Lat Sau as a TTT (training transition tool)

After the first WT class in Ulm, I was invited to come again the next night, including the Escrima class held before WT. Unfortunately I only had time to come for the WT class.



Don’t ask me why I took this photo slanted, that’s just where I was standing on the stairs. You’ll have to tilt your head a bit to read it, so please don’t break your neck.

Sifu Bodo was not in again, so it was Sihing Michael leading the class. There were a couple of other 1TGs as well. I mainly trained with Jörg, pictured below.



Ignore the Axe in the corner there. It was only used for punishing really really bad students =).

There were a lot of students on this Thursday night of March 25th. I got very hot just doing Chum Kiu! Doing the forms there, I realized that I miss having a mirror in class. Not that I’m vain or anything…

Then, more Chi Sau, Lat Sau, and the majority of the class spent on random attacks. Jörg was practicing soft take-downs, and I was asked to just respond however I chose to. One lucky thing about being smaller than most of my training partners is the chance to see and feel what is needed, be it footwork or better structure, etc.

Thoughts on Lat Sau
I really see the value of EWTO Lat Sau exercises as a great transition tool, linking what we learn during Chi Sau and what we apply during random attacks.

In Chi Sau, we are already in contact with our training partner. In random attacks, there is only air between us and the opponent. In Lat Sau though, we learn how to respond to pressure that is made at the very moment of contact. We can (and should) train slowly at first with a lot of obvious pressure, and hopefully as we get better we can lighten up and be able to respond with only a slight breeze of the hairs on the skin.

The IWTA 甩手 exercises are a bit different in procedure, but the same in terms of the ultimate goal.



And so that ended my WT experiences in Ulm, Germany. Next up, good times at WT Munich for just one class!

“No blood? It’s okay then”

What an exhilarating experience, to practice WT in another part of the world. I have been lucky enough already to have trained in the main 3 cities of Canada involved in Wingtsun, namely Toronto, Vancouver, and most recently in Calgary.


Now, I can add Ulm, Germany to my list of WT journeys, albeit only for 1-2 classes. Why Ulm? I visited for a very exciting Interdisciplinary Fascia Course as part of my career journey. Interestingly enough, as a side product of this course, I have learned a few things about fascia as it relates to body movement that can likely be applicable to WT. More on this in a future post, including a lecture slide with a photo of Bruce Lee.

Greetings
Before flying out to Germany, I had e-mailed Sifu Bodo of WT Ulm about a possible visit. On the night of March 24th, when I visited the school, I was first met by a couple of students outside. There was lot of sign language for a few minutes mixed with a couple of phrases from the handy “Lonely Planet German phrasebook”. Then another student arrived who spoke a bit more English.


I was then greeted by Sihing Michael, who was generous enough to invite me to train with them. I did not have any of my training clothes, but how could you resist?

It was a beautiful gym with training pads, nice photos, the usual Wooden Dummy, etc. Standardized start of the class with SNT and CK. Then off to various drills.

Summary of thoughts:
- Chi Sau sections, be it EWTO-influenced, IWTA-influenced, instructor-influenced, is only a framework on which to build upon

- The whole body must be taken advantage of, using all of the joints including the back; there were no frozen and stilted bodies in this class!

- Hitting must be practiced in class, to get the feeling of what it takes to move somebody

- Wingtsun is an international language

- Best quote from one of my training partners: “No blood? It’s okay then.”

More sweat
Then, after various chi sau and lat sau exercises, the night was coming to an end! Then Sihing Michael said “Time to work up some more sweat!” Push-ups, leg raises, back extensions, chain punching… followed by some stretching.


By the way, “liegestütze” sounds just as painful and tiring as “push-ups”.

WT Ulm – highly recommended! Tune in for more about day 2 of 2.

"German" WT instructors

I just realized something.

All of the WT teachers I have had so far are Germans (or from Germany), such as Sifu Asad Mir and Si-Fu Ralph Haenel, except for the occasional seminar with Sifu Carson Lau. In case you are wondering… yes, this includes Sifu German Ferrer of WT Calgary, a “German” as well!

Okay, now that the lame pun is over and done with…

As part of my academic interest, I had the wonderful opportunity taking part in the first ever Interdisciplinary Fascia Research Course in Ulm, Germany.

