Bruce Lee's Biography

I'm currently reading Bruce Lee's biography by Bruce Thomas. The fact that Bruce is so famous and that he is linked to Ip Man and Wing Chun make his story fascinating for me. What I particularly like is his single minded focus on improving himself.

Reading this book in bed last night, I reached the point where the author was describing Bruce's life in the early 1960s in Seattle. At that time, Bruce was training more than 40 hours a week! I had to read that bit again. 40 hours a week. That kind of time investment equates to more than the average job. At this point in his life, Bruce was a student at University, and so could afford this kind of time investment but that doesn't take anything away from how big a commitment this was.

If I could dedicate 40 hours a week to Wing Chun myself, I think I would struggle to fill the time. At the moment, I'm spending a lot of time on Chum Kiu, but even an hour of that is mind numbing. I would certainly have to get creative with the exercises I currently perform and devise variations of them. This way I could get the core benefit of the principle being practised, and the variation would make it more interesting.

From what I gather about Bruce Lee's martial arts history, he spent 6 years training Wing Chun with Ip Man and then spent some time intensively studying other styles of kung fu, including praying mantis. During his teenage years he had almost daily fights, and these too would have contributed to his martial arts experience. When he started his own training school, I'm not sure that he was still seeing a teacher of his own. I know that he would travel around and look at other kung fu masters, see what they did, question them and then take from them what was useful, or refine it himself until it was. This knowledge and also the knowledge that Bruce Lee created his own art (Jeet Kune Do) implies that he must have done his own experimentation with martial arts and developed his skill independently of a teacher. Through trial and error with the students he trained one to one, he was constantly refining his technique.

It wasn't long before Bruce became keenly interested in building mucle for speed, power and endurance, so I'm sure that many of those 40 hours would have been devoted to working out for functional fitness.

To maximise my training, the first thing I must do is identify 'wasted' time in my daily routine, with a view to replacing it with training time. For me this is difficult because nearly everything I do has a specific purpose. I. Am. A. Robot.  There are some areas I can address though.

Sleepless Nights

Often I go through periods where I find it hard to drop off to sleep at night. I go to bed and I just lie there, restlessly becoming more awake with every minute, even though I was tired when I first went to bed. This is wasted time! One option is to put back my bedtime by one hour and in the extra time do some Wing Chun practice. I don't think this would make me too tired because some nights I've lain there awake for a few hours and I coped the following day. Going to bed later would probably have the benefit of making me so tired that I did sleep properly.

The Curse Of The Internet

I love the internet. I spend loads of time researching things and contributing to a few forums. While this is not wasted time, I could certainly cut back on the amount of time I spend on the internet without causing any serious detriment to my life. For instance, when I get home from work tonight at 6:45 I'll switch my pc on and check my mail, write some posts on assorted forums and then get ready to go to my Wing Chun Class at 7:45. That's an hour right there! I don't necessarily need to do what I do in that hour. I could actually rationalise my time and maybe just do that in work time (naughty, I know) and the nights when I don't go to class.

I finish work at 17:30 but stay until 18:00 so that I miss the rush hour traffic. In that half hour I use the internet. I could, instead, use that time for Wing Chun. There's hardly anybody around, so I can find a quiet place to practise without feeling self conscious. That's 2.5 hours extra a week.

As with many things, though, it's a balancing act. Tuesday, Thursday and Friday nights are free and I could train then, but I would have to sacrifice other things like working on my websites, cleaning the house etc. I can't just give up everything else and devote myself to Wing Chun. Unless I get married

Get To My Wing Chun Class Early

My Wing Chun class starts at around 20:15 and I get there at 20:00. Invariably there is a spare pair of hands lying around that I can chi sau with and I always make good use of them. Instead of taking this haphazard approach to getting extra chi sau practice, I'm going to ask my kung fu brothers (ha ha, that term makes me laugh!) if they want to regularly arrive 30 minutes early to practise. That's another hour a week extra (the Saturday class goers are a little more erratic with their attendance - I shall address this in another post!).

I've started doing my Wing Chun training in the gym near where I work. I don't like an audience, but I've found a room that never seems to get used when I'm there. It's ideal. Unfortunately, the lights seem to be on a timer/motion senser. This means that after five minutes of there being no movement in the room, the lights go off. There are no windows, so the room is plunged into darkness. Any further movement switchs the lights back on.

Guess who uses that room to do their siu lim tau in? Yes, of course, it's me. So five minutes into my siu lim tau form, I find I'm in the dark. This, ordinarily wouldn't be such a bad thing. In fact, I find it quite calming and restful to do siu lim tau in the dark. Except that I time my form and the watch that I hang in front of me doesn't have a dial I can see in the dark. Calamity.

So this lunchtime, I nipped out and bought a clock that displays the time using bright red LEDs. Problem solved. The fact that I'm buying 'special equipment' to aid my Wing Chun training motivates me all the more.

Despite the inability to time my siu lim tau this morning, I still managed to stretch it out to 30 minutes, so I was really happy about that. I must say that my knees are really stiff after that, and it takes maybe five minutes of gentles walking to get the stiffness to subside. No pain, no gain.

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.

