrontations. The 'Art' This is where things start to unravel. In a straight fight we can tell who is best, but with the added aspect of an 'art' extra rules start to be added and reality takes a back seat. You can think of the art as the training method employed to get someone into a condition to fight. For a western boxer this is fitness conditioning, bag work, combinations and sparing. For a lot of Chinese and Japanese arts they employ kata (forms) and for the jui juitsu arts it is techniques for throwing and locking. Over time as each method has retreated to train within its own group, more elaborate techniques have developed to deal with its own speciality. Forms become longer, more flowery and have more to do with aesthetic beauty and flexibility than with effectivness. BJJ is a fantastic art, but cannot be used to deal with more than one opponent, especially where it is not safe to go to ground. MMA has been a real eye open for most fighters, there has been a return to learning the basic 4 components as many arts have been unmasked as 'ineffective' when they enter it's crucible. However MMA still has a lot of baggage related to 'art' side. The rules favour grapplers; gloves are worn, there are no corners, the floor is soft and there is only one opponent. Also, crucially there is an agreement of both parties to enter into a fight; there is none of the surprise of an ambush or use of weapons which happens in the real world. In effect the training is undertaken in order to enter into a duel with an opponent of equal ability; where is the reality in that? You are probably now thinking I am going to say that wing chun is the best. I am not... What is great about wing chun is that is pragmatic in its approach, my style of wing chun is about breaking an opponents balance quicky and hitting hard, ensuring you keep your own balance whilst at the same time being able to deal with more than one opponent. Just as important for me is does not damage your own health whilst training and you can continue to improve as you get older. However, I would not recommend it to a child or someone who needs a quick hit self defence course. For someone under 10 I would also say learn judo, it teaches good coordination and balance as well as discipline. For my daughters I would say TKD, they are very flexible and do not like confrontation. For an 18 yr old looking for confidence I would say boxing; go to for a bouncer would be kickboxing and BJJ, and for someone older or in poor health choose tai chi. What we come down to is all arts have their place, some are more art than martial but as long as the practitioners recognise that there is no problem. When I got into my late 30s and now past 40 I see no need to have myself beaten up every week in training, the art for me is the internal puzzle of producing power without effort and figuring out how to land that on an opponent before they can do it to me. Being pragmatic means compromise. I could not match a 20 yr old MMA fighter in the ring, but in the pub I might have the edge. My skill and power will also keep increasing so in 20 years time I might be able to take on him and his mates, as by then they will be overweight and carrying debilitating injuries through hard training. In Chinese martial arts they place the 4 most important aspects in fighting in the following order, 1. Fighting spirit (the will to win). 2. Power. 3 Speed. 4. Technique. When you choose an art for yourself you can also factor in real world outcomes other than fighting such as, health, fitness, flexibility and social interaction, and mix them together to get the art for you. The best art is out there, but it is only best for you and what you want to achieve. Wing Chun has opened up a window for me I do not know existed. To learn about my body, using relaxation to produce power and speed with little effort and know that it works for fighting makes it the best fit for me. I do not try to make it fit all of our students, we can lead them to the water but it is up to them to decide if it is palatable. Which is the best car, a Ferrari, Bentley a Toyota Land Cruiser or an Audi 4x4? It all depends on the road in front of you. The Sil Lim Tao Paradox
9/8/2016
Wherever wing chun came from it was a simplification of what came before; an evolution. If Ng Mui was the originator, she pruned the flowery movements of the shaolin kung fu she had learned. Later Leung Jan simplified it further, and it is common knowledge that when Ip Man started teaching in Hong Kong he removed a lot of what he considered superfluous movements. So what is left are three hand forms which define the system, and if you analyse those you can see most of the movements are contained within the first form.
