I had a good wing chun class on Saturday, not so much for the wing chun training, but for something else. It was a bit of an eye opener really. There were two pieces that fit together like a jigsaw puzzle.

Firstly, when I was doing siu lim tau, sifu came over and corrected my posture and my tan sau as I was extending it. My posture is always getting corrected, so that was to be expected, but I became frustrated with where my elbow should be when extending tan sau and fuk sau. On the one hand you are supposed to get your elbow as close to the centre as possible, and on the other you are supposed to remain relaxed and retain good posture.

I had to ask about this after the form. I think I was losing sight of the overall aim and focusing too much on pulling my elbow in to the centre – actually at the expense of both posture and relaxation. I would usually find my shoulder reaching forwards as my arm extends the tan sau or fuk sau. And the constant pressure on my shoulder of pulling my elbow in would cause an ache. I always thought this was a good ache, from doing “healthy exercise”, but more on that later.

So that was the first lesson: posture comes first, elbow being on the centre comes second. Never sacrifice your posture to pull your elbow in. Well that lesson took a long time learning! A good few years… What I’m going to have to do is go back to basics and just extend my tan sau and fuk sau in a relaxed fashion, and not even worry about straining to get my elbow in.

After siu lim tau, we broke up into two groups: one practising that form and the other practising chum kiu. I practised chum kiu for a while and then it was time to practise applications of techniques. We did that for a while and then when it was time to change partners I found myself being the odd one out and without a partner. Sifu came over and and I thought we were going to chi sau, but instead he asked me how my shoulder was doing. By now I think the world and his dog know about my woes!

He sat me down on a chair and started pulling my arm this way and that and putting it in different positions, I think to test what it did. Then he started massaging my forearm, saying that he thought the shoulder pain might be deferred from somewhere else. I never thought of that before. Anyway, the massage was quite hard and a bit painful – but in a good way. It felt like he was really digging in. I don’t mind pain if it’s going to sort out a problem, though. He then moved onto my shoulder and targeted the precise area that was giving me the problem. That was painful too. My shoulder felt quite loose and relaxed after that.

Sifu gave me two pieces of advice. I’m annoyed at myself because I already knew what he told me. But like lots of people, I can preach to others whilst not taking my own advice. I feel so stupid for not doing this sooner, but I guess sometimes we need to have things spelt out! It’s not enough to simply “know” something, you have to do it. What he said was:

• improve your posture. I work at a computer all day so it’s easy to adopt a bad posture sooner or later. I’d been mindful in the past of keeping my back straight and not slouching, to get rid of back pain, but I’d not thought about what position my shoulders were in.
• do some self massage. Unbelievable. I already know that self massage is a good thing, but I’m not doing it! I feel so stupid. Yes, I’ve massaged my problem shoulder when the pain has been there, but not done it on a structured and regular basis. What I should be doing, and what sifu suggested, is massaging my shoulder several times each day.

The massage consisted of the following:

• get the whole arm into a relaxed position where the shoulder is carrying no weight
• focus on the muscley part of the forearm near the elbow first
• rub the afflicted area vigorously first to warm it up and get the blood circulating
• press into the flesh with the thumb in circular motions
• do this for maybe 5 minutes
• repeat on the shoulder

So, two piece of a jigsaw puzzle. The first was my revelation that I’d been trying too hard on my siu lim tau and that perhaps that’s been causing my shoulder pain. I’m hoping that is the cause. The second was the treatment of the pain that I can do myself. In action that means just forgetting pulling my elbow in while doing siu lim tau, so I can keep the correct form. I’ll also keep an eye on my posture at work (damn these sedentary jobs!) and massage my forearm and shoulder in my breaks.

When it comes to training, you need to be adaptable. The “perfect” time for training doesn’t always present itself. Look at today: I was supposed to be getting the house to myself for the whole day and I was planning on doing one of my siu lim taus in the morning, and the other one later in the evening. What could possibly go wrong with that plan?

Relatives turned up in the morning and stayed a few hours. Kids of 4 and 6 years old running round the house and needing constant attention! When they left I completely forgot about siu lim tau and ate a huge meal for a late lunch, meaning that I was too full to do my form when I remembered it.

By 5pm I’d recovered enough from that meal to do a siu lim tau, meaning that it wouldn’t be long before I had to do the second one.

