I love this guy's chi sau! It has a real flow to it and there is no (or very little) use of strength. It's all about redirecting the other person's energy.

Taking Turns In Chi Sau

But at the same time, the way that he and his partners are chi sauing is slightly....odd. They seem to be taking it in turns to do something. For instance the teacher's partner will attack and there will be a pause before the teacher counters. There will then be a pause before the partner does something else. It looks very much like they are taking it in turns to attack and counter.

It appears that the teacher invariably lets his student perform his attack successfully without trying to stop him. Maybe they are practising techniques. This whole business of "you go first, then I'll do something" is contrary to how our school chi sau. This style of chi sauing is apparent on his other videos too.

This is in no way a criticism of the skills on display here, as I don't know the purpose of training like this. They all look pretty skillful practitioners. And they all flow beautifully.

I spoke to the person who posted the videos and s/he explained that the teacher was 'feeding' the students. What you see is merely a training method that enables the student to practise their technique. Fair enough.

At our Wing Chun school, the chi sau is continuous until someone is completely overpowered. I don't mean overpowered by strength here, I mean trapped completely. There'll be odd times where I do pause, but this is usually because there is no advantage to be gained from moving at that moment, or I am thinking too much and can't think of what to do next.

How to stop thinking is a big problem!

Feeding Techniques In Chi Sau

What ysiddiqui said about 'feeding' students techniques led me to think about what my sifu does. He sometimes manipulates the chi sau deftly to keep repeating a particular scenario that demonstrates some mistake the student is making. Doing this, the student finds themself time after time making the same mistake. Whereas before the exercise, the student was unaware, when sifu does this he brings the faulty technique under the microscope so that the student has no choice but to see that something is going wrong.

This usually ends with an "ah - I see what's happening!" moment for the student, or sifu explaining what's happening. If necessary, sifu will demonstrate a better technique, or better use of the same technique and then chi sau will recommence. Sifu still manipulates the flow to keep repeating the same scenario, but now the student is better equipped to deal with it and can practise the technique over and over until it becomes natural.

So I can see that, in a way, my sifu does 'feed' us techniques, but only when he thinks it is necessary. And it is never "I go, then you go" unless we are practising a brand new technique. It is always a continuous exchange.

That's not to say that our way is better than ysiddiqu's way, or the other way around. They are just different ways of training.

Ip Man Movie - The Background

Ip Man the movie is based on the life story of Wing Chun grandmaster Ip Man. Due for release in Hong Kong in December 2008, this film is the first important record of the kung fu master's life. Ip Man was Bruce Lee's Wing Chun teacher and was the first to teach Wing Chun openly.

The movie focuses on events in Ip Man's life that took place in Foshan during the 1930s and 1940s during the Japanese occupation of China.

The film stars Donnie Yen as Ip Man with fight scenes choreographed by Sammo Hung. Ip Man's sons, Ip Chun and Ip Ching (also Wing Chun grandmasters) appear in the film as well as some other well known Wing Chun practitioners.

As Foshan is architecturally much different now to how it was in the 1930s and 1940s, filming took place in Shanghai instead.

The Cast

The screenplay was written by Edmond Wong, the writer of 2006's Dragon Tiger Gate (Wilson Yip and Donnie Yen's first collaboration as director and star). Ip Man the movie is Yip and Yen's fourth collaboration together.

Ip Man's eldest son, Ip Chun, served as consultant for the film, whilst Mandarin Films produced and distributed it. The estimated budget for the movie is HK$40 million.

The Original Concept For Ip Man The Movie

Jeffrey Lau and Corey Yuen originally conceived the idea for a film about the life of Ip Man in 1998. Donnie Yen signed contracts to take the lead role as Ip Man, and even received a portion of his fee before the project folded and was abandoned.

New plans to make a film about Ip Man emerged in December 2007 and production began in March 2008. By the end of August 2008, filming was complete.

Filming The Movie

After failing to find a cotton factory similar to the one in which Ip Man started teaching Wing Chun, set designers recreated one in an abandoned storeroom. This storeroom became the Zhen Hua Cotton Mill Factory, a 1930s cotton mill factory founded by Yip Man’s friend Chow Ching-Chuen (played in the film by Simon Yam) during the Japanese Occupation of China.

Fight Choreography

Sammo Hung's past experience choreographing Warriors Two (1978) and the brilliant The Prodigal Son (1982) made him the ideal candidate for working on the Ip Man movie.

