I had a revelation this morning regarding my footwork practice. Previously I’d been ‘shadow boxing’ around an imaginary opponent, moving in, kwan sau, move to the left, bong sau etc, but I’d found it really hard. It was difficult to think of something spontaneous to do, so it was a bit disheartening to stand there thinking “what do I do next”. The attention to both footwork and hand movements was too much.

So this morning after the usual hiatus between discrete movements (which shouldn’t be so discrete!), I decided to break the task down to make it simpler. I decided to just forget the hands and concentrate on my footwork. There is a coat stand downstairs (this is at work before anyone else arrives) which I used as my opponent and practised my footwork around.

Moving to the left, moving to the right, advancing forwards – it was all so much easier now that I didn’t need to worry about what my hands were doing. In fact, I was quite pleased with how my footwork was without that distraction. I imagine that after a few practisces like this, a newb like me would be able to introduce hand movements, once the actual footwork becomes second nature (does it ever?).

Footwork Details

What do you look at to determine whether your footwork is correct? Well, I was looking at:

• balance – probably the most important. If you are off balance – FAIL!
• foot spacing – just make sure that your feet are spaced maybe a shoulder width apart.
• foot direction – usually pointing inwards, but at the most parallel. Certainly not splayed out like mine invariably are.
• weight distribution – I was keeping my weight fairly evenly spread between left and right foot, sometimes with more weight on the ‘back’ foot.

When you start doing an improvised footwork routine you might find yourself looking down at your feet a lot just to check that their positioned correctly – don’t worry. You need to reassure yourself that you’re doing it right for an initial period of time, until the movements becomes second nature, and the feeling of your feet and legs becomes more familiar. Eventually you’ll be gliding around like you were on skates, whilst keeping a close eye on your opponent.