It was my first time in Germany. So, what would you do as a WT student? Well, check out some WT schools of course! I visited the WT school in Ulm twice. I also spent a day in Munich and stopped by Sifu Sergej's WT school for a class.

One word summary: nochmals! (a word I learned from a fellow WT trainee in Munich)

Yes, once again please. I would love to train there again, to experience that wonderful “different but the same training” feeling.

Keep an eye out for a few blog entries about my 3 classes of training in Germany.

For now… I will leave you with a beautiful photo of the Ulm Munster, the tallest church in the world with a steeple of 161.5 metres. Beautiful view from the top after 763 steps.

How do you change formlessnessessess...?

Time for a short philosophical break… put on your thinking caps please…

This blog entry stemmed from thoughts related to this post by GM Kernspecht: http://www.wingtsunwelt.com/news.php?id=1780&PHPSESSID=c635d776eeafa99d54bfd318ed875227

1. If the goal of “becoming” Wing Tsun is the same for all, does it matter what kind of path you take? Why shouldn’t there be different journeys to the same goal?

2. Teachers adapt to the different learning styles of students. This can and should apply to martial arts training too.

3. If everyone has different body builds and characteristics, etc., then Wing Tsun can look very different. Depends on the scenario as well. Adaptation, anyone?

To me, “changing” Wing Tsun means changing the way to get to Wing Tsun. And that’s okay!

Have you got what it takes?

Every now and again you might hear a question comparing WT with MMA or what not, or how WT would be in a tournament. I’m not talking about the silly chi sau tournaments here. Nor am I talking about love-tap fights with a point system. I’m talking about being locked up in a cage with another experienced, ruthless and belt-hungry fighter.

Queue the screeching brakes.

We have to remember what we are training WT for. How about this: self-defense when caught in an unexpected potentially violent situation. At least for me, I’m not training full-time to be in a professional ring where I’ve studied my opponent’s videos beforehand, and I’ve been studied in detail, both of us needing to obey various rules, etc.

I remember watching an MMA fight, where one fighter accidentally ran his eye into the other guy’s thumb (yes, not the other way around). “Ow! (Sniff, sniff)” Fight delayed. Groin shots in those fights are always classic as well.

Note: Yes, I realize that there are lethal techniques in other martial arts besides WT.

Let’s turn to a lesson from Master Wong.

Maybe a bit too much swearing for some, but I love watching the sarcastic tone of his videos. You’ll have to watch some of the other ones to understand his animosity towards his student.

This video has a clear message for me – it’s not about what kung fu versus MMA, my style versus your style, etc.

It’s about the person who is training in the martial art.

So, what else is new? Let’s train hard!

In a self-defense situation, we are assuming that:

• Your attacker is bigger
• You were chosen as a victim (despite your confident air about you)

You were also assumed by the attacker to be weaker with no fighting experience. When physical violence ensues, your WT training will hopefully kick in. But, despite all of the training, do you have a greater hunger for survival than your opponent? (On the other hand, do you have enough control re: “excessive force” with all of the adrenaline rushing through?)

I see I have dodged the question a bit of whether WT work in a cage fight. I think it’s because it’s an entirely different scenario. Do I think someone could incorporate effective WT training into their MMA training? Sure! Put a hard-training devoted fighter through WT and no doubt there’ll be improvement. Chinese boxing – why not?

But I guess I really won't know until I see it. Until then, I'll spend less time thinking about that and more time training in an effective self-defense system. What are your thoughts?

I hope you enjoyed that video. There are lots of amusing quotes in there. He has also been posting this entertaining “Wing Chun Apprentice” series for 2010.

And to end, because kung fu is not only about physical fighting, let’s broaden our thinking a bit. I think this lesson is a valid point in all aspects of life.

How much effort do you put in to attain your goals?

Lessons from Leung Kwok Wah in 1 minute

I encountered a video on youtube by Sifu Leung Kwok Wah of Hong Kong. I thought it had some great teaching points that I’d like to share with you.



Face your opponent

At the very beginning of the video, he asks his students to face your opponent. Paraphrased:

Why aren’t you facing your opponent? You need to have forward intent. If you don’t face him, your concentration will be broken.

I don’t know why but when I see people doing chi sao exercises with their heads turned left or right, I think of a movie star holding a gun sideways, trying to look cool. The bit about focusing on forward intent by actually facing your training partner makes sense to me. Plus, as much as we want to rely on our sensitivity, we can’t ignore the amazing benefits of the visual input from our central and peripheral vision.

