At my last class I was waiting around for someone to chi sau with so I thought I’d make constructive use of the time by practicising the siu lim tau form. I wasn’t expecting my sifu to watch and assess but he did anyway. I’m glad he did because he gave me a long list of things I was doing wrong, and what I need to do to correct them. Here’s the list:

Marking The Centre

Very sloppy! I didn’t notice (we never do) but I guess my hands must have been flapping about loosely. Their movement should be well defined and precise like all the other movements in the form.

Wrist Strengthening

The next bit, the punch, after which the hand opens, bends up, rotates round, the fingers curl up one by one into a fist. That bit there, where it’s the wrist snapping up that puts the power into the punch (is it like a one inch punch…?), that bits important. It’s included in the form to strengthen the wrist for just such a purpose: punching.

Wu Sau

In the first part of the form after I’ve extended the tan sau slowly and amd slowly returning my wu sau, I bring it too close to my chest. In fact, it’s nearly touching. A collapsed wu sau like this is neither use nor ornament. It should be maybe 2 fists away from my chest. I’ll see if I can get some diagrams together to illustrate, but you get the idea.

Hoon Sau

In the second section, after the gang sau, low gang sau, the second gang sau (although I believe some variants of the form do a tan sau here) there is the hoon sau. Here I was actually drawing my arm back as I rotated the hoon sau so that my elbow moved closer to my body – wrong! I guess I was doing that to give myself more power in the dai jurn (probably spelt wrong – I need to find the proper spellings for these techniques ), but it’s still wrong. Instead, after the last gang sau the whole arm must remain motionless apart from the hand from the wrist up, which rotates in the hoon sau.

Bong Sau To Tan Sau

I thought I was getting this right, but I obviously need to tighten it up. I certainly think about these points as I’m doing it but it always helps when someone points out that you’re not actually doing what you think you’re doing. The transition from bong sau to tan sau: the wrist must remain stationary, as if it is a pivot for the movement.

Punch The Face

The very last 3 punches I was aiming around chest height but they should have been head height.

You know what, maybe I’ll put together some video footage to illustrate these points. I’ve always shield away from indulging in stuff like this because I ain’t perfect. But what the hell. I’ll look up prices of video cameras. Maybe the fear of showing myself up will force me to practice more!