Life’s a bitch.

On the spur of the moment I decided that it would be a good idea to do some stretching. I can get by doing siu lim tau in the tight jeans I was wearing, but stretching is impossible so I had to borrow some of my girlfriend’s jogging bottoms. She’s 5 feet tall, and I’m 6 feet 2 inches so they came to my knees, but I was desperate. Strictly speaking, I didn’t need to wear the bra, but you may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.

All I needed now was more relatives coming round and catching me in my girlfriend’s clothes. Which of course they did do. I didn’t care because I got my stretching in!

As I said before, if you wait for the perfect opportunity to train, you will miss out a great deal of training you could do if you were a little more adaptable. For example, I like to do a few bong saus, kwaan saus, punches and chops while I’m waiting in the bedroom for my girlfriend to get ready for bed. Anyone with a female partner will appreciate what a long training session they can have while waiting for girls to finish in the bathroom! It perturbs the dog a little to see me flailing my arms about, but what the hell – I’m training.

OK, I know this is only the second day of my siu lim tau challenge, but I’m pleased with the way things are going! My siu lim taus take around 15 minutes each and I did two yesterday with 15 minutes of alternating bong saus on top of that. Today I did another two siu lim taus and 10 minutes of leg training while I microwaved a baked potato. The potato wasn’t an integral part of my training, it was just cooking in the background. You could equally boil some vegetables, for a similar effect.

I’m getting a few twinges in my right shoulder, but it’s not got any worse than it was before. I’ve had these twinges for the last year or so, sometimes more painful, sometimes less. Their presence is certainly not conclusive proof that siu lim tau is causing my problems.

I’ve also been pondering the fact that when we chi sau, we have our elbows in as we roll. Holding the elbows in like that over long periods of time will probably have the same effect as the inward pressure we exert as we extend our fuk saus and tan saus in siu lim tau. That’s to be expected as the first section of siu lim tau helps you guard the centre with your fuk sau when you chi sau.

Tomorrow, I’ve got the house to myself, so I should be able to get my two siu lim taus in.

Check out the reason I’m testing my siu lim tau.

My shoulder injury is bugging me because I don’t know what’s causing the pain. Also, I’m doing so little of whatever is causing the pain that it’s restricted to minor niggles here and there when I put my arm in awkward positions. It doesn’t affect everything I do.

My theory is that siu lim tau is causing the pain, specifically the first section where you extend your tan sau and fuk sau whilst forcing your elbow in towards the centre. I’ve been doing siu lim tau infrequently recently – maybe twice a week – so that might be the reason my injury hasn’t got worse. The pain is at such a low level, and it’s only there for such a small duration of time, that I wonder whether it’s “just one of those aches and pains we all get”.

Anyway, to test my theory that siu lim tau is the cause, I’m going to do the form twice a day. Fortunately, I’ve got the next week off work and should be able to fit those in easily. I’ve already done siu lim tau once today and practised alternating my bong saus whilst turning for 15 minutes. That’s a lot of bong saus!

I’m not doing any other exercise that involves my shoulder (like pressups, benchpress etc), and I’m not chi sauing with anyone at the moment, so I can’t think of anything else it could be. It’ll be disappointing, to say the least, if I discover that siu lim tau is damaging my shoulder, but at least I’ll know for sure what the cause is. The thing is, this form is part of the foundations of wing chun. It’ll be a simple adjustment to make, for me to ease off on the inward pressure as I extend my tan sau and fuk sau, just so I can continue doing siu lim tau, but that will have a knock on effect on my chi sau. My elbows won’t be able to come in as far as they used to, leaving me more open along the centre line, and vulnerable to attack. If that’s the case, I’m going to have to tighten up on my footwork and positioning to compensate.

If I establish that siu lim tau hurts my shoulder, then I can resume doing pressups, though, so it’s not all bad.

Unless they both damage my shoulder, and then we may as well slit our own throats!

I’ve just put myself through the hardest siu lim tau I’ve done for a while. I don’t normally do siu lim tau whilst listening to music, but tonight I just felt like it. I know you are supposed to still your mind, reduce your thoughts and relax everything, but the choice was either do siu lim tau to music or don’t do it at all. My theory was that doing it with a “disturbed” mind was better than not doing it at all.

Admittedly, the style of music I was listening to – house – isn’t the kind you normally associate with wing chun, but I like it!