So what makes Sil lim Tao (SLT) so special? In my lineage of wing chun it is held up on a pedestal, the main focus of our training and the source of our unique power. Ip Man had his students practice the form for 12 months before he taught them chi sau and Chu Shong Tin did the same with his students. My sifu reduced the term to 6 months, but that is a lot more than any school I have heard of in the UK. I am going to go out on a limb and say that solely practicing SLT for 6 or 12 months can be a waste of time. If you are doing it wrong, if your teacher does not have the requisite body knowledge, all you will be doing is resisting gravity and building muscular stiffness into your body system. I can say this as it is what I did for a long period of my own training. What I learned was to very subtlety brace muscles so when force was applied to me I was able to resist it. I got better and better at it but once the force got too great my whole structure would collapse. This lesson was painfully given to me 5 years into my training when I first visited Hong Kong. Since 2008 I have been re-engineering my body; to do this I have tried to follow the evidence*. Chu Shong Tin did not actually emphasis SLT over the last 10 years of his life, he emphasised gaining body awareness through standing practice. From this he taught the arms movement of wing chun connected to the proper body structure. Those arm movements are all in the SLT, but just doing the form and moving your arms does not in itself help deliver the power so many seek. The more I teach the more I realise that without standing practice you have no way of starting the communication with your body needed for an internal art. But just as important in the need for the mind to understand how relaxation can be powerful; and for this you need the interaction with a teacher/partner who is more experienced. The real irony I now perceive is that for a beginner to a get a feel for this the joints need to be loosened and that only really works at first with bigger movements. In fact it helps if you move your body and open your shoulder joint to its maximum extent (use the chum kui or bil jee form), which can look nothing like SLT. As you get the idea of this and progress, the movement gets small and smaller until it is not perceivable to most people (it's internal). At this point the true SLT takes shape. So what we have is this tiny compact form, the seed of wing chun. However for its movement to be useful as a fighting form you have to have had internalised the ideas to a very great extent and this takes time and hard work. Hence this is why most chi sau on display on YouTube looks nothing like the forms and the sparing looks nothing like the chi sau. Without internal focus the movements have to be bigger (if you cannot effectively use your mass properly you have to rely on acceleration or pushing) and so the wing chun principles go out the window. Here is an idea. Perhaps we all have it wrong... I was told long ago that the forms progress along the following lines; SLT - we start with the hand along the centre line in the perfect position; Chum Kui - the hand is off the centre and we learn to pivot to regain it; Bil Jee - we start the movement in a poor position from where we attack the other person's centre. The actual reality or fighting is that if we are attacked we never have the perfect centre position. We are off-line and have to regain it. Therefore it is strange for us to start practicing the art from a perfect position if only a true master would ever be able to get there. It could be argued that the logical place to start is therefore the Bil Jee form? Personally as time goes on I do not get hung up on forms, you can learn the movements and map them back to the form or learn the forms first and then try to understand them. None of it matters unless you can connect the movements to your centre of mass. I do not claim any mastery of this, I am a student of the idea. However as a teacher I am now following the evidence further, in hand with our students, because when they get it right the results can be startling. * I have borrowed the term 'follow the evidence' from Mark Ho, he is the Sherlock Holmes of wing chun investigation. For some wing chun people reading this, you have probably had an extensive education in this already. In fact I will in all likelyhood be teaching you to suck eggs, so if that is the case just jog on and do something else. But if you really want to mess up your wing chun training, make the art look like a joke, here are some key tips to wreck your posture and give you irreparable spinal damage (enjoy):
1. Grip the floor, really tense up your feet like a bird perched on a branch in the wind. This will send tension straight through your body. 2. Clamp you thighs really tight, lock you pelvis muscles so if anyone pushes you then you will fall over. 3. Lean backwards, arch your spine and stick your crotch out. No need to worry about lower back pain for the rest of your life or exposing your groin to kicks. Also the beauty of this is if you bend backward when you punch your mass will be transmitting in the wrong direction. 4. Pull back those shoulders, really pull them back and wing your scapula like an eagle about to take off. 5. Relax, but not in an active way. Just slump like a teenager. 6. Practice your form in front of the tv, play computer games but at no point scan your body of tension or pay it any attention. The mind and body should be kept separate. 7. Let your head loll back so the weight of it can compress your spine. 8. Keep your standing and Sil Lim Tao practice to a minimum. It is just a chore to keep beginners busy whilst others get to show off by doing chi sau. 9. Above all, imagine yourself rooted to the centre of the earth, immovable and fixed. Some sifus already teach this way, others will just lead by example. Whatever you do, do not question your sifu; people who you pay money always know best! Can you 'internalise' your wing chunÂ
