I've been doing my wooden dummy drill for around two weeks now, maybe even three weeks. I practise Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays in the evening and Saturdays in the morning for about 20 minutes each time. I have noticed some developments, and there are two main ones:

1. my footwork has improved. I'm instinctively moving my feet around the dummy's leg now, whereas when I first started I had to clumsily - and slowly - step around the leg. Now it just comes automatically when I move left to face, face to right and back again. Result!
2. my footwork is better coordinated with my strikes now, meaning that, for example, I can move from left to face and strike at the same time. This is a great breakthrough for me. I'm stepping and striking at the same time, which is obviously better than clunkily stepping into place and then striking. Will this mean I can manoeuvre around my partner better in chi sau? I'll let you know. I've got a class tomorrow, but I haven't chi saued for three weeks, so the results will be a little clouded my my lack of training.
3. strikes are more fluid and continuous. This is what I designed this wooden dummy drill for, so mission accomplished (to a certain extent anyway). I can see that further improvements are necessary, of course, and I don't doubt that they will be made with more practice.
4. the tight pak/punch combination is becoming easier (see step 5 in the wooden dummy drill). I know it's coming so I'm position myself better for it.
5. there is more precision in my strikes.

Looks like I miscounted.

The improvements above are only means to an end, though. They're meaningless if they don't translate into better performance during chi sau. And chi sau itself is meaningless if it doesn't translate into a better chance of defending myself on the street. But that's another matter.

Honestly, my wooden dummy has been one of the most fruitful investments I've made and I'd recommend that anyone serious about improving their Wing Chun should buy one, funds allowing. In the absence of a clone of myself to chi sau with, the wooden dummy is an excellent substitute. Ideally, I'd like to clone myself and practise on the dummy. Over to your professor Hawking. Could you make the clone better looking, though? Actually, I couldn't do with the competition... Just make him better at Wing Chun.

When time permits, I'm going to break down the "rules" for freestyling on the dummy. I think if I can understand just what I can and can't do to the dummy from any particular position in relation to it, that will help. For example, if I'm on the left of the dummy at 45 degrees to it with right leg forwards and right tan on the left dummy arm, what are my options: 1) right laap/left chop or 2) left pak/right punch  or 3) right palm strike/left wu sau or 4) right kick etc.  If I can drill all possible options from random positions, that will help improve spontaneous action.

I'll post something about freestyling on the dummy soon.

I suck at putting together combinations of strikes during chi sau. I'm a one hit wonder. When chi sauing, my footwork/angling is better than it used to be (always room for improvement), but when I get an opportunity for a strike I deliver one hit and then stop. It's as though I can't think what to do next or I just don't see the opportunity for the next strike, even if it's there. Chi sau resumes as though the last "chapter" was ended by that one strike and the new chapter begins. Oddly, I can box better than I can deliver multiple strikes in Wing Chun! And I don't do boxing.

I thought I could develop my multiple striking skills using my wooden dummy so I created a wooden dummy drill. It's intended to practise a never ending sequence of strikes in a flowing manner.

Wooden Dummy Exercise

Descriptions of the dummy's left and right arms are from the student's perspective, not the dummy's. Dummy has no perspective and is pretty docile. To start off, stand to the left of the dummy, with right leg forward, as you do near the beginning of the dummy form. All laaps, paks and gaan saus in the following steps are on the nearest dummy arm and strikes are on the dummy's trunk. Then:

1. right hand laaps and left hand chops the dummy
2. left hand paks while right hand palm strikes over the pak
3. right hand laaps and left hand chops the dummy
4. huen sau with the left hand and move right so you face the dummy. Punch the dummy with the right hand
5. right hand performs an inside pak on the left arm, while left hand punches over it.
6. left hand laaps the right dummy while right hand chops
7. right hand laaps the left dummy while left hand chops
8. move right so you are to the right of the dummy at 45 degrees to it and with the left foot forward. Punch with the right hand
9. right hand paks the dummy's right arm while the left hand palm strikes
10. left hand laaps while right hand chops (you can see that the whole sequence up to now is going to repeat on the right hand side)
11. right hand paks while left hand palm strikes
12. left hand laaps while right hand chops
13. huen sau with the right hand and move left so you are facing the dummy. Punch with the left fist.
14. left hand paks inside while right hand punches over it. This is easier than the earlier pak on the other side, because the dummy's right arm is lower than its left.
15. right hand laaps while left hand chops
16. left hand laaps while right hand chops
17. huen sau with the right hand and move left so you are at 45 degrees to the dummy with right foot forward. Punch with the left fist
18. left hand paks while right hand punches
19. go back to 1 and repeat until you can't take no more

If we call steps 1 to 19 a cycle, then at the moment I'm doing 10 cycles continuously and then I take a break. The idea is to get some fluidity into my arm movements. You'll notice that hands strike alternately: left hand -> right hand -> left hand. The same is true of the "blocks".