Naming The Movie Ip Man

Producer Raymond Wong wanted to call the film Grandmaster Yip Man, but as it bore too close a resemblance to Wong Kar-Wai's own intended film about Ip Man, he was forced to rethink. Wong Kar-Wai had announced some time ago that he wanted to make a film called The Great Master about Ip Man's life story. As it happen's, it seems that Wong Kar-Wai's plans are on hold.

Release Date

After a test screening in Beijing on December 4 2008 where the film was highly praised, Ip Man the movie was released on 18 December.

In this interview, Donnie Yen explains that they couldn't put everything about Ip Man's life in the one movie. The subsequent Ip Man movies will be about Ip Man's meeting with and influence on Bruce Lee - his most famous student.

This is the official Ip Man Movie Trailer.

How Long Does It Take To Master A Skill?

In Malcolm Gladwell's new book, Outliers, he suggests that 10,000 hours of practice are necessary to master a skill. Just for the sheer hell of it, I thought I would estimate how many hours so far I'd spent practising Wing Chun, and how much longer it would take before I achieved 'mastery'.

A Poor Work Rate

I've been studying Wing Chun for three years now, and if we estimate that I've attended one class per week, that should take into account the highly motivated weeks where I went twice and also the demotivated weeks that I didn't go at all. So 52 x 1 x 3 = 156 hours. Oh dear. Away from class I have done at most 15 minutes per day so that's an additional 15 x 7 x52 x 3 = 16,380 minutes = 273 hours. My grand total of 429 hours of study in 3 years is less than one twentieth of what's necessary to become a master (according to Malcolm Gladwell).

At my past rate, I would need a total of 60 years to reach this coveted level. Err... started a bit late for that...

The New Regime

However, my new training regime means that I go to 3 classes a week, and use my current 'gym time' to instead practice Wing Chun. This gives me 7 hours of Wing Chun practice per week. To accumulate the remaining 9,571 hours of practice, I now need only another... 26 years! In 2035, I will be ready. Nobody said it would be easy.

The Gift Of Residential Courses

I realise now the importance of the residential courses that our centre holds every year. I've not been to one yet (how foolish), but intend to go in 2009. The residential consists of 4 days of intense Wing Chun teaching. I don't know what the hours are yet, but if we assume a conservative 10am - 4pm then that's 5 hours a day (anticipating an hour for lunch). I'm told, though, that participants usually chi sau until the late hours so if we add a couple of hours on to the day's total for this chi sau, that makes 7 hours a day. 28 hours per residential. Nice. Also, this kind of tuition will be better than a one hour a week class, as there is the unbroken continuity. Also, there will be a mass of new hands I've not touched yet - invaluable.

I've got my mathematician's head on now, and I'm looking at the seminar schedule for 2009. In addition to the residential course, there is the Wing Chun Instructor's course (10 hours), which I'm attending, a chi sau day (6 hours) and two touching hands days (12 hours). The touching hands days  involve the Chen students trying (clumsily) to beat up the Wing Chun students. The total 'extra' hours for 2009, then, are 56. If this is typical for all years then that reduces my apprenticeship to 23 years.

I obviously need to give up my day job.

Random Time

For a while I used to do my siu lim tau form and just take as long as I thought I should. But then I started wondering whether I was spending the same amount of time on my right side as I was on the left side (in the first section). What if while I was feeling strong I spent a long time on my left side, because it comes first, and then because I was getting tired I spent less time on the right side. Surely over time, my left side would become stronger?

The Search For A SLT Timing Mechanism (err.. clock)

This bothered me, so I thought the best thing to do was to time myself. I had to try different methods for this! My mobile phone has a stopwatch on it, so I tried placing that between my feet facing up, but the digits are too small to see at that distance. The clock on my stereo has digits that are too dark to see at a distance in my bedroom. Probably not the smartest move, but for a while I would listen to a dance station on my pc that streamed house music and I would let each of my outward tan saus and inward fuk saus last the duration of a song each! Hmmm, really good for reducing thoughts! Looking at a wristwatch is out of the question, because you'd have to keep breaking your posture to look at it.

The Holy Grail Of SLT Timing Gadgets

At work is where I do my regular siu lim tau though, and fortunately for me I found one of those big bedside clocks that have led lights just sitting on a filing cabinet. Those lights are bright enough to see from a few feet away so I don't have to stand right up against the filing cabinet.

