Lazy Bones

 

Lazy bones indeed

 

This week, while up in Leeds teaching my class, I had the chance to briefly meet up with my oldest friend, John Sapcote.

 

We’ve been friends for over 40 years, meeting at high school around 1980.

Now there are many things I could say about my old pal, the fact that he is an amazing musician and song writer or about his sheer kindness to everybody he meets, but rather than mention his good points, I would like to focus on his incredible bouts of laziness.  🙂

 

Laziness to such a degree that he once spent a three month period were he would only eat soup because, and I quote:

 

“I cannot be arsed chewing”

(Now that my friends, is what I call lazy)

 

I only mention this because during our meeting this week, he noticed my patterned socks and commented that, he only wears black socks now to save on the hassle of having to pair them up!

 

Back in the 80’s he did try his hand at Wing Chun, allowing me to teach him and the two of us training together, and the strangest thing was that he was actually really quite good at it, with one of the main reasons being (I think), because it didn’t take much effort to do.

 

Often in my livestream classes at wingchun.online I will tell my students that, (in my opinion):

 

“It takes effort to get Wing Chun wrong”

 

The reason I say this is because Wing Chun is designed to work in harmony with your natural body reactions, therefore, doing something that does not feel easy, is probably you not doing it right, in essence:

 

‘If it’s not comfortable, it’s not right’

 

I used to chuckle at the thought that, if you were wanting to be good at Karate or Thai for instance, then you would need to go to the gym, drill weights, run, execute countless sit-ups and push-ups and so on, but if you wanted to be good at Wing Chun, all you needed to do was… relax.

Relaxation to an extent of course, in no way am I recommending that we all become couch potatoes, some level of personal fitness is always recommended, besides your class training.

 

Anyone can start Wing Chun and at any age, with very little requirements:

 

“If you can do a Tan, you can do Wing Chun”

 

With the secret to becoming good at this style being, slow and steady, do not try to force your progress, but at the same time do not hold yourself back.

Too many Instructors try to instil this idea onto their students, telling them they are not ready to move on yet, while in truth they are either trying to slow them down so as to get more money from them, or perhaps not moving them on because the ‘Instructor’ does not have the knowledge to move them further on themselves!

 

Wing Chun CAN be learned quickly, if it done correctly from the start.

The difference between learning quickly and rushing, is similar to that of giving a flower everything it needs to flourish (not holding it back and therefore allowing it to grow quickly), and that of attempting to pull it out of the ground with your hands (rushing) which will only end in you killing the thing.

 

So to sum up, relax (not too much!), eat soup (not for too long!), wear coloured sock (not too bright!) and allow your Wing Chun to grow with you.

 

Me kicking John in the head, around 1983