At first I found it hard to do the right inside pak/left punch as you face the dummy (step 5), because the dummy's left arm is high on my dummy, but it's training me to move my arms in a minimal way and operate in small spaces. My movements are already much smoother and more fluid, so I hope that transfers to my chi sau.

Of course, this is just one exercise I made up. I'll drill it over and over until the movements are second nature and then I'll have to create another routine. In the end, it will be a case of freestyling the movements and improvising them. At this point, I can already see patterns that are repeated in the forms, so this improvisation shouldn't be too difficult with more experience. Naive beginner's words!

I don't know about you, but I constantly revise existing goals and set new ones for my Wing Chun throughout the year. Many people, however,  like to set New Year Resolutions,  so in keeping with that tradition here are my New Year Wing Chun goals.

• practice more!

OK, that's just one goal. If we want to get granular, we can break that down like this:

• be robotically consistent with times set for practice. That means if it's on the plan, it gets done! If the plan says I have 5 Wing Chun training sessions this week, then I do 5 Wing Chun training sessions!
• practise more with real people outside of class. Whether this practise consists of a time arranged on a different day to the class with a willing partner, or simply chi sauing after the class, more chi sau is necessary.
• attend more classes. At the moment, I attend one class per week. I could feasibly attend one more class. Just think, doing one more class doubles the class time I'm currently getting.
• do a little bit of Wing Chun every day. I think this is key. Currently I don't train on Sundays. I will change that. It doesn't mean I have to change Sundays drastically; I don't need to slot in a daunting 2 hour training session. Even if I practice my bong saus for 10 minutes and then do 10 minutes of punching, that will be good. Sometimes, when I'm due a lunchtime training session but "something comes up" meaning that I can't do the session, I don't make up for that later. I could, though. I could do a little bit in the evening, without impacting the day too much.
• be a bit more practical in my Wing Chun practice. Does my Wing Chun training really prepare me for a confrontation in the street? If not, find out what's missing and fix it.

Warning: if I were you, I would avoid setting New Year Resolutions. Using one special occasion to create goals puts too much pressure on you to achieve them. If goals are worth setting, you would set them when they need setting, not wait for a once a year event.

I don't do much kicking and the thought struck me that I could use my Wing Chun dummy to practice my kicks on. After a few beers I created this kicking exercise!

Face the dummy square on, with one hand forward, one back, as in long wu sau, normal wu sau. Step to the left, as in the start of the dummy form, but instead of stepping forward with the right foot, kick the dummy with that right foot. Just a low kick, but make it short and snap it out quickly. Keep you hands up in wu saus as you kick, and immediately after the kick remain balanced and upright. The kick should connect on the dummy with the heel. Shake it, don't break it.

As the right foot comes down after the kick, move into gaan sau, as you would do in the dummy form. You can follow the form here and do a kwan sau after that. After the kwan sau, though, repeat the kicking action on the other side by stepping right with the right foot and kicking the dummy with the left. We're just repeating what we did on the other side now.

Basically, all you're doing is stepping to the left and kicking with the right, then stepping to the right and kicking with the left. Each time you step and prepare to kick, you are facing the dummy but from one side. Doing these movements seems to fit in well witrh the early sections of the dummy form, so why not use something familiar to practice your kicking?

This exercise is one that you can just cycle over and over. When you've finished one kick, step into gaan sau and repeat.

I'm in a different training groove at the moment. Previously, I had been trying to balance mornings and lunchtimes between my Wing Chun training and working on my websites. What I had been doing was alternating mornings (when I have a full hour and a half to work with) between "doing Wing Chun" and "doing websites", and whichever activity I did in the morning, I would do the other one at lunch.

So I had something like this:

This was good for Wing Chun, as I got 3 mornings devoted to training, and I could spend an hour and a half (less travelling/changing time) doing it. The problem was that I have a sedentary job that involves me being stuck in front of a computer from 9 to 5:30. Lunchtimes are ideal for getting a real break from sitting down staring at a computer monitor. Having a break halfway through the day where you do some physical exercise is a great way to relieve stress and stop you from going mad.

On the other hand, sitting in front of a computer at lunchtime doing more computer work, when I've already done half a day of the same, is a great way to build up stress levels and go stir crazy.

