I agree with the way you are tackling your weaknesses. I too strongly adhere to self analysis. That said, with regards to your problem there are two ways to handle someone fast: be faster than them or preventing them from making an attack in the first place.

Faster than them: there’s a limit to this. Some people will simply be faster than you. You can still work on it though. One way is to increase your response time and another is simply having fast hands.

Preventing attack in the first place: I’m sure you have heard that an attack can be ones best defense. That is exactly what it is here. By attacking you make the person focus on defending And not attacking.

Personally, I view chi sau as a building block for fighting. I do agressive chi sau (gor sau). However, I don’t have as many years in wc as you and the above poster do so take my advise with a grain of salt.

Good luck. Come back and post on martialtalk.

Cheers!
Dnovice

You can’t “fast-track” anything in Wing Chun. You can, however, pinpoint areas of weakness and work hard on them. I like to pick out things in my practise that I’m really bad at and focus on them them until I’m a little (never entirely) happier with them.

You make some good points, especially about chi sau not being a competition. How many people have we practised with, who thought the most important thing was to “make the hit”?

Structure, softness, sensitivity – I feel like chi sauing now!

I pressume from you essay here that you are relatively new to our system? As such I wanted to give you my opinion. So you kno where I’m coming from -I’ve been studying the system now for over 7 years (2nd TG.

I don’t agree that there is a fast-track to sensitivity development and I think looking for one will only hinder any progress you make. I do agree with you and you are correct when you say that “consistent and generic training” will help you – in my experience and opinion this is the only way to develop softness and with it sensitivity.

There are three ways to look at progression in Chi Sau:

1. Structure
Proper structure is essential (but you don’t need me to tell you that) but the initial stages of chi sau will be taken up with just that – proper structure without nessecarily being soft or sensitive right away.

2. Softness
This can only be applied after proper structure is developed and drilled – it’s actually one of teh most difficult aspects of chi-sau balancing softness with proper structure and thsi is oen of teh key elements of the drill.

3. Sensitivity
This will only come with the proficient understanding, practise and development of the above two.

Chi Sau isn’t a competition bewteen two people – that for me is teh most important aspect of learning to be sensitive. Chi Sau is a partner drill, a two person exercise (study) one person feeds and learns from the other. You should not be afriad to get hit (which I’m sure your not) and yoru partner (not opponent) shoudl also learn that he is not in a competition – you will both never learn if this attitude towards chi sau is adopted.

Finally, Chi Sau is not ‘the fight’ it only aids us in our response development and tactile awareness it’s only a tool, a two person tool that both people must undertake to learn interdependently. Don’t look for the light at the end of the tunnel, don’t look for fast tracks, live and learn the system as you are in it and trust what you already know and what you are currently learning.

R