busling

They sound eloquent, however focusing on those sorts of thought is not my style. I happily train in a school that focuses on technique. Their is no focus on the mental game, apart from correct breathing and mental toughness to push on past adversity. Of the ones that I understootd I can see that if you are interested in the mental/spiritual approach then they would be good guiding principals.

Your centre line is vertical, in the middle of your body. It extends perpendicular (90 degrees) from your shoulders. If you are standing directly opposite some one , your centre lines are facing each other. If you twist your torso 45 degrees to the left, then your centre line is facing to the left of your opponent, even thou your feet have not moved. Wow that was hard to explain in text.

eadragon21 Yes it is Rick Spain's Lineage. I train under Si-Bak Alfredo Del-Brocco and his wife Rachael. They both trained under Rick and still have him as their Si-Fu. The website is https://www.combatcentres.com They do not have any teachers over in the states.

I think you mean what are the prinicples of Wing Chun? If my assumption is correct then check out this link as a very basic starting point: http://www.angelfire.com/oh4/wingchun/theory.html I am sure that there are better explainations that, it was just a quick google search. Some of the most importance prinicples of Wing Chun are: * Centre/power/centra Line theory * Chi Sao and Chi Girk (sticky hands, stick legs) * Economy of movement There are others however I am in a hurry and their are better people on this board to answer the question.

Regarding the three kicks of Wing Chun. In my school we are taught three basic kicks and use these extensively. However we are also taught, Axe Kicks, Spinning Side Kicks (could be classed as a variation of the side kick), Stomps (as has already been mentioned) and Change up kicks (again could be classed as a variation on the basic kick).

In our school its closed left fist, open palm right fist, joined together. I am not really up with history and tradition. I simply follow what we do at our school.

Good: * Plenty of High level students to help teach (some classes have 4 x 2nd Dan assistants) * Very experienced teachers * Has Kung Fu, BJJ and Kickboxing classes all in one spot * Permanent school, so has good equipment * Excellent mentality in the students (all helping each other) * No kids * Within walking distance of home and work * Classes 5 nights a week Bad: * No air conditioning * No showers

Good idea Master Jules, the more you know about your enemy, the better your chance of victory.

Being "young" in the martial arts my best moments are not nearly as lofty as those already mentioned. However for me they are very important moments. 1st Completing my 4.0 grading, which meant I was now classed as a Senior in Kung Fu and could attend the Senior Classes. 2nd We were wrestling at the end of our BJJ class. I was paired up with a very experienced exponent of the arts. I saw the oppurtunity for an arm bar and went for it. He blocked my attempt, but then I saw the oppurtunity for the reverse armbar. He blocked my second attempt as well. The big point for me was that my BJJ game had finally reached the point were I could see and plan my moves instead of madly grabbing and defending.

Close your eyes and stand on one foot. This helps your balance due to your brain having to rely on your balance sensors in your middle ear and not your vision to determine up from down. I have heard that it is good to do this in the shower. I forget why. Any way I just do it in the lounge room, near to things that I can grab when I start to fall.

SevenStar, thanks for the clarification. I didn't claim to be an expert so it is good to get the low down. I based my answers on the results that I have obtained from attending my martial arts classes. They have certainly built a lot of muscle on me, however I started out quiet weak. In class we don't count out push ups, rather we told the type of pushup and then go ahead for a set time, eg. 30s, 1 minute. Usually I do the pushups as fast as I can (which for me is slow compared to the rest of the class).

Cmon, Yes you do them with your hands closed in a fist. My thoughts are your workout should always be hard to finish. So when 20 pushups becomes easy you need to increase your work load. Either more pushups or more sets of pushups or hard pushups. If you keep pushing yourself just that extra bit, that is when you will see improvement. I expect that you will find 20 pushups easy in less then 2 weeks.

My understanding (which is limited) is that for martial arts you can do a variety of push ups that serve a variety of goals. Basically slow push ups for strength, fast push ups for muscle endurance/explosive power. eg. Goal: Increased straight punching power. Push up: Hands close together underchest. Reason: These work your tri-ceps which generate the power of your straight punch. Speed: Slower the better eg. Goal: Increased explosive power. Push up: Standard push up, but clapping your hands at the top. Reason: Having to push your whole body into the air increases your "explosive" muscle potential. Speed: The higher you push up the better, which sort of equates to speed. In summary, I think you should be doing a combination of slow/strength pushups and fast/endurance pushups.

