Drunken Monkey

too much reading, not enough practice. my basic responce when i hear that is that to hit, you have to be relatively 'still' if you can hit him he can hit you... basically, he doesn't need to catch you because you are going towards him.

grandmaster? in karate? no name?

i'm gonna say that they are too different to make a reasonable judgement. my question is what do you want? quick, hands on experence or long term learning/training experience?

let's take another look at the clues. been at a class for 7ish months. is currently a 7th kyu. is currently one of the tops students (or was it THE top) is (seen to be) the leader of this class.... is in uk but spells it 'mom'. who lives, in a house like this? david, it's over to you...

currently, i'm fond of slipping bong sau down to get to outside gate then switching stance to re-enter 'instantly', covering with tan sau/lap sau. um, this is for sparring+chi sau. i'm kinda working my stepping, turning and covering right now. need to get quicker. there's only so many times i can get smacked on the head...

intimidation referes to fear. why would you want your sparring partner fear you? i can see that if a relatively inexperienced guy might fear the act of sparring and if paired with a senior student this fear is increased but it isn't really the senior guy who is the source of the intimidation. there seems to be a confusion between going lightly against each other during sparring and not doing moves properly. i can use techniques EXACTLY as i would in a confrontation, the only difference is that if sparring against a partner, i would hold back on the level on impact (not drive in, just make contact) of strikes. (i should point out that in wing chun as i was taught, all strikes are seen in two stages - contact then finish so it's not like we don't train to hit 'completely')

just to point out that you shouldn't bundle the old guys who started 'tai-chi' when they were 65 two years ago and the 67 year old guy who has been practicing tai-chi as a martial art since he was 17... both might be 67, both might be doing tai chi but it is a world of difference between them.

to be honest, i'm still trying to define the difference between showing someone a few moves/ways of doing something and actually teaching them something... is there a difference? i mean, if i'm going to show you something that i think you might want to learn, then i'm going to show/teach you everything about it BUT that doesn't automatically mean i am teaching you (in the teacher-student format). why would i teach on a formal basis? by that i'll take it that you mean, open a class and accept students. well, i have no interest in taking a class or accepting students because i am still a very long way from being 100% in wing chun. in anycase, i have taught some of my younger cousins wing chun (well, two of them) which i took seriously. kinda like how i was first taught; slow, making sure that everything was being absorbed fully, making sure that they could actually use the move as intended before introducing the next bit... the thing is, even though it was ME teaching them, i emphasised that they were learning MY SIFUs kung fu. anyway, while this was fun, it's not really for me. i think that personally, i much prefere being the one learning than the one teaching. who knows, maybe if enough people ask me to them in an organised, hence formal, class i might organise a class of some sort. because it is then an organised class, there needs to be some sort of structure to keep things organised, hence the adoption of 'sifu' - 'to-dai' titles. hmm, which goes back to the question of when am i ready to do this. i think i'm ready when i) the guy who taught me says i'm ready for it ii) when i know i'm ready for it y'know, i'm kinda uncomfortable with titles. other people always bring their own (mis)conceptions to what the title means. the chinese way uses the title to denote that you are very good at what you do. when applied to a martial art and related teachings of, then sifu means that you are good at your martial art and that you have a family of students. it doesn't refere to anything magical or mystical. neither does it mean that i'm undefeatable. if i have a fight with some guy from some other style and i lose then so what? yes it means i have lost a fight but does that mean that my style is bad? that i'm not good? that i shouldn't teach? or does it merely mean that i was beaten by someone better? i'm not one to hold grudges and whether i lose or not doesn't really matter to me. if i win yay, great, i'll go lie down now until i stop hurting... if i lose lose, good, it's over, maybe i can get him to show me how he did that... martial arts is about learning. that's why the chinese term sifu DOES NOT literally mean MASTER. 'master' suggest too much which goes back to my saying that people bring their own (mis)conceptions regarding titles.

really??? hmm, another one to add to my research list. daaamn, still haven't found a good shorin ryu school to look at yet either...

don't forget the bruce lee posters....

i think i'll prefered to be called by my name unless i was teaching you on a formal basis in which case, according to chinese martial tradition, it would be sifu (martial 'father').

welcome to the world of international wing chun politics. i say don't worry about it. at the end of the day, the forms are the same and if you train the moves contained realistically then you'll be fine....

fair enough. in any case, good luck with training. have fun. keep punching...

y'know, after five+ years doing this, i still find the pak sau drills the most 'intense', especially starting from stationary. i still get caught mid thought and end up failing to step to the right place and my stance collapses or i can't even get that first step off properly.... that '0-60' thing is probably the most undertrained thing... anyway. always good to hear from anotehr wing chun guy. oh, a little question i like to ask. during sticky hands (poon sau) do you go softly yip chun style or heavy forward yip ching style?

even the new beetle? c'mon, you gotta admit, that ones a bit suspect....

ahhh.... so many things i could say to follow that... but i guess i shouldn't. too many kids about.

hahaha, little boy, if tyson goes back into boxing cos lennox lewis is retired i think it says something else....

um, gonna be a bit cheeky here. centreline theory, trapping hands, in close fighting... hmm, sounds like....

well, that kinda boils down to wing chun needing a reference in the form of another moving human being to understand how it works. you won't learn wing chun if you don't actually try the moves. the move being right or wrong depends so much on how you execute it under pressure and the size, aggresiveness, strength of the opponent, that if you don't practice it against a person , you won't actually learn it. instead you'll just be making shapes with your arms. also, wing chun is very much a close up game and most people have no idea just how close a wing chun guy likes to operate. this is why we tend to get you facing an opponent/sparring partner as soon as possible so that you get used to being so close to the other guy. the slap block, i'll take to be the pak sau + punch drills. this is probably the most basic exercise but also one of the most useful (as you can probably see having done it...). it trains opposing motion of both hands, open hand+closed hand, line, stepping, receiving, closing, angles, stance, timing and acts as a base for future reference.

...... not sure how many of you have noticed, this is in the CHINESE MARTIAL ARTS section. that means all you japanese+korean style guys shouldn't really be answering...

for the uk guys really as i'm not sure if everyone gets the same advertising (probably not i guess...). can anyone tell me the name of the track used in the new '30 years in the making' golf advert. the tune with the whistling. i know i've got it somewhere but i can't for the life of me remember what i's called or who it's by. thanks in advance...

maybe we should give them a name... how about 'friends of san...' sorry. been a long day...

bogbeast!?! hehe, you know, you're never gonna escape that name now.... at least not from me!

maybe i should stop hunting the for frauds... not really my job.

they're 'sport martial arts' moves.... hey another uk, guy. where abouts are you?