As well as being very good at Wing Chun, it appears that my sifu is also a mind reader. I'd been thinking about how to develop more power in my punches and other strikes and then in last night's class he  decided to do a little bit on developing punching power.

An Exercise For Developing Punching Power

It's a simple exercise to do, but of course it hurts after only a very short time doing it. Here are the steps:

• hold one arm stretched out in front of you
• make a fist and squeeze tightly
• as quick as you can stretch out your fingers as far as they will go. The important points are 'as quick as you can' and 'as far as they will go'. Doing this will exercise your tendons more
• snap the fingers back into a tight fist again
• repeat this cycle as fast as you can

You'll find that you can't do this for too long which is good. This means that you are getting a good workout in a very short space of time. When one hand is fatigued, do the same on the other hand. When that one is fatigued, return to the original hand.

You might have to get someone to feed you afterwards!

What's Wrong With Sandbag Training?

Some people like to train their punches by punching a sandbag. There's nothing wrong with doing this as long as you know what's actually going on. This exercise doesn't improve your punching power, it toughens the knuckles and turns your fists into hammers (as my sifu says). Which, again, is fine as long as you realise that punching a sandbag repeatedly over a long period of time is likely to cause joint problems in your knuckles in later life. You'd have to give up the piano, that's for sure.

But think about it. When you punch anything, at what point in that punch are you generating the power? It's before the impact on your target. Anything from the impact onwards, is after the power has been generated. When punching a sandbag, at the point of the impact you've already generated the power. This means that if you practise everything up to actually hitting the sandbag, you are still practising the generation of power. The sandbag is unnecessary. Simply punching into thin air will develop power.

So, tedious as some people might find it, a good exercise for developing punching power is to stand in a basic stance and punch with one hand and then the other. Make each punch count, it has to be strong. Don't fall into the trap of firing off a thousand chain punches a minute. If you hit someone with those light punches, the chances are they will still be standing when you open your eyes again. So snap each punch out quickly and with force.

I'm going to have to make another revision to my new training routine to include these power generation exercises.

I've been trying like a fool to get all my training done in a week. So if  Siu Lim Tau, Chum Kiu, turning, speed and footwork are all on my list, I've been dividing them up in the best way possible to fit them all in Monday to Sunday. The problem with doing this is that I don't spend enough time on some items. Duh! Why am I doing this??

I had a revelation. Just make my training cycle longer than a week. Extend it so that it fits the practice I need to do instead of making my practice fit 7 days. If my cycle lasts 2 weeks just to devote enough time to each exercise (it won't) then so be it. Better I get good quality practice time than try and rush it to get it all in.

With this is mind, I'm going to split up the following exercises:

• Siu Lim Tau
• Chum Kiu
• Technique - practising punching, kwan sau, gaan sau, there's this chop i do... Speed them up whilst retaining good technique
• Wing Chun Dummy Form - this is just the first section of a dummy form I learnt ages ago
• Turning
• Footwork
• Balance - at the start of a form (I don't know the name), you are in a basic stance and you slide one foot around the floor in a circle, then shift your weight to the other foot and do the same. This exercise, involves the repetition of this 40 times, whilst trying to maintain perfect balance
• Generating power from small distances - this is one I made up. It involves snapping the punch/jik jurn/whatever over a small distance into a powerful strike. Good for close range.

That's 7 items. Previously, I was trying to do 2 different exercises in the same 15 minute routine (I do 15 minutes every morning) just to get 2 or 3 lots of Siu Lim Tau in. I was also sacrificing some exercises some weeks. If I extend my training cycle, I can still get enough Siu Lim Tau's in and I don't need to sacrifice time spent on the other exercises. For example, If I work on a 14 day cycle, I could do this:

Week 1

Week 2

There! The plan has been made. I just have to follow it. I don't know about you but I find making plans like this really motivating. It's like the decision has been made, all I need to do know is follow it through.

For the last two weeks or so, sifu has been up to something and I didn'r know what it was until the last class. In the last few classes he got us all to pair up and chi sau and watched us. Then he would stop us, tell us that we couldn't move our feet and asked us to start chi sauing again.

Very difficult. No place to run or hide. Yet at that point, he didn't tell us what it was all about. I think he was hoping that we would figure it out for ourselves. At the last class he told us explicitly what we should be doing.

Turning! Turn to the left, turn to the right. It's a good way of deflecting your opponents energy and something I rarely do. The kind of turning I'm talking about is that repeated numerous times in Chum Kiu (think about the transitions into the first bong saus). Turning and footwork (ok, maybe they both fall into the realm of footwork) need work. This was a really good exercise and I hope we practise it to death.

At the moment, I feel that my WIng Chun is still very 2 dimensional. I'll face my partner straight on and we'll exchange. I do actually move around a little, but I still pretty much face my partner. I hardly every turn.

What's So Good About Turning?

Turning is useful for several reasons. When you turn, your head for example is no longer in the same place. Meaning, if somebody was aiming a punch at your head, they've missed. Also, turning can deflect your opponent's energy. In turning, one of your shoulders moves nearer your partner effectively bringing your target closer to you.

