A Reminder Of Old Bob

 

Chisel time

 

At the end of tonight’s livestream class there was a comment from one of our Instructors regarding my methods of turning the deepest elements of Form work, and Wing Chun in general, and turning it into something simplistic and easy to understand, and this is true, I do make things (or try to make things) easier to understand, but keeping it simple is just one train of thought, we do actually need to know what it is we are simplifying.

 

In the past I have explained that for all the kicks and combination kicking we may think we have, in my mind we only have two, a front kick, and a side kick.

 

This could also be said for all of our hand positions, these too can be summed up as having only two simple principles, either the elbow is in (See the list below), or the elbow is elevated (Bong, Biu, Pak, Lan, Tau Sau etc.).

 

In fact we can go even further by saying that Wing Chun IS a Tan Sau, well from the elbow anyway, because that elbow position IS Wing Chun, it’s the ‘Black and Decker’ of Martial Arts, a fixed (ish) elbow position with interchangeable heads.

Cover your hand with a paper bag and that position could be anything:

 

It’s a Tan

It’s a Punch

It’s a Pak

It’s a Lap

It’s a side Palm

It’s a Jum

and so on…

 

In essence, when we understand all of these techniques, we can then start to dismiss them, in the same way that everything in Wing Chun is in Siu Lim Tau.

IF, you know where to find it.

The other Forms almost become ways of better understanding the 1st Form, a little like getting a book on learning Chinese, written in Chinese!

It’s not until you are able to read the book that you then realise you don’t need the book.

 

Anyway, here’s a little story I like to tell my students, and the story is made up.

Oh, and there’s no Bob either.

(Apologies for the sound quality)