I've just had a mind blowing class. Not mind blowing because some complicated technique was revealed, but quite the opposite. This was something very basic, something very simple to understand but very difficult to do. As with every basic principle, its mastery is crucial if you want to progress to a higher level. So what is this crucial principle? Not moving your shoulders when you bong sau, tan sau, wu sau etc.

The teacher today (not sifu) noticed that we were all distorting our positions and tensing our shoulders when we chi saued, so he stopped us and got us to follow him. We stood in basic stance, right hand in a wu sau and proceeded to move into a bong sau > tan sau, back to wu sau. Every one of us moved our shoulders, some more than others and some even stretched their shoulders forward. Bad, bad bad! The shoulders must remain immobile and relaxed whilst moving into those different hands.

Why Keep Your Shoulders Still?

If you move your shoulders when moving between the different hands, the following can happen:

• the shoulders become tense making it very easy to lap sau your bong sau
• you commit yourself to a certain position instead of remaining neutral and relaxed
• if your shoulders are misshapen and tense it makes the transition into the next position slower
• you are not as balanced as you could be
• your opponent can feel what your intention is

Sifu is a perfect example of this principle. He moves seamlessly from whatever hand to whatever hand keeping shoulders relaxed and immobile, yet his gung lik is very strong. He's also very quick.

Exercises To Develop Relaxed Shoulders

Understanding what we need to do, and the reasons why are all very well, but how can you just do it? Well, you can't. You have to practise. I asked whether the best approach to take was to deliberately practise hand movements whilst minimising shoulder movements or to just practise our usual routines whilst placing special attention on correcting the shoulders shoulders. The teacher let us in on his little practise sessions for this:

• adopt the basic stance with one hand in wu sau
• turn to the left and bong sau
• turn to the front and wu sau again
• repeat this many, many, many, many times, bringing awareness to how much your shoulders are moving. Try and minimise this movement
• when you've worn out your bong sau replace it with other hands like gang sau and tan sau
• when you've worn those out, try mixing up random sequences, both to the right and the left

The devil really is in the details. The above may sound a little tedious and boring, but you have to ask yourself how good do you want to get? And how much do you want that? If you want to progress as far as you can, these tedious little exercises must be performed, and these trivial little problems must be ironed out.

The problem with deconstructing the very fundamentals of your skill when you chi sau is that you will get hit. It's like going back to the beginning and learning everything again, but with a special eye on the finer details now. And we should get hit, because our technique is not as good as it could be. The teacher today had a perspective on this that I liked. He said that we should be brutally honest with ourselves and with our partners. If they don't take advantage of our bad technique and hit us then they are lying to us and cheating us. And if we don't notice and try to correct our technique, then we are lying and cheating ourselves. As is so often forgotten, the class is not about winning, it's about studying. And it's not personal. I agree with hime wholeheartedly.