I know that when you turn, the centre line moves too, but I'm not sure about the precise impact. I'll need to ponder on that one and maybe ask sifu.

At the end of the class, as we were leaving, sifu said emphasized the importance of turning in Wing Chun by saying that it changes everything.

A Spare Pair Of Hands

Ryan is a friend of a friend and I've know him for maybe 4 years now. He came over at the weekend, and whereas in the past I've looked at him as a 6 foot tall 25 year old man, on Sunday I just saw a pair of hands! So I got him up and didn't give him a chance to say no to my suggestion of a bit of chi sau. Well it was rudimentary chi sau, and if you can remember back to when you didn't know how to roll, then you'll know what I mean. We both enjoyed it anyway.

The interesting thing I noticed was Ryan's immense use of strength. I must have been the same when I started, but it's so different to how I am now - but still not different enough. We can all use softer hands sometimes. We were just messing really, neither of us making any strikes, but moving hands inside and out, trying to get an advantageous position. Or rather I was and Ryan was busy looking nervous and reacting. Both my hands would be on the outside and when I moved one inside, he would jerk his hand down in a mad panic to block it. He's got quick reactions, I'll give him that. It was good to contrast what he did with how I now chi sau - and I'm by no means feeling smug here. It's just useful to get an idea of progress. Whereas he would blast my hand a good foot to the side with his make shift pak sau, my pak sau would be minimal. 'Just enough'.

It was scary for me too because I found it hard to deal with his strength. In class it's stressed that we should use soft hands and avoid using strength and so to a certain extent we pair up with compliant partners. Ryan of course wasn't compliant and was quite strong. I know that if it was a street situation, I would at least try to 'finish it' quickly, but I was hoping my chi sau would be good enough to redirect some of his energy against him. Sadly it wasn't. My little world crumbled around me ha ha.

The good that came out of this though, is that it spurred me on to practise more. Take it more seriously.

Another thing I was struck by was how stiff and rigid Ryan's arms were. I mean, they were like iron girders. And this allowed me to actually do something right. Because they were so tense I could very easily disrupt his balance, either by  pushing his arms awkwardly into him or by just giving them a cheeky little lap sau. His balance was totally gone.

The real point of my practising with Ryan was to get better at defending against something I described here. Ryan would have his hand inside my fook sau and he would loop it around in a hooking motion towards my head. Man, he was fast. Strong too, I may have mentioned. Owing to the dangerous nature of this exercise I quickly found us something a bit safer to do!

I know that Ryan won't mind me dissecting his performance. It's meant with the best intentions. It would be fantastic if he decided to take up Wing Chun, because then I'd have someone to practise with!

Whoa! Much information has passed from sifu into my tiny brain in today's class, mostly Chum Kiu related. As I've only been doing Chum Kiu for about a month, the learning curve at the moment is pretty steep. As familiarity grows with whatever it is you're learning, the curve usually gets more shallow but at the moment every time sifu does it, there is something new to grasp. Today was no exception.

Bong Saus At 45 Degrees

With every bong sau you are facing 45 degrees off from the front. While your body is facing 45 degrees, you are actually looking forward though. This is something I intuitively knew, but had to ask today to get clarification. I'm a anally retentive pedant stickler for precision.

Stretch Those Tendons

I picked up something that is not peculiar to Chum Kiu, but is related to Siu Lim Tau too. After a punch, when you hoon sau and gather the fingers into a fist, how can someone get something so small so wrong??!! I can, easily. For the last 3 years I've been mimicking the action of wrapping my fingers around something (no sniggering ath the back!) and returning my hand to the upright position before snapping my hand into a fist. The way sifu showed me today was to really stretch the fingers whilst your hand is till rotated, gather them into a fist whilst the hand is till rotated and only then rotate the wrist and snap the fist up. The difference this makes is huge as it works the tendons in the hand much more, the purpose of course being to strengthen the fist. Such attention to detail! Another gobsmacking revelation! A few of those, and my hand really felt the work it had done.

This movement is present in both Siu Lim Tau and Chum Kiu. I know that details like this sometimes vary between different Wing Chun schools, especially around this part, so what you are doing may differ from what I am doing.

Shoddy Footwork

As usual my footwork needs a little polish. Specifically, near the start of Chum Kiu > after the first punch > then chop > my feet are all out of alignment so that when I return to the front my right leg is further forward than my left. I know exactly where this is going wrong - it's the turning to the front to bong sau followed by the turn to the side (is it lan sau?). After 3 repetitions of that my feet have gone AWOL. No revelations here though. It's just a case of doing it over and over again and checking my foot placement after each turn.

Here's Yip Man doing Chum Kiu. I imagine he's doing it right

Recently I realised the importance of keeping my shoulders stationary as I move between the different Wing Chun hands and decided that this was something I was going to practice. But man, this is difficult.

I devised an exercise: I would simply move between bong sau and wu sau and back again, turning to the left for the bong sau and then turning back to the front for the wu sau again. Repeat over and over, monitoring the shoulders and making sure they don't move. I've got to say, it's boring. Surprisingly, when I slow the movements right down to tell better whether I am moving them, this makes my shoulders ache. The boredom isn't the only problem though. I'm finding it hard to know whether I am moving my shoulders by feel. For this reason it feels like a wasted exercise, just because I can't determine whether or not I'm doing it right. What I need is a mirror that I can face while I do it.