I have a little routine that ensures I do siu lim tau for a long enough period of time: I count 60 whilst extending my tan sau and fuk sau and I count another 60 whilst retracting my wu sau. The music I was listening to had such a strong beat, though, that I couldn’t disregard it and count at my normal tempo, so I decided to count to the beat of the music. Unfortunately for me, the beat turned out to be much slower than my usual tempo.

My legs started trembling by the time I started extending my right tan sau! By the time I had finished my right side in the first section, my legs were shaking like mad. That hurt. But it hurt in a good way.

I remember my sifu saying in the past that you need to face yourself before you can face an enemy. You need to put yourself through pain like this, and keep pushing the limits. If you can’t put up with the pain you feel in your legs for such a relatively short time, how are you going to face a thug who wants to kill you? Who is going to fare better in an “ugly” situation: someone who chickens out at the first sign of pain or someone who continually pushes their barriers?

In addition to the obvious physical pain and discomfort we experience when doing siu lim tau, there is also the emotional distress. I’m not sure emotional distress is the right way to describe it, but if you’ve done siu lim tau for long periods, you’ll know what I’m talking about. It can easily be confused with boredom, but I think it’s something quite different. It takes a disciplined mind to remain still for long periods of time. If you’ve ever meditated seriously, then you’ll be familiar with the yearning to do something – anything – else. To just stop and get some mental relief by doing a different activity. To the untrained, simply standing still (seemingly) for so long is like torture! But pushing through that mental barrier is what we must do. I know when I’m at that mental torture point because I start looking around me. When doing siu lim tau, you should look dead straight ahead, but when I get to that point I start looking down and to the left and right, all over the place, such is the level on mental discomfort. As if looking around is going to curb the pain!

Siu lim tau: such a simple idea, yet so tough an adversary. But it does get easier. It’s just practice.

I suppose that ideally you should be able to do siu lim tau and reduce your thoughts whatever your environment, wherever you are. A bit like meditating. You know you’ve cracked it when you can still your mind in the middles of chaos.

Next stage: siu lim tau in the middle of a dance club!

I’m feeling quite pleased with myself this morning because I did a half hour siu lim tau. I’m going to the Wing Chun residential course that my club runs in May and I was talking to one of the guys who had been to others in the past. He gave me scary stories about doing siu lim tau for one and a half hours, not just one time but every morning! This is a 3 day course so that’s 3 lots of 90 minute siu lim taus.

There is no way I can manage that at the moment, so I was stirred into action. My usual long SLTs last around half an hour but I don’t do them often. I usually do a few 20 minute SLTs a week so I thought I’d better start building up. From talking to other people who do long sessions, there seem to be some common ‘symptoms’ that you shouldn’t worry about if you are trying to extend your practice too. The following are quite common and don’t imply that you are a wus.

Meet Mr Shaky Legs

Around 20 minutes in, my legs started trembling from the strain. I thought it was a visible shaking, but when I looked at my legs in the mirror it was almost imperceptible. After a few more minutes the trembling became constant, which was a really weird sensation. I’m used to simply stopping whatever strenuous exercise I’m doing when I start trembling. For example, when bench pressing, you don’t go on much longer after the first tremble. So I think your mind is conditioned into expecting the exercise to stop when you start trembling, and indeed, there is a tendency to stop when this happens.

But you can go through it. I spent the last 10 minutes of my practice with my legs shaking constantly. It was a bit off putting, but I managed.

Sore Shoulders

Because I’m an anal pedant, I have to time everything so that I know that I’m spending the same amount of time on my right side as I am on my left. I don’t want one side getting stronger than the other, at least not through my dodgy training. So I spend 2 minutes extending my tan sau/fuk sau and then another 2 minutes retracting my wu sau. That’s why my siu lim tau lasts a little over 30 minutes. Of course, after 2 minutes of extending your tan sau/fuk sau and trying to pull your elbow in, your shoulders are going to feel sore. Don’t worry. That is the point. In time you’ll be able to pull your elbows in more and more, thereby offering yourself more protection whilst your arm is actually relaxed.

Resting Your Fist

While one hand is doing the fuk sau/wu sau cycle, the fist on the other hand rests at your side. If you’re not careful this fist will want to press against your side so that your side supports it. Ideally, you want to have that arm support itself and have the fist merely brushing your side, but on long siu lim taus, it’s OK to rest it a little before moving it away so that it’s no longer supported.