Continue to flow and spring forward

About 20 seconds in, he asks them not to stop, and continue. Paraphrased again:

Don’t stop. If you are turned and then stop there, a fighter is just going to push you around and you’ll get hit.

Also, at 2:30 or so, one of the students gets pushed away. His response:

Thrust back to him. Oh, you missed your chance. Okay, now you do it after I say it…

This is hard to do when you get tired I guess. It’s one thing to be able to dissolve a force, but another thing to still have forward pressure, or spring back after the force is dissipated. If we dissolve only without returning the favour, we’ll get slammed. And if we get pushed away, make sure those hands are up to defend against a follow-up attack, or just go back into the fire!

Stamina

At about 40 seconds one of his students says "I'm breathing hard". Paraphrased response:

Of course! We are training stamina here with this chi sao exercise.

'Nuff said.

Every now and again, I’ll post some interesting videos I find from various Sifus. You can see how there are many teaching points common throughout various "lineages". There is much to learn out there in the Wing Chun family.

What am I learning, anyways?

As you know, kung fu has traditionally been passed down from generation to generation with no noticeable structure per se. Students did not sign up each semester for Kung Fu 101, then 102, then 201 and 202, etc. I wonder how people knew their progress then? Perhaps they got into a lot more fights and random challenges with other styles back then e.g. “Bei Mo”. Before, perhaps teaching was more individualized, and students were taught when they were presumed to be ready. Sifus either passed down kung fu to their own family members, or only had a handful of students, not like nowadays.

Now though, with so many schools and students, how would the Sifus and To-dais keep track? WT has been touted as having a more structured approach with a standardized curriculum. Theoretically, you should be able to go anywhere around the world with your WT Passport and continue training in your own program. I’ve never really tried that out actually. A balance of being both between standardized and individualized.

A skeleton

Now that I think about it, whenever we had guest instructors in Toronto, there may have been differences in the specific details of each technique that may not have seemed standardized. But, in the end, the framework was actually there. I’ve come to realize that the so-called structured program is just a skeleton on which to build upon, since everything that we learn is so spread out across the whole system of levels.

Checklist

On the other hand, having a checklist for each level has been useful for me in the past. It told me what the basic requirements were for each grade. Like pre-requisites for the next course. Plus, I’m sure everyone has enough unpredictable and unstructured things in their lives already, be it at home or at work, so it’s nice to have some structure in one’s life. It also gave the instructor an idea as to where the students were at and what they haven’t learned yet.

However, it’s not like after you tick off the checklists, then we are done with it! Also, in mathematics, when we learned long division, you still had to use addition and subtraction. Okay, bad example… how many people whip out their cell phones now for calculations?

Progress

So, how do we know that we are getting better in WT? Why, get into a random scrum at the bar of course! Just kidding - if you want to talk about unpredictability and unstructured, that approach is highly not recommended.

Well, we can simulate the realistic and practical side of assessing progress throughout our training. In Toronto, we routinely practiced defending against “random attacks” to test our skills. That way, we can try and apply and test out our skills. (As an aside, that’s another great reason to have a variety of students with other martial arts experiences in the class, because they can throw a proper TKD kick, or boxer’s jab/punch, or Jiu-Jitsu take-down, etc. )

Then there is formal testing to advance levels of course, as a standardized way of saying: “Now you are ready grasshopper, to start learning the next technique… monkey plucks two peaches!” Students become aware of what they have accomplished. Everyone needs some encouragement and confidence now and again as well. A sense of pride and achievement. Plus, some credentials for teaching and passing it on in the future.

Overall though, I don’t care much about a label, as long as I know the skills are there. Someone once told me (paraphrased): “having a technician suit doesn’t help my WT when I have to use it.” What do you mean, you could take that jacket off, throw it at your opponent to blind him right before your pummel him with chain punches!

Anyways, as long as I keep a record of my training, and spend the time re-thinking and recalling what has been taught, that helps me identify gaps and weaknesses. Then, just train harder!

What are your thoughts?

Check out these older posts at Grasshopper 2.0 and WT Vancouver with a similar theme:

WT Structure

Columns of Wing Tsun training and How to train

Sifu Ralph's CoreConcepts