Arms Like An Orangootang

At the last class I found myself chi sauing with someone who was much shorter than I was. I'm 6'2" and have arms like an orangootang so really I should have had quite an advantage. And to start with I did. We started chi sauing and I guess we were compromising on the height difference so that our hands could meet, but surreptitiously he would lower his hands and I would follow. Before I knew it (and I didn't realise until my partner pointed it out), my hands were much lower than they should have been. This was good for him, but my shape was all wrong and I could no longer take advantage of my super long arms and height.

Accommodating Your Partner

I find that I, and for that matter many people, have a tendency to accommodate their opponents. How many times have you simply followed your opponents hands, even if they are off centre and the best thing to do is simply go forwards down that centre? I think that to a certain extent this is a natural human response. Someone leads, the other follows. In hypnosis, the hypnotherapist matches the subject and then leads him or her (think pacing and leading). That's it - I was hypnotised goddamit! And maybe I'm not joking... In chi sau your unconscious mind takes over your actions: you no longer break things down into components and say to yourself "she's punching forward so I'm going to pak it". The pak isn't instinct, it's a learned response that over time has become an unconscious one. And following hands is an unconscious response to your opponent's actions.

Unlearning Unconscious Habits

The trick is to observe what you are doing when you are doing it and stop it. It sounds so simple, but as you know, it is the hardest thing to do. Correcting unconscious routines that you perform on your own is hard enough. You tell yourself before you start a form that the way you've been executing your gang sau for the last 2 years is in fact wrong and it needs to be completely different. And over many re-iterations of the form you can keep correcting it until it becomes a new unconscious pattern. But that's learning in the comfort of being undisturbed by an attacker who is trying to knock your block off. It's much harder to stop ingrained habits with a distraction like this.

Of course it's hard work. That's what makes it so good.

Pattern Breaking

I've just thought of another example of people accommodating their partners hands during chi sau. Changing from inside to outside and vice versa. This is an often performed transition and you become so familiar with your partner doing it that you eventually stop seeing the openings there. When he/she makes that switch, it's an ideal opportunity to strike. Sometimes the switch is so sloppy they leave the centre wide open anyway, but because we are so used to the transition taking place, we accommodate it. Did I say 'we'? I meant 'I'. Except that I've started to wait for these moments of change to strike. Now, I'll just roll with my partner and wait for them to do somethig - anything - and then strike myself. And it seems to work.