8/22/2016
If there is a band wagon to be jumped on in wing chun at the moment, it is called internal wing chun. We are being offered the 'rediscovered' 1800 variety said to be patched together from secret documents, the tai chi/hybrid inspired variety, whilst some say internal was always there but only taught to Ip Man's favorite students. Although some of the teachers proclaim their own method is the most legitimate because they can prove it works in the ring, they are generally build like gorillas and their movements suspiciously resemble boxing. For the others, they talk a good talk but you never see them demonstrate on anyone other than their own students. I always say I could teach Mike Tyson enough wing chun in one week that he would beat practically every wing chun man in the world. The thing is he would not need much wing chun to do it, and his internals would be the same as everyone elses. The principles of internal arts are very simple, but to internalise those principles takes a lot of thought, work and practice. Effortlessness take great effort in the beginning. The more complicated the instructions give by the teacher, the more I smell a fraud. An endless curriculum is a great way to sell videos and books, hold seminars etc, but the skill is in the touch, in the feel; not so profitable. Chu Shong Tin never sold himself with the internal badge and despite what people try to say he did not infuse tai chi principles into wing chun. However, every movements he made contained the core principle of the internal arts. How did he do it? 1. Ip Man told Chu Shong Tin to practice Sil Lim Tao whenever he could. He told him to think up through his spine and soften his limbs. Chu Shong Tin took him at his word and practiced at any free moment for two years. After that time he felt his power growing and he was able to overcome his class mates without effort. 2. Chu Shong Tin understood that a relaxed straight spine was to the key to all internal arts. The muscles are able to relax away from the centre and you no longer have to rely on localised muscle. 3. Through continued practice Chu Shong Tin was able to use a deeper part of his mind to not only release muscles and increase his power, but also rely on a more natural instinctive way to move. 4. Importantly Chu Shong Tin did not rest on his laurels, instead he practiced and improved over 60 years. He did this by demonstrating, breaking down and understanding his own processes and passing that onto his students. Hands on teaching is one of the best learning aids there is, but only if done humbly and not just a way to show off. For me wing chun is not complicated, it is very simple, but it is counterintuitive and takes great patience to change the way you think and the way your body first seeks to react. The standing practice introduced in Sil Lim Tao is the key element to understand your body, so when in contact with others you can discern changes in yourself. Without this your wing chun is always going to be based on external alignment. I do not make claims that the instructors at Sung are the best, but the way we move and feel to other practitioners differs from almost anyone who has come to our class to train. The key to our improvements I believe is trying to hold on as best as we each can to the basic principles passed on by Chu Shong Tin, and importantly the giving of feedback. We do not compete with each; we test each other and push each other. Consistently giving live feedback allows the chance to not only identify when you personally feel powerful, but when your partner feels you are powerful (which can be entirely different). If you use your mass/structure to neutralise force, there is very little muscular feedback to give an awareness that it is working. Because of this there is always a temptation to go back to old habits which feel effective. However if you can feel a better way in someone else, help them cultivate it, then there is a possibility you can map it back on yourself. Eventually you can work on a virtuous feedback loop where you both improve. The method Mark, Jon and I have used and refined is the method we now teach. If you want to do what we an do, you need to do what we did. By placing the emphasis on both standing practice and the feedback through chi sau, the chances for improved kinesthetic awareness are multiplied. In my opinion, in order to understand what' internal' is you need to have reached a sufficiently relaxed state that to can recognise and inhibit tension and reactions within your own body when it is acted on by an external force. This is the first step before you can accept or generate force. The next stage is using the awareness you have gained from chi sau to share that force through your body in a manner that neutralises it without restricting the movement of your joints. If you try this without a proper internal awareness (gained from constructive chi sau feedback) my belief if that you will find relaxed alignments, but they will still remain crude alignments in the direction the force is coming. Ultimately this is still external, and therefore contains the flaws of that type of system. For an internal method to work, your opponent/partner is forced to align in a direction not of their choosing (away from your centre), causing excess tension in them and still allowing free movement of your own joints (so you can hit their cente). I do not know how internal Ip Man's wing chun was but I am very grateful that he taught Chu Shong Tin the keys to find a method for himself. Ultimately that is all a teacher can do. We at Sung give