The New Ford Chi Sau… (Not Really)

 

 

In the past I have shared a thought I hold in that;

‘Wing Chun IS Chi Sau and Chi Sau IS Wing Chun’

 

In fact to many people their Wing Chun has become a way of life..

Now if this is the case then Life, becomes Chi Sau.

 

What I mean by this is that there are so many things that we do in our daily lives that we could be linked to the thinking in Chi Sau, a perfect example of this would be in travel.

Why do I take this route to work instead of that route?

Because that is the most direct option, driving the long way round would make no sense.

 

I found myself thinking of this very example one time when I watch guy at a set of traffic lights, he thought it would be a good idea to pull out of the queue he was in, drive up the outside, and then try to sneak back in further up the line.

The first and second part of this went perfectly to plan, the third part, getting back in however was not so smooth and he found himself red faced and in fact rejoining the same queue further back than when he started.

Now is anyone else thinking this is a hook punch compered with a straight punch?

 

His road-rage and misplaced cockiness was nearly his undoing when a Giant of a man stepped out of his car and told the young chap to…

‘Shut the **** up!

Which he did, and very quickly

 

I immediately compared this to falling for the ‘all too often’ false sense of security we can develop through an adrenalin rush, and why we should learn to fight with our heads (not literally of course) and not our muscles.

 

Watching this got me thinking of another incident I once witnessed, when a young hot headed driver put his foot down, racing to top speed in order to be able to cut in ahead of the lead car (of three) on a country lane, unbeknown to him was that the reason why the lead car was slowing down was due to an approaching T-junction!

The lad had the speed and the power but not sufficient brakes, this resulted in him over shooting the stopping point by quite a way.

Luckily for everyone concerned, there was no traffic traveling along the other road at that time.

 

“Never sacrifice technique for speed and power”,

Or in his case swap the word technique for brakes.

 

I’ve said this many time:

“YOU NEED ALL THREE!”

And talking of brakes, why do we need brake lights?

So that we know the person in front of us has stopped and that we are still moving toward them, at a rapid rate, and, will smash into them before we know it.

 

This is the same with a well-executed punch.

 

A straight punch with no telegraphing from the arm, no body build up and with no giveaways is VERY difficult to detect until it is on you.

This is the same when a car stops in front of you with no indication, and THIS my friends, is why we need brake lights.

 

Just for the fun of it and to keep the analogy going…

Q.

When would we use our brake lights?

 

A.

When we are approaching a roundabout.

 

Now of all my driving analogies THIS is by far my favourite;

When approaching a roundabout a driving instructor will tell you that you must be;

‘Ready to stop, but prepared to go’.

 

NOW HOW CHI SAU IS THAT!

 

This is exactly what we are training for every time we play Chi Sau, ‘Luk Sau Jic Kuen’ (Lost hand, straight punch).

 

Now the last thing I will say on this subject is this;

Wing Chun is often connected with the ideas of Taoism (NOT its religion), and in Taoism it is said that;

 

‘In life, in the search of perfection it is not what we take on board, but what we get rid of’.

For more information on this, go to WingChun.Online and look up ‘Old Bob’s Chisel’.

 

Trying to think of this with regards to driving is easy, in motor racing how often do we hear of a gram here and a gram there being shaved off the weight of a car for better performance.

In your own vehicles we know that not carrying extra weight will give better fuel performance.

 

So in short, let’s all unhook the caravans, clear the boot and start regaining control of your wheels.

 

Happy driving everyone