Good morning.
Today I would like to write a few words about the seminars in general. While I have written about this before (and there is a
page on the website) I believe this is of interest, not least to the large number of students that have joined the schools this year.
The purpose of the seminars themselves is essentially twofold: firstly to provide knowledge and training on material not normally available in the classes; secondly to give those that attend a substantial boost to their ability. The knife defence seminar is an excellent example of this. A number of the attendees were beginners who had only recently joined the school; however, by the end of the training they had not only started to develop serious punches (in itself an achievement) but were able to deal with a number of different attacks effectively. Now, of course, this level needs to be maintained and built upon, but I estimate the training at a seminar is equivalent to at least one or two months training (and on a rare occasion up to six months) in regular classes...
When planning the seminars in 2010 my aim was, in essence, to make it a memorable year for Chinese Wing Tsun. Last year was a historic time for the art and I wanted to continue this as much as possible. The result is that 2010 sees more events than any previous years, along with a number dedicated to ‘rare’ topics...
The next seminar (22nd – 25th April) concerns ‘Missing Chi-Dan-Sau’. This is going to be an interesting subject and something I have never taught before. One of my duties, when introducing Chinese Wing Tsun to the UK, was to introduce the Chinese teaching programme which the West, out of ignorance or otherwise, had completely neglected. Needless to say this was not an easy task as it meant effectively starting from fresh for all the students. As I already had numerous senior students it was never going to be possible to do this as systematically as I would have wished. I have, therefore, spent the years that followed filling in any gaps in the students’ knowledge (another reason for the numerous seminars...). It is not a co-incidence that my best students are the ones that have attended all the seminars.
The Chi-Dan-Sau is an important example of this. In the West students practice, at most, 2 or 3 exercises before abandoning it for the ‘glory’ of Chi-Sau. However, this is to disregard a whole crucial part of the teaching programme – without which mastery is simply not possible. If you cannot be skilled with just one hand doing one task how can you expect to be highly effective with two hands doing different actions? This is not something you can just ignore when you learn more advanced material – like everything in Wing Tsun it needs constant practice to refine your reflexes and develop your understanding. This seminar will teach the Chinese programme and includes numerous exercises, applications and theory never seen by even my most dedicated private students...
Sifu