the best instruction we can to our students to improve their body awareness through standing, we answer questions as honestly as we can, and feedback is the cornerstone of our method helping them to not resist force (be it the force of an opponent or of gravity). It does take time, but many of our students are beginning to grasp our method and results are starting to show. Once you have this you become the master of your own development, and then you will have a lifetime to grow and improve. Let me finish with a few questions which I want you to visualise and think about. What would it feel like to chi sau with yourself? Are you soft or heavy? Don't you draw people in or move then back? Do you have sharp angles or roll a perfect circle? Do you rely on speed? Do you push or pull? Do you have rooted balance or active balance? Do you want to 'win'? Do you really know, do you want to know? How can you find out?... Jon and Mark giving corrective feedback
Taking your Chi Sau to a different level
8/12/2016
When you get down to the core of it, fighting is a relationship between two people; usually of which one party is trying to inflict damage whilst the other is trying to protect themselves. Chi sau is a relationship between two people, but this time there is a co - operative element in that both parties are each exploring attack and defence movements in a safe environment. Teaching is also relationship between two people, with transfer of knowledge being seen as the motivator.
Interaction is the key to any relationship. I am sure you have been in a 'conversation' with individuals who only ever talk and never listen. They generally offer a few questions, but only for the reason they can open up a new topic about themselves. Other times we get stuck with someone who we have nothing in common with. Each new topic we bring up to pass the time is shot down with one word answers. Compare that relationship with a chat with good friend or your partner, instead of coming away drained you feel energised. Too often chi sau is taught as a series of snap shot techniques, like learning several phrases in a foreign language. Have you ever tried this method of communication in France? After one or two sentences you will be shot down or the response you get will be a blitzkrieg of unintelligible words. To interact you need to know the meaning of the words and not just phrases. The language part of wing chun is relatively easy (it's techniques), it is the relationship part which is difficult. If you do not understand the context of the techniques you may as well be both speaking in different languages at the same time. So, if the relationship bit is important, how do you learn that? By learning to understand your own body and its responses to stimulus you take a big step in finding out how to use it. Also, the interaction of chi sau allows you time to study the movement of your partner, and how common tensions exist in each of us. What I am getting at is it is not the arms flapping around in chi sau that is important, it is how those movements effect your structure and balance (your ability to give and receive force). All of this creates a big problem for a wing chun school like Sung. People come to us wanting to learn the equivalent of a crash course in French for their holiday, and what we are offering is akin to an immersive language experience. Even if they have learned martial arts (including wing chun) elsewhere, they may as well be speaking German as the core basics are different. However if they can learn the wing chun principles correctly, they will greatly improve their other arts as a consequence. It takes time but the effects will spread into your life more than if you were just to learn a few kicks and punches. So, as a teacher it is not my job to tell you how to react to a given stimulus, I can give you the feeling of how I react, adjust you so you can create that and other appropriate responses, but most importantly free your body to find its own natural responses which are free of habit. When you remove the immediate defensive response, the taught response and the habitual responses, you will find the body already has its own internal response which is not only just as powerful but crucially more appropriate than you could have anticipated. This is a joy to witness (it feels egoless) and the feeling of detachment it gives opens up an opportunity to watch and learn. Therefore chi sau become a true laboratory to explore and grow, which is a million miles away from technique and drill work. I learn so much teaching because the method I use through words and touch is done simply to get the student to inhibit their own habitual reactions and bring about a more natural response. The results can be remarkable but also frustrating for students as when they practice with others at first they try to reproduce a movement which they have previously allowed to happen. The equivalent of parroting a phrase in French in response to a question you did not understand. True in-the-moment interaction allows both parties to learn from chi sau and take their wing chun to a different level. Beware of wing chun systems which offers an endless curriculum of techniques and belts to acheive mastery. There is a lot to learn at Sung but much of it is a stripping away of what is unnecessary. For a martial art to work as an adaquate self defence, it's movement should be simple, efficient, brutal and direct, in that way we can engage in the moment and not fall into the trap of predicting future scenarios which may not happen. Sorry to say there is no secret technique or magic bullet available, other than begin by training your mind to be in the moment. Where the mind goes the body follows, and at that point the wing chun journey begins. Bong Sau or wrong sau?
