Certain people are beating me up when I chi sau with them! So obviously I need to improve. The question is, “how?”. Well, I could just take the non-specific approach and trust that my consistent – and generic -  training will help me improve so much that I ‘lose’ less. And this will probably work.

But let’s take the scientific approach! For example, one guy is really quick. He’s so quick that I just don’t have enough time to react to his attacks. Let’s break it down. What are the components of my reaction to his attack? I need to do these two things:

1. sense the attack
2. process the stimulus
3. respond to the attack

I said “two things”, didn’t I? You could argue that 1 and 2 are so similar that they are actually the same thing. You could even lump them both into the sensitivity category. So obviously I need to improve my sensitivity. I need to be able to sense more quickly that an attack is taking place and how it’s taking place.

Improving Sensitivity

Your sensitivity will improve as a matter of course if you keep practising chi sau properly. But surely there must be a way to fast track this enhancement of sensitivity? Well, there is. Often, when chi sauing, I will adopt the role of responder and let my partner do all the attacking. If you do this, you don’t need to worry about executing your own attacks well, because all you’re doing is defending. This means that all you have to do is block and move your feet. Yes, I’m oversimplifying when I say that, but the point is that it’s easier to focus on feeling if you only have to defend, as opposed to defending and attacking simultaneously. With this extra focus on the contact between you and your partner, you can really heighten your sense of awarenesss.

Additionally, you can focus on yielding. If your mission is to offer no resistance and avoid meeting force with force, you have to listen very carefully to your partner’s hands. There are no two ways about it. If you don’t sense what your partner is doing, sooner or later you will end up ‘fighting’ their energy with yours and meeting force with force. Bad.

The above two exercises are very good for improving sensitivity. Of course, being relaxed all the time makes it easier for your hands to sense what your opponent’s hands are doing, so being relaxed is an integral part of those exercises.

Responding More Quickly

This is the easy one in that you can speed up your responses simply by drilling them over and over again. Pick an attack and response combination and repeat it over and over again. Pick another combination and drill that to death too. Mix them up and randomise. Drill, drill, drill!

You can also practise set responses on your own too, speeding up the transition between the different hands. For example, I like to do a kwan sau with the left hand in a tan sau and the right hand in a low bong sau. I then reverse the kwan sau as quick as I can so the right hand is now in a tan sau. I then keep repeating that transition – left, right, left, right – as quick as I can. If you practise this yourself, you will find not only that your kwan sau becomes lightning fast, but it becomes an instinctive response too.