Looks Unappealing To some it looks unappealing and not very spectacular. But this is a fighting system. All the fancy techniques have been thrown out. There are no reasons to have flying round house kicks, spinning kicks ect. Wing chun uses your opponents force against them. Good training and footwork is the key to this system. Often all real fighting isn’t meant to look pretty!! You get in; take your opponent out, job done. This may sound very aggressive but you can’t afford to take chances when a confrontation is inevitable. The best form of defence is attack. Your opponent wants to take you down. He or she will do what ever it takes to win. After all nobody like to loose. Its human nature!! Wing chun teaches you how to react in these scenarios. Like I have said before no system is undefeatable, wing chun included. But in my experience it come’s pretty dam close. Wing chun is a system that has no limits. It is a continuation of movements. Blocking and attacking which work together simultaneously together. It begins on the first contact of attack, and only ends when the attack ends. The system is broken down in to ten grades. Every grade has new techniques to master. I look at it as a jigsaw puzzle. You do the corners and the edge first and work your way towards finishing off in the middle. The bil sao was the first technique I was taught. It consists of using three limbs at the same time. You’re blocking, protecting yourself and attacking all in one movement. This, once fully understood, is a devastating technique. It creates an opening to attack you opponent. But leaves you protected against anything you opponent might do next. Again the key to this is timing and footwork. You only understand and master this by repartition, work and understanding the technique fully. I have progressed and passed my fifth grade after only fifteen months. In this time I had an understanding of the techniques I had been taught, but not a real understanding of wing chun. You could say I had the tools in the bag but didn’t now how to use them!! This is when you start learning the real truth behind wing chun and what wing chun is all about. Chi sao or sticky hands is an exercise that teaches you close contact fighting. Put it this way, once you have fully mastered chi sao you could actually stand in a phone box and have a scrap. You are in each others faces; this is your fighting zone. Once your opponent has entered this invisible area you switch on. It’s like flicking a switch and once contact is made there is no hesitation. You are in the zone. This, once mastered is when you let go. Relax free your mind, let the wing chun come out, cos it will. You do it instinctively, and you shouldn’t have to think about what technique you should use for what attack, it doesn’t work like that. Wing Chun takes over. It’s been drilled in to you. It’s in your blood. It’s like an addiction. You just have to let it go.  Understanding and learning chi sao takes time and patience. It’s the core of wing chun. It develops your reflexes. Because in every fight there is a point of contact. Chi sao develops the counter reflexes, and once mastered you don’t have to see your opponent to fight and defend your self!! When that point of contact is made you feel every movement of your opponent. Every little twitch, shifting of the weight, the sudden movement forward, backwards and even sideways. Basically where ever your opponent goes, you stick with them all of the time; don’t give them the space to breath. Smother them. There can be no let up, but you should never use force just relax but firm. But use your opponents force if he or she wants to push you backwards, let them. Just use the force against them. Use your footwork and chi sao combined to dissolve the attack. Then attack back instantaneously. I remember when I was first being taught chi sao, I was taught one armed chi sao first. It was a combination of bon sao and tan sao’s alternating left and right hands. As you progress stepping was introduced. I grasped the routing after a few lessons not really understanding what the objective really was. Eventually double armed chi sao was introduced. It was a combination of bon sao and tan sao. This I could only do for a few minutes. The burning in my shoulders was too much and I became ridged and robotic. The aim was to do a minimum of ten minutes of double arm chi sao continuously form left to right, adjusting your footwork at the same time. Once this stage was met “it took quite a time to achieve” techniques were introduce while performing chi sao. Your training partner would come in with an attack and you would block it accordingly and visa versa. Kicking techniques were also introduced. These were easily dissolved with little effort. The slightest movement was more than enough to counter any kicking attacks! We were pushed very hard once we had reached chi sao. Front palm after front palm would come crashing in. They would pound in to your chest again and again. Every time one crashed in you could feel your self tense up. Your shoulders would become ridged; how ever hard you trained you could not block them. “Relax” we were told, “let your shoulders relax don’t tense up”. How do you relax when you are getting hit every time, what is the purpose to this!! I had some low times while learning chi sao. I couldn’t understand what I was supposed to be achieving. However hard I trained I couldn’t relax, and was getting hit time and time again. The low times didn't last long; it was just a dip I confidence and not understanding what I was learning. I can’t explain how it happened but things suddenly started to take shape. My reflexes were getting sharper and sharper. My speed of attacks were increasing and getting harder for my partner to deflect. I found myself reacting to attacks instinctively. I would block a technique before my brain had even registered what was happening. How could this be? What had changed? Basically after years of chi sao, my ability to feel my opponents attack could be felt, the contact reflex had been achieved and to top it all, I had learnt to relax and feel comfortable with having your opponent in your face, and pressurising you all the time. Suddenly all the earlier grades were coming into play. I was performing these same techniques on a person whilst linked up in chi sao. The ability to find that gap and explode onto an attack had been achieved. It was and still is an unbelievable feeling if you like; you get a buzz out of it. The fear factor has gone. You’re flowing into technique after technique. Reacting to any slightest of movement, this is the real wing chun. This is what this system is all about, short and powerful techniques, rallying on fast reflexes, sharp and precise footwork and superior hand speed. This is what I was looking for and had now found it. The wooden dummy in my opinion is the final peace of the jigsaw puzzle. It enhances your training speed, your foot work; it also toughens up your arms and legs. This piece of equipment never gets tired. It never refuses to train and can take a pounding, it will never quit. There are 12 sections to the wooden dummy, each section consists of a number of techniques, blocking and attacking, it’s a continuous flow of movements. These techniques are used when you are sparring, infact every time you use the dummy, you could say you are sparring again and again!! So practical and more devastating bil jee and iron palm iron palm are my next challenges. These will enhance my techniques to the max. There is no time limit on this. It happens over time, and it creeps up on you without you knowing. Your reactions change everything about your fighting, and enhance your ability even more. It will take you to what ever limit you want. You have control of you own destiny. It’s what you put in as a person determines what you get out of it at the end, bring it on. By Paul Hammond.   Click here for the Menu page. or Articles Home page. Site produced by: E.T.W.C.K.F.A. Copyright © 2008 European Traditional Wing Chun Kung Fu Association. All rights reserved. Feedback to : Site Administrator E-mail