8/3/2016
If wing chun can be said to have one unique movement, 'technique', it has to be the bong sau. Whilst other martial arts block strikes, wing chun's approach is not to clash or meet force with force. However, if you get into discussion about what the bong sau is, how it works or what it is for, it becomes apparent that there is no agreement in the wing chun community about what it actually is. From my own experience I know that the movement done by the Ip Chun/Ip Ching lineage is entirely different from the done by Wong Shun Leung students and again is different from Chu Shong Tin students. Even more frustrating is the fact that I have practiced with people from my own lineage who do it different depending on what era they trained! How can this be when the teaching all came from the hands of Ip Man a relatively short time ago? And to make matters even worse, there are many teachers out there who state that bong sau is just a technique for chi sau and has no application in a fight. If that is true, why even practice it?
Although I was taught by a student of Chu Shong Tin, the first time I saw the great man in action was about 11 years ago when I was given videos of his seminars. It was a revelation to hear his explanation of the circular nature of bong sau. This was so different from the triangle/wedge idea being sold by everyone else. He demonstrated the movement with the use of a hoop, in a manner which was effortless but frustratingly difficult to imitate well. Although it required less force than what most other people were doing, just copying his technique by no means led to an effortless movement. It took me a long time, which included many visits to Hong kong, to realise that the shape of the hand and the angle the movement are not the defining characteristic of a proper bong sau. In fact if you follow that method of learning you are on hopeless journey which will in the end justify your suspicion that as a technique the bong sau is unusable. I have been told the same story from several sources in Hong Kong about a famous UK wing chun 'master' who visited Chu Shong Tin before he died and pleaded with him to 'set him up' with a real bong sau. Although he got his wished and left happy, the truth is he left with nothing as his deeper understanding remained changed. After 14 years in wing chun my 'idea' about what a bong sau is and how it works is pretty settled. It comes from study, practice, teaching and basic trial & error. I can give you some tips, but without touching your hands I cannot transmit what the feeling should be or whether what you are doing it correct. This is not the only method to improve your bong sau, but for me it points in the direction of allowing the it to work with minimal effort: 1. You do not DO the bong sau. You allow it to happen. 2. The fundamental movement in wing chun is the punch. You use it to both strike and destabilise your opponent. The bong sau happens when there is sufficient sideways force put into your arm and on your structure that you cannot strike so you allow the rotation of the shoulder joint which consequently allows you to maintain your structure whilst destabilising your opponent. 3. Bong sau is not effective if you cannot first rest your mass on yourself and then on your opponent. Resting on you opponent means making them lift you at the point of contact. 4. If you align yourself crudely in a direct line, not only will your punch be less effective but your bong sau will never work. To truly rest on your opponent will mean they are forced to align to your relationship with gravity. This requires a fundamentally different idea of how you move your body. 5. Although the bong sau might move in an arc, a circle or rotate like a ball, trying to consciously make this shape with your movement makes no sense. You will loose the directness which makes the movement effective and engage muscles in lifting. You are confusing cause and effect (and also chasing hands). 6. The most difficult part of the bong sau is the transition from the tan sau or punch into the bong. If you follow the feedback from just your forearm you will get it wrong, your arm will try to align to deal with the opponent but your body will not be is a state to deal with their power. It takes a lot of practice with an experienced teacher to get the correct awareness of when the transition is appropriate, otherwise the directness of the movement is lost and it will be a lifting block instead. 