Can’t Walk Afterwards

Bit of an odd one this. After standing in that stance for over 30 minutes, when I’d finished I couldn’t walk. The first few times this happened I thought I was doing it wrong. I’m sure my posture is OK though, otherwise sifu would have corrected it in class. My thinking is that the more I do it, the easier it will get. Obvious, huh?

Anyway, after staying in stance for that length of time, if you are stiff I would advise a very gentle return to normality. What I do is just stand normally with legs relaxed but straight for a few seconds first. This in itself is a great relief after being in stance. Then I walk very slowly for a few yards and stop. Do that a few times. Then I bend over to touch my knees very slowly. Having stood straight for half an hour without moving, my back is a little stiff too. Then I stretch up and point to the sky. It’s important to do all these things as gently as you need to. My knees suffer a bit sometimes so I rub them for 30 seconds, front and back.

Over the course of around 5 minutes of gradually walking more and more and doing gentle stretches, I’m just about back to normal.

The Aftermath – Jelly Legs

Even now, an hour after The Trauma, my legs are like jelly. That’s normal when you push yourself though.

Finding The Time

30 minutes to do one siu lim tau is a bit of a sacrifice. I could be training all sorts of other things in those 30 minutes. But doing this kind of siu lim tau is very beneficial, so I need to find some balance. I don’t want to do it so infrequently that I don’t get stronger than I am, but I don’t want to do it so often that my other training suffers. I think what I’ll do for now is a few 20 minute siu lim taus and just one long siu lim tau every week.

I’m reading Malcolm Gladwell’s book “Outliers” and I’m really enjoying it. In this book Gladwell discusses what the magical ingredients of success are. Contrary to popular belief, it takes more than just individual merit to achieve success. And we’re talking about success on a grand scale here, as in that of Bill Gates, for example.

Opportunity And Cumulative Advantage

Certain individuals are presented with opportunities not available to everyone. Taking advantage of those opportunites and working extremely hard generates more opportunities for them. The advantages gained accumulate. Gladwell describes Bill Joy‘s story. He was given access to computers in the early 1970s at a time when they were a rarity. He lived, breathed and dreamt programming and usually worked into the night. This was when he was a student. At that point it was just an interest. But when the personal computer market exploded a few years later, he was well placed to take advantage of it because of all the experience he had gained. He went on to co-found Sun Microsystems. Opportunity + hard work = success, simplistically.

However, taking advantage of even the most widely available opportunities that are open to everyone will give rise to more opportunities and more success.

Lucky Students

For example, consider a person who becomes interested in martial arts whilst at University. All that free time, it just makes you drool doesn’t it? A typical student has masses of spare time that they can use in any way they wish. They could easily train for 2 hours a day and ist still would not impact on VDT (valuable drinking time).

Now look at the favourable consequences of training so hard. Skill develops more quickly in the dedicated practitioner than in the lazy one, and so he or she is invited to attend courses that the others are not yet ready for. Access to more training! And so it snowballs. That extra training gives an advantage over those that don’t receive it. The dedicated student who trains more than their peers gets invited to seminars, demonstrations and eventually becomes their sifu’s chief instructor. Of course this privileged position leads to even more opportunities. And this all starts with one opportunity – the opportunity to train hard – that is available to most of us. OK, time constraints are a big issue for most of us, but are there some opportunities that you are not taking advantage of?

Training Is Like Being Given Money

Malcom Gladwell’s book and my recent focus on increasing my training hours has shaped my current thinking on training. I don’t want to miss an opportunity! I can see training as being like picking up money from the floor. Imagine the floor being covered in dollar bills. You can pick up as many as you want and stuff your pockets full of them. However, some people limit themselves to just picking up 2. A little time goes by and then they pick up another 2. Meanwhile, their friend is busy filling his pockets. This is how I see training. The hours you put in are the dollar bills on the floor. You wouldn’t just pick up a few bills and stop while there were more on the floor, would you? Similarly, why would I do only a little training when I could do more. With the bills, the more you pick up the richer you get. With training, the more you do the greater your skill becomes.