So this is the plan: save this practice for times when I can stand in the mirror and watch what my shoulders do. I've got some turning routines that I do involving doing those bar arm turns at the start of chum kiu, turning whilst changing bong saus and turning whilst changing tan saus etc. I'll do those exercises but this time I'll focus on what my shoulders are doing and try to keep them still. I might have to slow the movement right down to stop the movement.

I initially wanted to do some research on the Wing Chun forums out there so that I could list what I considered to be the more useful ones. However, I'm a bit bemused at the moment. In the past, I haven't really been one to get involved in the martial arts online community, because to tell the truth, it just never occurred to me. The most important thing for me was to learn, and that was best accomplished simply by going to class and practising on my own. But then I got curious to see what was out there. Bewildered isn't the word! Some forums are dead. Others are active but provide nothing for someone studying Wing Chun.  Some do have an active Wing Chun sub forum, but are spoilt by childish bickering and personal insults! Some of the participants in these puerile scuffles are grown men! I've listed the best one I've found (in my opinion) first.

Martial Talk

I discovered this Wing Chun forum recently and I really like it. There are some knowledgeable people here who explain things well and it feels friendly.

Kung Fu Magazine

Despite ranking first in Google for "Wing Chun Forum", this forum is pretty quiet. Having been created in 1999, it's certainly well established. Be warned: check this thread out for childishness. I really don't know why the moderators don't step in. I'm not sure how representative this thread is of the forum as a whole, so it may just be a one off.

International Wing Chun Academy

Focused on Wind Chun in Australia.

The Wing Chun Archive

This is a very useful resource, comprising lists of Wing Chun schools, movies and videos, places to get wooden dummies and articles. There's also a comprehensive list of Wing Chun forums.

Martial Arts Planet

It comes up first when I search for "martial arts forum" in Google, but sadly there is no Wing Chun forum. There is a one for Kung Fu in which the odd thread concerning Wing Chun is created and then trashed.

As I said above, it's only recently I started looking on the internet for Wing Chun forums, so maybe there's a good one hiding somewhere.  The search continues.

I've just had a mind blowing class. Not mind blowing because some complicated technique was revealed, but quite the opposite. This was something very basic, something very simple to understand but very difficult to do. As with every basic principle, its mastery is crucial if you want to progress to a higher level. So what is this crucial principle? Not moving your shoulders when you bong sau, tan sau, wu sau etc.

The teacher today (not sifu) noticed that we were all distorting our positions and tensing our shoulders when we chi saued, so he stopped us and got us to follow him. We stood in basic stance, right hand in a wu sau and proceeded to move into a bong sau > tan sau, back to wu sau. Every one of us moved our shoulders, some more than others and some even stretched their shoulders forward. Bad, bad bad! The shoulders must remain immobile and relaxed whilst moving into those different hands.

Why Keep Your Shoulders Still?

If you move your shoulders when moving between the different hands, the following can happen:

• the shoulders become tense making it very easy to lap sau your bong sau
• you commit yourself to a certain position instead of remaining neutral and relaxed
• if your shoulders are misshapen and tense it makes the transition into the next position slower
• you are not as balanced as you could be
• your opponent can feel what your intention is

Sifu is a perfect example of this principle. He moves seamlessly from whatever hand to whatever hand keeping shoulders relaxed and immobile, yet his gung lik is very strong. He's also very quick.

Exercises To Develop Relaxed Shoulders

Understanding what we need to do, and the reasons why are all very well, but how can you just do it? Well, you can't. You have to practise. I asked whether the best approach to take was to deliberately practise hand movements whilst minimising shoulder movements or to just practise our usual routines whilst placing special attention on correcting the shoulders shoulders. The teacher let us in on his little practise sessions for this:

• adopt the basic stance with one hand in wu sau
• turn to the left and bong sau
• turn to the front and wu sau again
• repeat this many, many, many, many times, bringing awareness to how much your shoulders are moving. Try and minimise this movement
• when you've worn out your bong sau replace it with other hands like gang sau and tan sau
• when you've worn those out, try mixing up random sequences, both to the right and the left

The devil really is in the details. The above may sound a little tedious and boring, but you have to ask yourself how good do you want to get? And how much do you want that? If you want to progress as far as you can, these tedious little exercises must be performed, and these trivial little problems must be ironed out.

The problem with deconstructing the very fundamentals of your skill when you chi sau is that you will get hit. It's like going back to the beginning and learning everything again, but with a special eye on the finer details now. And we should get hit, because our technique is not as good as it could be. The teacher today had a perspective on this that I liked. He said that we should be brutally honest with ourselves and with our partners. If they don't take advantage of our bad technique and hit us then they are lying to us and cheating us. And if we don't notice and try to correct our technique, then we are lying and cheating ourselves. As is so often forgotten, the class is not about winning, it's about studying. And it's not personal. I agree with hime wholeheartedly.