7.Relaxation is the key! It allows you to stop using your scapula as a brace; instead you can release your entire shoulder girdle, your back and your pelvis into the movements of your arms. The term 'Internal' literally means your whole body becomes engaged in all movement. To a beginner in wing chun none of this will mean anything. However I have met many people precisely because they started to question what they were taught by other teachers for the exact reason that the bong sau never worked for them and they could not understand why. Let me be clear, done as a 'technique' the bong sau is useless, chi sau become useless, because too often it is done as a game for the sake of the game. However if you get the condition right, get the release right, the bong sau movement is not only incredibly powerful but also very satisfying to witness (the effort comes from your partner). Many wing chun practicitioners will tell you that the art only works in straight lines, following the shortest distance to the target. I am currently staying in a house in Spain at the top of a very steep hill. I can tell you that if I tried to drive the shortest route down the hill it might only take two minutes, but I would not survive it. So instead I take the most efficient route,following the road but with a clear intention of where I am going. At each hairpin bend I do not preempt the corner, I stay in the moment and react at the right time. This is how the bong sau works, it happens only when needed or it is not just useless it is a danger to yourself. You still keep your intention on the target, the bong sau allows an efficient method of dealing with an obstacle before readjusting to your destination. I cannot convey in words, image or video what a good bong sau is. Done effective it is so transitional it can be almost invisible. Done poorly it is a recipe for a torn rotor cuff muscle. If you honestly want to experience a more internal approach to wing chun, my best recommendation would be to visit a teacher from the Chu Shong Tin lineage to feel the difference yourself. Groundhog Day
7/24/2016
I love the film Groundhog day, anything Bill Murray is in is usually fantastic and it is a great story of redemption and self realisation. Watching it again with my daughters last night it also really rang a bell with me is respect of development in martial arts.
Bill Murray is self centred, vain and more concerned about what the world thinks of him than anything else. When he fails, he is able to bury it inside himself and move on to the next audience. Over the years I have seen many people come and go in wing chun with this approach to the art. It's a chance to show off, talk the talk and when they fail they have a miraculous ability to pretend it did not happen (there is usually an excuse). When they succeed, the ego is not satisfied and the spiral continues. Why is this? Something to do with low self esteem and ego. The next step is a realisation that something is missing, an aknowledgement that the audience might be more impressed with a demonstration of deeper knowedgle. In the film Bill Murray learns a few french poems, he says what he guesses are the right things to impress the girl, but his eventual failure is obvious because it is skin deep. In wing chun terms this happens when someone discovers the internal/relaxed side of the art. It is so easy to use the words, to wear the virtual clothes of an internal practitioner, but without putting in the practice it is ultimately hollow if there is nothing to back it up. Once exposed very soon you see these people returning to online name calling, blaming and generally showing themselves in their true light. The final step is a realisation of who you are and what you have. The only audience you have to satisfy is yourself. For every wrong thing you have done, for each empty technique you have learned, you will need to spend time undoing them. Here we have a true inroad to internal ability. Instead of doing things for the sake of it or because of habit, you respond with your true natural instinct. Failure is seen as a learning opportunity; fellow class mates and students are seen as partners and not victims. Humility is not a badge worn but an understanding and acceptance of your own ability. In the film Bill Murray fails thousands of times before he finds redemption. He finally stops trying to be something and sees what was always there in the first place. There is no shortcut to understanding wing chun, the human body is immensely powerful but we fetter it with stress and poor habits of movement. The first step to improving is finding a quietness, time for the body to settle. Just stop, let the ego drop and see what is possible. Reckless people rarely question themselves and are victims to their own prejudices and habits (and consequently need fighting skills to get them out of trouble). A legitimate question you might ask about this is what has it got to do with a fighting art. The answer is choice; instead of being a victim to circumstances and your own habits you can choose how to deal with situations as they really are and not as your ego might perceive. With a more mindful approach to training a clarity starts to appear where you see past your habits and the movements of others, with this a knowledge how and when to act becomes clearer and removes the need for many of the techniques which others crave. |
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