A Breakdown Of My Siu Lim Tau Times

For the record, and maybe it helps you to know how long other people are taking over their siu lim tau, I take one minute for my tan/fuk sau to go out and another minute for my wu sau to return. So tan - wu -fuk - wu - fuk -wu - fuk -wu take a total of 8 minutes on the left side, followed by the same 8 minutes on the right side. The remainder of the form is quite fast in comparison so really I'm spending maybe 17 minutes on the form. Is it a bit anal to break it down like this? I don't think so! I need to know that I'm spending equal time on both sides.

How do you practise Wing Chun with a partner who doesn't do WIng Chun? And by partner, here I mean my girlfriend. Well, there are simple techniques that are easy for the non-practitioner to pick up. One little routines I've practised in the past with Sue is this:

• We stand facing each other in the classic stance where our extended wu saus are touching via the outside of our wrists
• I pak sau her arm out of the way and punch her lights out. Well, I try...
• She pak saus my punch
• Rinse and repeat

Things like pak saus are very easy for people to pick up, whether or not they've done martial arts before.

Another exercise we've done is as follows:

• We both start in the kwan sau position, our tan saus touching
• I lap sau Sue's tan sau and thrust my tan sau to Sue's face
• She has to meet that with her own tan sau or I smudge her make up
• I lap sau her tan sau and we start over again

This is very much a speed exercise which is bad for me because Sue has demonic speed. I can't understand it, she doesn't practise this stuff yet I think she's faster than me!

Here's one that doesn't involve any Wing Chun prowess:

• You are blindfolded but your partner is not.
• The 'seeing' person gently holds the blindfolded person's elbow (either one) and starts leading the other person around the room.
• The blindfolded one has to follow the leader. They really have to 'listen' to the leader and offer no resistance whatsoever, so that when the leader pushes, they go with it immediately. At no point must the leader use force to push you where they want you to go, and the follower must have no inertia.
• The leader should vary the direction, speed, height etc.
• Oh, and leader? Don't run your partner into the wall. The argument you had yesterday? That's all in the past, so be nice.

The above exercises were all stolen from class, but the following one I made up. Its purpose is to increase your sensitivity and reactions.

• Stand face to face hands down by your sides
• Wing Chun person stretch your arm forward to meet the other's arm which is now also stretching forward. Both arms are still down, but meeting in the middle
• Give the non Wing Chun person the advantage by allowing their hand to be on the inside
• They must try and slap your face with the inside hand, and your outside hand must pak sau it away
• Go as fast as you like!

Instructor's Course

With my recent invitation to the instructor's course comes the feeling it's time to get serious. I wasn't exactly slouching before, but I can do more. After the last class I asked sifu what I should focus on in my training away from class and he simply said "the basics". This means practising:

• siu lim tau
• chum kiu
• the hands. Ensure that the shape of tan sau, bong sau etc is perfect. Perfect. How many times have I been chi sauing only to discover that my tan sau and bong sau had lost all shape. About 2.5 million. You can't recognise the shapes sometimes!
• the transition between hands. It sounds simple, but even my changing from tan sau to bong sau needs tightening up. By this I mean keeping the shoulders relaxed and stationary, and also pivoting the movement around the wrist only.
• theory. I must admit to not having done much reading about wing chun. I started reading Shaun Rawcliffe's book, but it was too dry for me and I couldn't finish it. I will try again with that book, jut not at the moment. On Friday, spurred on by the imminent instructor's course, I decided to order a book written by my sigung and Ip Chun no less. I can't wait to get this book! It was available at each class for about 2 years and then I think it just stopped being produced over here in the UK. However, I found some used books on Amazon, so it's ordered and I'm waiting.
• go to all 3 classes during the week. Usually I got to one class, on a good week I go to two and very rarely I go to three. Often I don't go to Saturday's class because I'm too hungover from Friday's debauched extravagances so this will have to stop!

I've recently started doing chi sau with one of the guys in my class in my lunch hour twice a week. Whilst I don't think this falls into the "basics" category, there is no way I'm going to give this up! Opportunities to chi sau with someone are very much in short supply. The problem is, because I can't go to the gym at lunchtime on those days, I've started going before work. This, of course, means I can't do any wing chun practice in the morning. What the hell, I'll adapt.

Sounds like time for a new training timetable. I think I can cover everything in a 1 week cycle.

Week 1

This really is back to basics. I'll be focusing on SLT and CK, but the things I've sacrificed (like turning, developing power, speedwork) I'm sure will be compensated for by the contents of the classes.