Ever Bored Of Basic Drills?
Don’t train your Wing Chun just for an assessment or a grading, a piece of paper will not save you in a fight, but drilling and practicing just might.
As Bruce Lee said:
“I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times”.
My class on Monday evening was great, we didn’t get to do much but what we did do, we did well.
We drilled Sarm Bok Mar with Paks but while watching, it was just not good enough, so I broke it down and we started again from scratch.
Chu Shong Tin once invited me to train with him on a course in Hong Kong but unfortunately I was simply not able to attend, being sorry that I couldn’t make it he kindly had the event videoed and sent me a copy as a gift (a very kind man R.I.P.).
In this video he asked an Instructor from the U.S. to stand in Yee Gee Kim Yuen Mar, and after getting settled he then pushed the man over (he did not look happy).
The Sifu asked him to try again and once more the guy was pushed over.
At this point Master Chu Shong-Tin said to the assemble group:
“You are all here because you are great teachers, and you have all travelled a long way. Now I can tell you all how very good you are, and you will feel happy by this, but you will learn nothing. So the only way I can teach you is to tell you how bad you are. If you will allow me to do this, then we can begin”.
This was the most powerful opening to the start of a training session I have ever heard.
Continuing with this mentality I say this…
Teaching carries responsibility and I do not want to tell a student that something is good when it is not, this is not fair to either of us, and more importantly, this is dangerous for the student.
If a technique is right, then we move on, if it’s not, we do not.
I once demonstrated to a student how he should NOT turn on his toes and why, but unfortunately for me, my Sifu (Ip Chun) looked over just at that moment.
Regardless of my desperately trying to explain the reasons for my action, Sifu was not having any of it, and made me practice Chuen Mar for the next three hours.
The reasoning behind the three-hour rule, I put down to me being let off lightly with the real punishment once given to Sifu by his Father (Ip Man).
I remember Sifu once telling me that he too made a mistake on turning stance and Ip Man made him train nothing else but turning stance for three months!
Some things may seem boring at the time of learning them, but if this is the case perhaps you should ask yourself, ‘Why is this boring?’ what is it that you are not seeing within this drill?
Find that, and the drill will no longer be boring to you.
Practice does not make perfect, practice makes permanent, only perfect practice makes perfect.
We must learn to use the hands and feet together, to use the body as whole and this is what Sarm Bok Mar drills are trying to teach us.
BUT
Get the feet right first,
Then get the hands right
THEN put them together, and if while trying to put them together you discover that one area is not as good as it should be, go back to it and drill that area until it is as good as it should be.
Not doing this and simply being content with your actions, would be like deciding to enter a motor race knowing full well that one of your wheels is not properly attached.
You’d be crazy to continue!
In boxing training someone may think that jabs are boring, maybe they are, and maybe that is the reason you are not a good boxer?
Muhammad Ali started every training session he ever did, with 1,000 jabs, and THAT was one of the contributing factors to why he was the greatest.
Jimmy Hendrix practiced guitar scales for 10 hours a day, even at the height of his fame.
World champion snooker players practice the same shots over and over from 9.00 – 5.00 day after day, this is why you don’t see them in your local clubs on an evening, because they were in there all day.
They say, ‘Train hard to fight easy’ but this is always just blood and sweat, it’s the repetition on precision, it’s the detailed stuff, it’s the boring stuff.
Now get drilling
Know WHY you’re drilling
And when you start drilling properly you start seeing the benefits.