All Out Wing Chun Training

In the run up to the instructor's course that I've been invited to attend, I thought I would go all out in my training, just for the hell of it. Motivated by my hours to mastery estimation (just for fun), I worked out that training twice a day I can accumulate many more training hours in a year than I have in the last three years of training. I didn't realise how half hearted my training was until I detailed it on paper. I recommend you doing the same.

So what I propose to do is spend an hour in the gym before work and then half an hour in the gym at lunch, working on various aspects of Wing Chun. If you add to that three hours worth of lessons (there are three lessons I can attend a week), then that makes a total of 10.5 hours a week I can train. I'll give myself half an hour off a week and round it down to 10 hours, for the sake of my maths.

A Monk's Life

If I hope to achieve this goal, one of the things I'm going to have to do is give up booze. I just don't feel like training the day after a night drinking, so boozing is a real impediment. With Friday night being a popular time for a booze fest, my Saturday class is in a precarious position. Must be strong!

Santa - Motivation Guru

As far as motivation goes, look what Santa brought me! That erudite man brought me three different books on Bruce Lee:

• Tao of Jeet Kune Do
• The Art of Expressing the Human Body
• Bruce Lee: Fighting Spirit

They all look good, but the one I've started reading is The Art of Expressing the Human Body. I found even the first few pages very motivating. I think the book is going to turn into some kind of training journal for Bruce Lee, which may or may not be useful to me in my Wing Chun training. I never really knew much about Bruce Lee, but the thing that strikes me so far is his dedication and commitment to his art. He was a real perfectionist. This is just the kind of role model I need so I'll be reading this book every night.

Vanity

In stepping up my Wing Chun training, something else has to give and that's my weight training. I'm sacrificing my lunch time weight training session for Wing Chun. Whilst this will accelerate my skill development, I'm concerned about how my body will change.

At the moment, I like the way that my regular weight training makes my muscles look toned, and bigger than they ordinarily would be. This is pure vanity, of course, and I realise it. All the same, I'm going to miss that muscle size and definition. Going back to Bruce Lee for a moment, he strove for functionality in all things. He did weight training himself, but for the purpose of developing speed, power and endurance. Not solely for enhancing aesthetics (though by all accounts he did enjoy the side benefit of looking good). In contrast, my weight training is in no way geared to making my Wing Chun better; it's just for looks. So what I think I will do is focus on developing my Wing Chun skill and revisit the idea of developing speed, power and endurance through weight training at a later date.

I'm excited, because I've not made such a big positive decision regarding my Wing Chun training before. I've been weight training consistently now for eight years, so giving that up is a big change too!

I can report that this morning's session was a doddle. I got up at 6:30 and was in the gym by 7:15. After a 15 minute warm up I did an hour of Wing Chun practice and then went to work. I'm now going to set off for my lunch time practice (yeah, I know I should be working....).

Though not strictly related to Wing Chun, with all the furore going on about the Ip Man movie, and with Donnie Yen taking the starring role as Ip Man, here are some details about the Donnie Yen Training Routine. Here is an impressive showcase of not just his training routine, but also his excellent all round martial arts skills. The first hald comprises Donnie Yen's training, whereas the second half is more a showcase of his film roles (and obvious skill). There is also some behind the scenes footage.

As you can see, his training includes:

• boxing
• ground fighting
• cardio work (obviously)
• nunchaku
• bag work

Here is a very informative video that gives some background to Yen's childhood and introduction to the martial arts by his mother. His mother started his training when he was a mere four years old.

Here is some footage of Ip Chun practising chi sau with Donnie Yen. I'm sure like everyone else, I was trying to gauge Yen's Wing Chun skill from this footage. It's hard to do this though as the clip doesn't reveal much. It's clear to see that Yen has fast hands, but that must be due to his extensive martial arts experience.

It's amazing to think that this next clip is 20 years old now! Here Donnie Yen is leading a class on martial arts for the movies, and fight choreography.

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.

One of the people who goes to my Wing Chun class lives and works near where I work so we decided to meet up recently in our dinner hours to do some chi sau practise. This is just the extra practise I'd been wanting to do for a long time. We decided to do a couple of techniques that we'd learnt in the last class.

The problem with learning a new tecgnique in class is that we leave the class thinking "wow, that was a really good technique" but then a week with no chi sau practice goes by and in the next class we either can't remember how to do The Move or we do it clumsily and ineffectively. When given something new, we need to practise it over and over until it becomes instinctive or subconscious. With the bright idea that my friend and I had, we can now do that.

It turns out that we are both free on Tuesday and Thursday lunchtimes, and what we've planned to do is do some free form chi sau on Tuesdays and practise what we learnt in class on Thursdays. That way we get the best of both worlds.

Usually I go to the gym in my lunch hour every day, and as well as being a welcome break from work it also keeps me fit. But recently I couldn't help thinking that if only I could do an hour of Wing Chun instead of going to the gym, I'd improve much more quickly. The trouble is, I can't really practise in the office and I don't relish the thought of all the spectators at the gym. This new turn of events is perfect though as we go to his house, 5 minutes away, and chi sau in his living room. That's nearly an hour of chi sau twice a week - extra.

Now it should only take another 20 years before we're as good as sifu!