Greetings

 

I would firstly like to say thank you to all my students for the lovely birthday card and present. It was kind of all of you.

 

Today is the first day of the Chum Kiu seminar – something which I had been looking forward to for some time now. Throughout my travels, and personal teaching experience, I have found that this has always been the most neglected and misunderstood form. As I mentioned before I feel people are ‘blinded’ in the rush to learn Biu Jee and Wooden Dummy and often lose sight of the purpose of Wing Tsun itself – development as a person. It provides the absolutely crucial link between the beginner and advanced level. It took me many years to understand this, but I can promise you this – if you do not have a deep understanding of this form it is impossible to obtain a high skill level in Wing Tsun. (and this is the reason I am teaching a seminar over 4 days rather than the normal 3).

 

Indeed, one of my instructors was telling me earlier this week about a prospective student who decided not to join his school because there was not a Wooden Dummy in the room where they normally trained. Personally I find this both quite funny and a little sad; as I said to the instructor – what is the point of him learning Wing Tsun, let alone the Wooden Dummy, if he has no idea of the purpose or concepts of what he is doing? Furthermore it is simply not possible for him to understand it as by his actions he clearly demonstrates that he has no idea of even the most basic concepts from Siu Nim Tau. If you are going to use the Wooden Dummy just against basic attacks it is far better to simply learn Siu Nim Tau as common sense will tell you that there is no point learning extra techniques if an easier, more basic technique will suffice.

 

However, to be fair I don’t believe this is his fault - in a sense this is a kind of ‘fashionable’ thing to do - most people who read about Wing Tsun know that there is some kind of training on a dummy. But like many trendy things to do, it quite often is not to most practical or most appropriate belief to hold. Development takes time. While there is nothing I despise more in a ‘teacher’ than a person who does not teach a person to their full potential or holds them back, I think equally bad to pander to the whims and desires of the students by ‘teaching’ them something just to make them feel happier. If a student has the right ability, has a good heart, is loyal and follows the rules and etiquette of Wing Tsun they should without doubt be taught the highest techniqiues. But if any of these are missing that person is not ready for them and should not be introduced to it before they are. I know I am controversial here, but do you really think it is possible to learn the highest unarmed combat techniques and theories as a beginner? Or if not, even within 3 years as quite a few schools advertise? It is actually a principle of Wing Tsun that ‘less is more’ and I believe it is far better to master eg 10 techniques and fighting concepts extremely well than learn 50 surface deep. Each form teaches different strategies and develops you in a different way. If you want to benefit the most from the art im afraid there is no short cut. To reiterate earlier posts, effective self dence is one thing, but mastery of the art is a completely different one.

 

As always, I don’t mean what I say as a criticism, but as a way of airing debate on the subject, so please don’t misunderstand the point I am trying to illustrate.

 

Back to the subject of seminars, in short, I view them a form of specialist training which allows me to teach information that is not normally possible to cover in class (For a more detailed explanation on the purpose of seminars please see one of my earlier posts - in July). At the same time it allows an intensive period of training which can significantly raise people’s ability in a short period of time. I always recommend my students attend for these reasons (and the ones stated earlier) and not least because I think they truly are enjoyable. However, I would like to point out that while I do not want my students to miss out on valuable learning opportunities every person must, of course, assess not only their financial situation but their other commitments. Life is all about making sacrifices, but these should be assessed in advance if possible. It if for this reason that Si-Hings/Si-Meis and myself always try to give at least two months notice of when the next seminar will begin.

 

Sifu