The 4 Elements of Chi Sau:PERT

To help with our Chi Sau training and development we tend to break it down into 4 areas of training. These are not levels which you progress through, rather they are all inter-dependant of each other and are parts of a whole. So in order of being hardest to grasp they are:

Position refers not to hand positions, but your position in relation to your opponent, eg at 45*, square on, at the side etc. This is the hardest to grasp, but once understood you can see the different options from different angles. This is very important, because without an understanding of the various angles you can utilize, you will be merely crashing in down centre and probably onto the opponents flurry of attacks. In Wing Chun we make an effort to be on the "outside", which refers to the outside of the opponents body. This is important because from the outside we have covered both the opponents arms with our one. If we stop a punch on the inside then we still have to think about the other hand which could attack us. However sometimes we must go on the inside, in which case we should stay there as it is faster to counter immediately than to move to the outside, then counter.

Energy refers to your Chi and how well you can focus it. Now this may sound a bit esoteric for some, but it is not. Chi in Chinese can be translated as several things: air, breath, energy, force, the cosmos etc. So what we are refering to here is the cultivation of correct usage of force or energy. This is developed through several means: practicing Siu Lim Tao slowly, repeatedly practicing basics, weapons and of course Chi Sau. In Chi Sau you should use energy only when needed, or you will become tense and lose the point of training. You should never meet force with resistance, but rather by yielding to it and redirecting it away. This is why a good Wing Chun person should feel soft and hard to grasp hold of, yet immensely powerful when required in Chi Sau.

Reaction is trained through Chi Sau and through various drills. In Chi Sau we train our sensitivity to touch, so that once we have got the first contact, then we can react much faster than if we rely on sight, in which case our brain must analyise the data and then react ot it. Eventually it will appear that your reations are so fast it will seem almost telepathic. This is not true, it is only because as Bruce Lee said "from your thought to your fist how much time is lost!!" What he means here is that when you decide to attack you have to think and then do it, by which time your Chi Sau partner will have already reacted because he did it out of instinct by training it over and over again. So that is why in Chi Sau we should think defensively so that we dont just charge in blindly, instead we just feel the partners movement and when a gap appears we intinctively strike through it. There is a saying in Wing Chun that goes "receive what comes, follow what goes, when the hand is free, thrust forward" or as Bruce Lee said in Enter the Dragon "When my opponent expands, I contract, when he contracts, I expand, and when there is an opportunity I do not hit, 'it' hits all by itself".

Technique is the only one that can be shown, the rest come from practice and cannot be learnt by books or DVDs. Technique refers to the correct way hold your body. Body and arm structure are vitally important to receive and to give force. If our structures are weak, then we will literally collapse under pressure, also we cannot exert as much power oursleves. We always begin by learning the correct techniques and then correct energy will develop and the nwe can learn application, when position and reaction will come into play so that the four are united as a whole.