So, I've decided to sacrifice my huge morning Wing Chun sessions for working on my websites and I'm now doing my Wing Chun training every lunchtime. In real terms, this reduces my WC training time from one hour to half an hour. That might sound like a big cut, but one of the benefits is that I keep my sanity. Doing an extra hour and a half of computer work before I start my real job and having a physical break at lunchtime feels much better than having the physical break in the morning and then working all the way through.

As for Wing Chun training, 30 minutes every day is not as much as I'd like but it's more than nothing, and more than a lot of people put in. And it's consistent, regular training time.

This is turning into a pep talk.

I also work on my dummy on Monday nights, Tuesday nights, alternate Thursday nights and Fridays nights too. These little sessions are maybe 20 minutes to 30 minutes long. Add on to that my Saturday class and I'm looking a little less lazy.

I think "little and often" summarises my training plan at the moment. But there's a lot to be said for doing a little bit of Wing Chun every day. I think also that the way you train makes a big difference. I'm focusing more than I used too (take, for example, my new method of training Tsum Kiu). I've got 5 half hour slots every week. If I decide to practice one different thing in each session, that's half an hour for each one. I don't know about you, but 30 minutes of punching practise is enough for me. 30 minutes of leg training is also adequate. So you can actually get a lot done in those 5 slots.

As always, it's all about structuring your training to get the best use of time. Train smart etc.

During the last week, I've been Tsum Kiu mad. But I've changed my training tactics in a subtle way. Ordinarily, I would do the whole form in its entirety maybe 10 times in a practice session. This is not a bad way to go. Practising more is the road to perfection, after all.

Over the last week or so I've been really isolating small sections of the form and I've been focusing on those. For example, after the opening sequence of Tsum Kiu, we do 4 jun mas (turning).  Instead of doing 4, I've been doing 10 to really polish the technique. There are several places in the form where you can just keep repeating the movement more times than usual, and the places I've been focusing on are (in order performed in the form):

• 4 jun mas become 10
• 3 palm strikes become 11 (you need to keep the number odd to use the correct hand on the subsequent waahng laahn sau
• 3 turning bong saus become 10
• 4 stepping bong saus become 10 - or however many you can fit in the space you have. You don't need much space for the turning bong saus because you don't travel, but you are restricted by how far you can move in a straight line on the stepping bong saus.
• 4 dai bongs become 10 - or, as with the stepping bong saus, however many space restrictions allow.

I find that isolating and repeating movements in this way really helps to, firstly, scrutinise what it is you are actually doing and, secondly, to tweak it. Close scrutiny makes for better fault finding. If I've discovered that my turning bong sau needs changing, simply performing it 3 times as per the form is not enough to embed the "new way" into my muscle memory. I use the term"muscle memory" simply because it's an idea that most people are aware of, but there is more to it than that.

If I need to, I'll repeat the bong sau 20 times or more. Sometimes it takes that many repetitions to get it right and then get used to the feeling of getting it right. If I limit myself to only doing 3 turning bong saus per form, then I have to wait the entire length of Tsum Kiu before I get to practise the bong sau again.

Also, doing many repetitions gives you a chance to identify faults you'd perhaps not noticed before. Last week I couldn't make my mind up whether my upper arm was high enough in the bong sau. It went like this:

• bong sau 1 - look at that bong sau, it's the mother of all bong saus. I feel invincible. I'll just send a photo of my bong sau to all potential enemies. Maybe bong sau t-shirts to advertise my deathly skill...
• bong sau 2 - yep, not bad that bong sau.
• bong sau 3 - my upper arm is trailing down a little though, it looks a bit low. Hmmm.
• bong sau 4 - actually, I'm not happy with that at all.
• bong sau 5 - I'll raise my upper arm a bit and see how that looks. It looks better, but it feels weird because I'm not used to it being that high.
• bong sau 6 - same bong sau as last one. I'm not sure...
• bong sau 7 - I think it looks better. Maybe I'd got lazy and just hadn't noticed how low my bong sau had become.
• bong sau 8 - it's starting to feel more "natural". i.e. the more times I do it now, the more comfortable I'll feel with it.
• bong sau 9 - yes, now I'm sure this is the True Bong Sau.
• bong sau 10 - this is definitely better than my previous bong sau, which, it turns out, was a mere imitation of the mother of all bong saus that I've now developed.

It's good to have a little variety in your Wing Chun practice, but this exercise has more value than merely adding variety. Already, the close scrutiny encouraged by performing numerous repetitions has helped me to identify crapness and correct it. And not only correct it in the current iteration; the large number of repetitions allows me to get more familiar with doing the technique properly, so I'm more likely to preform it like that as a reflex action.

This idea of "isolate and focus" can be transferred to other areas of practice too. You can break down Siu Lim Tau into smaller sections and repeat those till you do them in your sleep. It's the same with the dummy, too.