For the Wing Chun style in our school it takes between 6 and 10 years. Well at least that is the range that I have seen in my 2 years of attendance. 10 years was seen as a long time, he was a bit older and seemed to focus on attaining it only after a fare-time of crusing along. If I stay with it I could see 7 & 1/2 years for myself.

I voted for the Dojo. The environment, equipment and willing training partners allows for focused and efficent training.

The head instructor in my school is a man. He runs the school with his wife. His other business kept him very busy last year and consequently his wife was the "head" teacher and manager for that year. He has over 20 years experience and his wife has less then 10 years. I suggest that it is in our nature for men to be the dominate warriors of our society. I imagine that most women who are highly ranked want to be the best woman fighter they know; they don't want to be the best fighter. Where as men would like to be the best of the best. This is just my take on the situation and could be wrong.

75% Wing Chun, 25% BJJ I started as I was looking for a sport that both my fiance and myself could participate in together. I had always thought of martial arts something I would like to do but had never gotten around to it (boy have I missed out). We were looking for a sport that allowed us to have fun and keep fit. I was thinking kung fu/karate, she was thinking Tai Chi/Yoga . So I started Kung Fu and she did nothing . We broke up soon after that for unrelated reasons and that gave me plenty of free time to focus on my martial arts. I started for fitness and fun, yet found so much more then that. My school does Wing Chun, Kickboxing and BJJ. I do mostly Wing Chun with one BJJ class a week (which I love). I have been trying for a long time now to get all of my friends to start, however no one has signed up yet.

Drunken Monkey are reading your detailed explaination of the hook punch that you were talking about; I would not use the technique I first talked about. Instead I would attempt to "jam" the punch, by thrusting my arm up into his arm. This is really force against force and will not stop the punch but it will hopefully take some of its power away. In this situation I am thinking clinch, clinch, clinch.

Write down the sequence of the dummy set. It helps me to be able to practice it at home without the dummy. I refine the details of the instructions as I go along.

In the corporate world 20% of staff love their job and work really hard, managers want to keep these people. 60% of staff do their job effectively and enjoy their job sometimes, managers want to get these people into the top 20%. Last 20% of people are either terrible at their job or hate it, managers want to get rid of these people. In a Martial Arts school, wouldn't the bottom 20% of people just go away by themselves?

* Hands just out past shoulders, as you come half way down, drop all of the way to just above the ground, then push up as normal. * Hands just out past shoulders, push up and clap your hands, then put them back out past your shoulders. * Feet out wide, hands just out past shoulders. Start with shoulders low and bum up high, push your bum down as you push your shoulders up and out. Then reverse the movement. (These are pretty tough) * Put your hand on top of a large medicine ball and do normal push ups. # * Put hands out past shoulders and have one hand on a small medicine ball.# #I know you said you dont have equipment, however these are good exercises for building your core strength at the same time.

I had spoken to my SiFu before posting this and she was not phased that I was practicing it fast, however she did stress extensive practice. The precieved stress I have placed on myself is some thing that I can control with some of the ideas that have been put forward. Thanks everyone for your input. [Heads off to practice his forms correctly and with others watching.]

Nick_UKWC I agree with the range and difficulty. I don't think I could pull off it against a full speed punch. We did it as when we where breaking down our wooden dummy sets and applying to a training partner. We then did some adaption and changed it around a bit. I was with much more senior partner and he come up with. It just seemed to flow so well. In most other classes we would just use Bil Sao or Inside Tan Sao or duck/slip it.

Thank you all for your feedback. Master Jules I appreciate your comments. My problem is that I do the form correctly at slow speed, with no pressure. However when I am under pressure or stress I mess it up. I have been using speed as a method of simulating stress. I can see that doing it quickly with crap technique runs the risk of my brain remembering the techniques incorrectly. However if I only practice it slowly as I have in the past, I make mistakes when it counts. I was hoping that there was a valid method of ingraining the sequence in my brain without harming my technical execution of the form. It seems that lots and lots and lots of slow practice is the way to go.

I was and still am a slow and low kicker. During a private lesson my teacher recognised that my hip body and leg flexibility my slowing up my kicks and reducing my punching power/speed. She recommended a simple series of stretches that take about 10 minutes to complete. I have been doing them 4 mornings a week for about 2 months now and have noticed a significant improvement in how high I can do my round and front kicks. My round kick can now go about one to one and half feet higher. Like you I have found that mixing up hand and feet combinations keeps my opponent focued on the wrong thing and lets me land my kicks.