I used to do minimal training. A mere 15 minutes a day. I’ve easily changed my routine so that I now do one hour a day. The extra time was always there, I just didn’t take advantage of it. The more you train, the better you get. It’s so simple, and yet incontrovertably true. There is no way around it and there is no substitute for the hard work you put into your training.

Talent and natural ability? Give me someone who has “natural ability” and I guarantee that if I train three times as hard as them, I will get better than them. Maybe not by a factor of 3, but I will get better than them.

Wing Chun Opportunities

Wing Chun Residential Course

This morning I paid for my place on the upcoming Wing Chun residential course. It costs a lot of money but I can afford it and I would be a fool to miss the chance to train so intensely. I’m told that the formal training goes on between 10:00 and 18:00 but then attendees often chi sau until midnight, so that’s a big opportunity for improvement! Also, we’ll be covering Baat Jam Dao, the Wooden Pole, the Wooden Dummy and all three forms. These are things that are not covered in our regular classes. I’m kicking myself for missing these residentials in the past. I foolishly convinced myself that “slow and steady” was the way to go – i.e. attending only the weekly classes, but doing so consistently. Duh!

Chi Sau Before Class

One of the guys I train with can get to class nearly an hour before it starts, and I can too. We’ve arranged to meet up early and chi sau. That’s an hour extra! I can’t contain myself, I’m going to have to break something!

There Are 3 Classes Per Week

I used to play stupid mind games with myself. I’d say to myself, “Well, you’ve been to class on Monday, so you don’t really need to go on Wednesady too”. Duh! With that attitude, making 3 classes a week was near impossible. The classes are there for the taking. Why only pick up one dollar bill when there are two more on the floor?! Obviously, things will come up and there will always be unexpected events that mean we can’t train when we want. But barring exceptional circumstances: train, train, train!

I feel better for getting that out of my system. Thanks for listening!

Before my recent Wing Chun training regime change, I used to weight train in the gym at lunch. The gym is a 10 – 15 minute drive away, meaning my session could entail as much as a 30 minute drive. Doing a worthwhile weight training session + shower/change time takes my lunch hour well over 60 minutes. To compensate for my lengthy lunch hour, I used to get to work early and make up the time. My new Wing Chun training regime, however, requires that I do an hour of Wing Chun before work so I can’t now get to work early and make up the time.

Busting My Ass

This means the 30 minute Wing Chun workout I’d scheduled for lunch is not going to work. 15 minutes to drive to the gym + 10 minutes getting changed x 2 leaves a pathetic 10 minutes for Wing Chun. It’s crazy busting my ass to do just 10 minutes practice.

I’m English and I said “busting my ass”.

The only alternative is to do Wing Chun at work in my lunch hour. This is a very touchy subject, as I don’t like an audience. My workplace is full of suit wearing office workers. Rounding the corner to see me standing on one leg doing siu lim tau would probably freak someone out.

Put Water Into A Fountain – It Becomes The Fountain

Tentatively, I’m thinking about practising by the water fountain. At lunch, most people go out of the office, so the place will be pretty empty. And the water fountain area is out of site of the two open plan offices it serves. I’ll try it out and see how it goes.

OK I tried it out and it was a disappointing experience. The area is so small that I get in the way when people want to get a glass of water from the fountain. Not to mention the shock on their faces as they come round the corner and see me flailing my arms around like there’s something wrong with me. Despondent. Bruce Lee used to practise in restaurant car parks but I don’t know whether I’ve got the guts to do it in the car park here.

Wing Chun Exercises That Don’t Make You Sweat

An added problem with training at work is that there are no showers here. This means that getting hot and sweaty is not a good idea. Siu lim tau is banned then, as that makes me sweat profusely, as does any energetic exercise. Banned. Also narrowing my options is the fact that I’m wearing a shirt and trousers so anything involving a degree of flexibility is out the window. Another limitation is the lack of space in the water fountain area. Here is a list of exercises I’ve come up with that I think I could do:

• turning (wan lan sau, bong sau, kwan sau).
• fist clenching to outstretched fingers, repeating over and over (good for strengthening the fist).
• footwork. Outdance the water fountain.
• dummy form. It doesn’t take up that much room (about the room needed to house a dummy).

The selection of exercises I can do at work is a cut down version of all the exercises available but I can look at this as an opportunity to focus and perfect.

It’s a real pain in the ass that the gym is so far away.

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.

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.