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.

Eye Opener

Last night's class was a real eye opener for me. Sifu asked us to start the class by doing siu lim tau, but just as I was preparing to start he told me to correct the others. I was gobsmacked. This was something I had never done before. It's hard enough getting your own form right, let alone correcting others. Usually the more senior members go around the class correcting students but this time the burden fell on me.

At first I thought I just didn't know enough to be able to identify where other people were going wrong. And in many ways I don't. For example, I found it really hard to assess whether my colleagues' stances were correct. So I left them alone! I saw a few shoulders tensed and sloping, so I adjusted those. Interestingly, mistakes increased as time wore on. More on this later.

Correcting Others Helps Me

I can see that my correcting others is a twofold exercise. They get my input on where they are going wrong and can correct themselves accordingly. But also, it's an exercise for me. I have to think more about correct structure and form. Seeing the form from this new angle helps. Previously I'd only experienced siu lim tau internally; I had my own personal experience of it. Last night, however,  I was seeing siu lim tau from the outside. The more I think about it, the weirder it seems! But, at the same time, there is unmistakable logic in asking a student to correct others.

An Increased Responsibility

Another consequence of this task was that I felt a responsibility I'd not felt before. I couldn't just dismiss my task and only pretend to do it. Sifu spots things like that and chastens you for not correcting the student and then corrects the student himself. I had to embrace the task and try to do it well. Last night's siu lim tau took maybe 10 minutes and the interesting thing was that as time wore on, my friends' shoulders started becoming more tense and more 'distorted'. The fuk sau shoulder would either be further forward than the other one, or lower. Of course, this gives me a perspective I didn't have before. Now I can see a pattern emerging.

As time wears on, your muscles get more tired, and you make more mistakes. But you might also lose track of how the correct structure feels and deviate from it because you've been immersed in the form for so long. It's much easier to sense change than sense something that hasn't changed. For example if there is light pressure on your skin, after a short while you begin to not notice its presence. As soon as the pressure changes, you become aware of it. Both these factors conspire to distort your structure. Because I've seen this pattern externally in others I can now be aware of this pattern in my own siu lim tau.

Sifu Is Cleverer Than He Looks

One things for sure. Being asked to correct other students has made me feel a responsibility to really know my stuff, to become a better practitioner. Sifu knows what he is doing. The invitation to the instructor's course, the assigning of responsibility to judge others: it all encourages me to do better, to practise more, to read up on things. I'm sure this has the same effect on my peers, too. I now have a responsibility not only to improve my skill, but to be able to help others improve theirs too. Sneaky, very sneaky.

This must be a well trodden path in my club that I just wasn't aware of in the past. I'm really impressed. What a great way to motivate people to work harder.

After around 3 weeks total abstinence from Wing Chun due to a mysterious injury, I've started my training again. I usually go to class once a week, twice in a good week, and do 15 minutes training on my own Monday - Friday so a complete stoppage was really hard to take.

This morning I did a quick Siu Lim Tau and Chum Kiu (which I learnt just before I got injured) and it felt good! Thankfully, I could remember Chum Kiu in its entirety, so in that repect I don't think I've lost anything. Obviously, my technique is a bit rusty, and certainly my muscles aren't as strong as 3 weeks ago, but at least I'm back. All being well, I'm going to try to make all 3 classes this week.

The injury is still there but its symptoms have reduced. There's some swelling round my left knee (I hate joint injuries) and it hurts when I kneel down but both the swelling and the pain have reduced. I think it might be bursitis. My main concern was the pressure exerted on the knees when doing siu lim tau and also that exerted on them when turning in chum kiu, but my speedy routine this morning didn't cause any pain. So it's looking good!

At my last class I was waiting around for someone to chi sau with so I thought I'd make constructive use of the time by practicising the siu lim tau form. I wasn't expecting my sifu to watch and assess but he did anyway. I'm glad he did because he gave me a long list of things I was doing wrong, and what I need to do to correct them. Here's the list:

Marking The Centre

Very sloppy! I didn't notice (we never do) but I guess my hands must have been flapping about loosely. Their movement should be well defined and precise like all the other movements in the form.

Wrist Strengthening

The next bit, the punch, after which the hand opens, bends up, rotates round, the fingers curl up one by one into a fist. That bit there, where it's the wrist snapping up that puts the power into the punch (is it like a one inch punch...?), that bits important. It's included in the form to strengthen the wrist for just such a purpose: punching.

Wu Sau

In the first part of the form after I've extended the tan sau slowly and amd slowly returning my wu sau, I bring it too close to my chest. In fact, it's nearly touching. A collapsed wu sau like this is neither use nor ornament. It should be maybe 2 fists away from my chest. I'll see if I can get some diagrams together to illustrate, but you get the idea.

Hoon Sau

In the second section, after the gang sau, low gang sau, the second gang sau (although I believe some variants of the form do a tan sau here) there is the hoon sau. Here I was actually drawing my arm back as I rotated the hoon sau so that my elbow moved closer to my body - wrong! I guess I was doing that to give myself more power in the dai jurn (probably spelt wrong - I need to find the proper spellings for these techniques ), but it's still wrong. Instead, after the last gang sau the whole arm must remain motionless apart from the hand from the wrist up, which rotates in the hoon sau.

Bong Sau To Tan Sau

I thought I was getting this right, but I obviously need to tighten it up. I certainly think about these points as I'm doing it but it always helps when someone points out that you're not actually doing what you think you're doing. The transition from bong sau to tan sau: the wrist must remain stationary, as if it is a pivot for the movement.

Punch The Face

The very last 3 punches I was aiming around chest height but they should have been head height.

You know what, maybe I'll put together some video footage to illustrate these points. I've always shield away from indulging in stuff like this because I ain't perfect. But what the hell. I'll look up prices of video cameras. Maybe the fear of showing myself up will force me to practice more!