Recently I realised the importance of keeping my shoulders stationary as I move between the different Wing Chun hands and decided that this was something I was going to practice. But man, this is difficult.

I devised an exercise: I would simply move between bong sau and wu sau and back again, turning to the left for the bong sau and then turning back to the front for the wu sau again. Repeat over and over, monitoring the shoulders and making sure they don’t move. I’ve got to say, it’s boring. Surprisingly, when I slow the movements right down to tell better whether I am moving them, this makes my shoulders ache. The boredom isn’t the only problem though. I’m finding it hard to know whether I am moving my shoulders by feel. For this reason it feels like a wasted exercise, just because I can’t determine whether or not I’m doing it right. What I need is a mirror that I can face while I do it.

So this is the plan: save this practice for times when I can stand in the mirror and watch what my shoulders do. I’ve got some turning routines that I do involving doing those bar arm turns at the start of chum kiu, turning whilst changing bong saus and turning whilst changing tan saus etc. I’ll do those exercises but this time I’ll focus on what my shoulders are doing and try to keep them still. I might have to slow the movement right down to stop the movement.