Good morning.
This week sees the highly anticipated commencement of two special events. The first, starting tonight, is the Chi-Dan-Sau seminar. The second, starting Saturday (and also encompasses part of the first) is the world record attempt to raise money for charity.
Regular readers will know I have written a brief précis about the Chi-Dan-Sau seminar already, but I will elaborate a little more. While seeming a rather innocuous subject, it is of significant importance for disciples of the art of Wing Tsun. Not least as this is the first time most of the material will be taught in Western Europe and even my most loyal private students haven’t seen much of the material I will be teaching...
For those that are not familiar with Wing Tsun terminology, Chi-Dan-Sau is, in essence, the unique training methods by which practitioners develop the sensitivity and skill to be able to react automatically to attacks without the need for sight or conscious thought. Chi-Dan-Sau refers to training with one hand and Chi-Sau to training with two. As I have mentioned before, Chi-Dan-Sau is a topic that is traditionally ignored by most practitioners, through both lack of knowledge as well as a perceived lack of ‘glamour’. In Western Wing Tsun it has been effectively replaced by two-handed Chi-Sau being learnt from essentially a basic level – rather bizarre as the material forms the foundations of Chi-Sau (remember: if you can’t do something correctly with just one hand, how do you expect to have two working independently of each other?). As the old Shaolin masters knew, there is no shortcuts in mastery of the art...
The second event is something that I haven’t written about before, but has been the subject of extensive work by students, teachers and associates of the school for quite some time. The Category of the record given by Guinness Book of World Records is that of Longest Marathon Exercise/Martial Art class and we will be aiming to break the current world record which is 26 hours. The rules are quite gruelling and participants are not permitted more than one 5 minute break per hour.
The purpose of the whole event is to raise funds for charity – namely for St Michaels Hospice (for more information on the valuable service they provide visit www.stmichaelshospice.com). Due to the economic climate over the last year or so it has been (and continues to be) extremely testing conditions for all charities. Having had the chance to visit the hospice on a number of occasions, I have seen at firsthand how important a role they play in the local community. And I believe that we should do what we can to assist – after all, help is only help when it is needed... It should also be said that in ancient times a Martial Artist was always revered not only for his knowledge and skills, but also as a leader within the community. And it is time for this era to come round again... Each student has been set a personal target of raising £250 and the overall target for is £5,000. I will, of course, be donating my time and tuition for free in addition to helping with the fundraising.
If you would like to contribute to this worthwhile cause, donations can be made on-line at www.justgiving.com/JulianHitchMASE. Any donation is most welcome and please feel free to pass the information on friends and family.
Sifu