I love this guy’s chi sau! It has a real flow to it and there is no (or very little) use of strength. It’s all about redirecting the other person’s energy.

Taking Turns In Chi Sau

But at the same time, the way that he and his partners are chi sauing is slightly….odd. They seem to be taking it in turns to do something. For instance the teacher’s partner will attack and there will be a pause before the teacher counters. There will then be a pause before the partner does something else. It looks very much like they are taking it in turns to attack and counter.

It appears that the teacher invariably lets his student perform his attack successfully without trying to stop him. Maybe they are practising techniques. This whole business of “you go first, then I’ll do something” is contrary to how our school chi sau. This style of chi sauing is apparent on his other videos too.

This is in no way a criticism of the skills on display here, as I don’t know the purpose of training like this. They all look pretty skillful practitioners. And they all flow beautifully.

I spoke to the person who posted the videos and s/he explained that the teacher was ‘feeding’ the students. What you see is merely a training method that enables the student to practise their technique. Fair enough.

At our Wing Chun school, the chi sau is continuous until someone is completely overpowered. I don’t mean overpowered by strength here, I mean trapped completely. There’ll be odd times where I do pause, but this is usually because there is no advantage to be gained from moving at that moment, or I am thinking too much and can’t think of what to do next.

How to stop thinking is a big problem!

Feeding Techniques In Chi Sau

What ysiddiqui said about ‘feeding’ students techniques led me to think about what my sifu does. He sometimes manipulates the chi sau deftly to keep repeating a particular scenario that demonstrates some mistake the student is making. Doing this, the student finds themself time after time making the same mistake. Whereas before the exercise, the student was unaware, when sifu does this he brings the faulty technique under the microscope so that the student has no choice but to see that something is going wrong.

This usually ends with an “ah – I see what’s happening!” moment for the student, or sifu explaining what’s happening. If necessary, sifu will demonstrate a better technique, or better use of the same technique and then chi sau will recommence. Sifu still manipulates the flow to keep repeating the same scenario, but now the student is better equipped to deal with it and can practise the technique over and over until it becomes natural.

So I can see that, in a way, my sifu does ‘feed’ us techniques, but only when he thinks it is necessary. And it is never “I go, then you go” unless we are practising a brand new technique. It is always a continuous exchange.

That’s not to say that our way is better than ysiddiqu’s way, or the other way around. They are just different ways of training.