Connection

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.