Since I injured my shoulder last August (it’s still not right) I’ve not trained with the same vigour. In fact, the injury had quite an impact on my training. Pulling my elbows in on the fuk sau when chi sauing really puts pressure on your shoulders (if they’re damaged anyway) and this caused pain. Not being able to chi sau properly and not being able to do siu lim tau as well as I used to (extending the tan sau and fuk sau in the first section hurt), just put me off training altogether. Siu lim tau and chi sau are really integral parts of your wing chun training. “What’s left if I can’t do those?” I thought.
Well, there’s a lot left, as I’ve finally realised!
Admittedly, I’ve had to adapt my training to accomodate The Injury. I now go to the Saturday class which is a lot less intense than the weekday classes I used to go to. That’s a little easier on the shoulder. I’ve also started putting less pressure on my shoulder by not bringing in my elbow as much when extending tan sau and fuk sau in siu lim tau.
Obvious changes really. But changes that are hard to make when you are feeling completely demotivated.
Anyway, I’m back on track now and so I thought I’d record my training schedule in the hopes that I’ll actually stick to it!
- Saturday – class
- Sunday – nothing yet…
- Monday – Friday mornings – get to work at 7:30 and spend 7:40 – 8:00 training. It’s only 20 minutes a day, but even such a small amount can be beneficila if it’s consistent. Mon, Wed and Fri I practise basic techniques like doing bong sau left and right whilst turning properly in between, also doing the same with kwan sau and gaan sau. Punching, chopping and generally making crazy shapes in the air. Eventually I’ll bring in a little Chum Kiu and footwork as those are completely missing at the moment. I feel like I’m just starting again, though, so I’m not rushing things.
On a more upbeat note, it’s amazing what your body remembers. I’ve not chi saued as much just recently (I’ve often gone a month without going to class and you can’t chi sau on your own), yet although I’m a little rusty, my sensitivity is still there and I certainly don’t have heavy hands like when I first started.
The one thing I’ve learned from this episode is to just do what I can. If my shoulder is injured, just train something else. There are plenty of things to do, so I don’t need to abandon everything just because one thing is broken.
September 7th, 2010 at 9:57 am
Shoulder injuries are very common in wing chun practice, and more likely then not, is due to incorrect application of energy using the bong-sau. Even though it may not be injured during bong-sau, there’s good chance that the shoulder may have been weaken over the years by performing this movment.
If you are injured, you should take some time off to let your injury heal properly, but more important, this is the time to reflect on what you can do to prevent such injuries in the future. Ask yourself weather your bong-sau is in the correct position & surpported by the correct structure.
Many, many wing chun practitioners I have seen actually apply the wrong bong-sau shape\structure which presents injuries very easily, so this is something which must be looked into.
I had the same problem myself having used the wrong shape\structure in my bong-sau. After years of practising wing chun I’d thought I knew how to perform a bong-sau properly, but my current teacher proved to me in less than 2-minutes that my bong-sau was wrong!
Any way, hope you have a speedy recovery. I know from personal experiences that injuries can really bring one down & completely demoralise one’s training.
September 7th, 2010 at 10:16 am
Thanks for the advice Choi. My sifu noticed that I seemed to be jarring the bong sau at the end of the movement, so I’ve been trying to make the movement more fluid. I think that’s helping in itself.