the focus on stick
issue 18
 
10 Years of teaching wing chun, and you start to get your own sense of what needs to be the focus on what to develop.  Its ironic that the art that has SLT or the little idea, that there's so much happening, that the mind can get confused on what to actually concentrate on.  So, my job for this week's tutorial, is to help you get a target on just the simple things to focus on, but the extremely difficult things to master.  Let's talk about the 2 key ingredients in my book, regarding how to deal with sticky hands....  Its obvious, that stance and en (equalize/neutralize) are the main things to focus on. Let's talk with everyone's favorite that stance.  We all know the importance of the stance, or at the very least know that its stressed religiously that one needs to be in control of the center at all times.  If the sun is the source of superman's power, then the stance is the source of the wing chun man's.  Center and its importance while mentally understood from day one, really didn't sink in till roughly 5 years into the art.  Its not that we don't understand when Mrs. brady say's "don't  play ball in the house" but it just takes time and awareness to really grasp and do certain things, especially in Wing Chun.  But to keep things simple with YGKYM, especially when your chi saoing, just remember this... that the better your stance is the better you'll be able to lead to part 2 the equalize and neutralize (e/n for short).   When you chi sao, you really can only focus on one thing at a time.... So,  there have been times, when even in my practice, that I had to train myself, when an attack looks like its getting through...don't worry about getting hit, fix the stance, and everything will take care of itself.  Yes, its all right to think things out when you chi sao, and the more you practice the less thought will have to be put into things, but sometimes you have to do things to help yourself in development.  So, if you want to work on center, then when your chi saoing, focus strictly on the center.... If you want to work on footwork, then concentrate on that only... Its just impossible to multi task and actually be really good at many things.. in the end... one thing only. E/N Equalize and neutralize, in a simple statement.. can you match the force?   I will state that while, you have cutting edge, and send back and e/n happening, and other stuff... something has to happen first for all the pieces to take shape.... So, after thinking and examining how things function, e/n has to occur first before you can do the rest... Think about it, let's say you have cutting edge, but you haven't matched the force, you still won't be able to do anything with it.  The force must be first dealt with properly before you hope to do anything else..... In the beginning when i first started working on chi sao, I just blocked.. hit or miss, I just kept blocking, coz blocking helped me listen to the force of all the attacks that were occurring, I wanted to be able to match force regardless of it being hard or soft....... At current pace, even at the lowest level of me chi saoing and not paying attention or that much focus on my roll, I'm still e/n at about 90% rate.....if i really focus on it, I can hit close to 98 and sometimes 99% rate.  IF you can't match the force and master it, you won't be able to deal with the muscle in the future, so this is something you need to get and spend time on. Learn to listen to the force, most martial arts have their own interpretation of it, Wing Chun has its way. THE TEST Let your partner do 10 attacks and you do 10 blocks.  You should pause after each attack and analyze what's happened, so.. For example, if i do a palm strike and you block it... Now the block is totally irrelevant, what I want to know is after the attack, the 2 points from either hand, are you matching the force or not.... So, let's say he does 10 attacks, but your counting 2 hands, so that's 20 times, that you have to match perfectly, and you get 1 out of 20 times... well, that pretty much gives you an idea of how well you can match the force or e/n stuff.   I say where everyone is at right now, you should be going for a realistic goal of somewhere in the 30 to 40% rate is a good number to shot for at the time.  And, from that keep building up your stats, where you can do it without thought at a 90% rate. So, that's it for now... stance, and e/n..... you can do that your stick will definitely be improved significantly. Written by Sifu Ed Cruz

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