A Spare Pair Of Hands

Ryan is a friend of a friend and I've know him for maybe 4 years now. He came over at the weekend, and whereas in the past I've looked at him as a 6 foot tall 25 year old man, on Sunday I just saw a pair of hands! So I got him up and didn't give him a chance to say no to my suggestion of a bit of chi sau. Well it was rudimentary chi sau, and if you can remember back to when you didn't know how to roll, then you'll know what I mean. We both enjoyed it anyway.

The interesting thing I noticed was Ryan's immense use of strength. I must have been the same when I started, but it's so different to how I am now - but still not different enough. We can all use softer hands sometimes. We were just messing really, neither of us making any strikes, but moving hands inside and out, trying to get an advantageous position. Or rather I was and Ryan was busy looking nervous and reacting. Both my hands would be on the outside and when I moved one inside, he would jerk his hand down in a mad panic to block it. He's got quick reactions, I'll give him that. It was good to contrast what he did with how I now chi sau - and I'm by no means feeling smug here. It's just useful to get an idea of progress. Whereas he would blast my hand a good foot to the side with his make shift pak sau, my pak sau would be minimal. 'Just enough'.

It was scary for me too because I found it hard to deal with his strength. In class it's stressed that we should use soft hands and avoid using strength and so to a certain extent we pair up with compliant partners. Ryan of course wasn't compliant and was quite strong. I know that if it was a street situation, I would at least try to 'finish it' quickly, but I was hoping my chi sau would be good enough to redirect some of his energy against him. Sadly it wasn't. My little world crumbled around me ha ha.

The good that came out of this though, is that it spurred me on to practise more. Take it more seriously.

Another thing I was struck by was how stiff and rigid Ryan's arms were. I mean, they were like iron girders. And this allowed me to actually do something right. Because they were so tense I could very easily disrupt his balance, either by  pushing his arms awkwardly into him or by just giving them a cheeky little lap sau. His balance was totally gone.

The real point of my practising with Ryan was to get better at defending against something I described here. Ryan would have his hand inside my fook sau and he would loop it around in a hooking motion towards my head. Man, he was fast. Strong too, I may have mentioned. Owing to the dangerous nature of this exercise I quickly found us something a bit safer to do!

I know that Ryan won't mind me dissecting his performance. It's meant with the best intentions. It would be fantastic if he decided to take up Wing Chun, because then I'd have someone to practise with!