Wing Chun Training Tips:

1. Do not compromise your technique for fear of hurting your training partner.  Adjust your distance instead and avoid training in bad habits.
2. Remember not to think of hitting with your fist, instead focus on hitting with the whole of your body and mind.
3. Get touchy feely with your training partner – it is difficult to explain in words but easy to feel what the body is doing.
4. It is natural that the Wing Chun punch feels weak at first.  Once you have the right structure you can add speed and power.
5. In training drills point out the holes that appear when structure is lost to help your partner get a feel for keeping the ‘gates’ closed.
6. In training drills use Fa Ging to introduce disruption and getting used to neurological shock and the avoidance of being shocked.
7. Use your time in class effectively – this is a workshop to test your weapons in a controlled manner with increasing intensity.
8. Relaxation comes through correct structural alignment and must not be confused with being ‘floppy’, collapsing the arms.
9. Keep the tip of your wedge (fingers/hand) focused on your opponents centre, without this you will loose the deflective effect.
10. Don’t be tempted to break into free-form Gor Sau until you have properly nailed the structure of Chi Sau – give your body /brain time to properly ingrain the correct feeling and application.
11. Test your partners forwarding at all times to help them avoid holding their arms in a static way – hanging from the shoulder rather.
12. The path to relaxation is helped greatly by regular massage – helping undo some of the tension that incorrect structure and muscle use bring.
13. Having mastered your body structure and found relaxation those activities (like Bong Sau) that used to cause you shoulder ache can actually help clear this from your day-to-day life activities.
14. Shock and disruption are a big part of Wing Chun – which is why it is important to include contact in your training.  This is essential preparation for a fight situation.

Wing Chun Insights:

1. In time, the mind and body will move as one – like in driving where you learn to control the car independent of focusing on individual controls.
2. Each of us must choose the path which leads us into the dark or the light.
3. With only limited time, space and energy in our lives we must choose wisely the things we will fit it with.
4. Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.
5. Integrate your practice into your daily life so it is no longer about willpower and it becomes a habit, and this habit becomes a way of life.
6. Wing Chun teaches us humility – we must first let go of everything we think we know before we can receive the benefits of it’s wisdom.
7. Finding relaxation is so difficult because it involves looking into oneself – the first step of internationalisation and a paradigm shift.
8. There are many difficult ‘walls’ in Wing Chun that one has to work through.  Achieving relaxation is by far the one that takes the most casualties along the way.
9. Once you have entered the circle of Kung Fu, like a circle there is no end  to your training.
10. It is easier to behave yourself into a new way of thinking than thinking yourself into a new way of behaving.
11. Mistakes, set-backs and frustrations are just as much rungs on the ladder to success as insights and achievements.
12. Our internal world is reflected in our external world; it’s our perception that helps colour it’s darkness or light.
13. The sunken stance – the feeling is like hanging from a string whilst being rooted into the ground; a Thunderbird puppet with magnetic feet.
14. In practising we move the arms and legs, in mastering we move the mind; where the mind expresses the whole body moving as a synchronous unit.
15. Wing Chun connects you to the past, present and future; it gives a sense of tradition, being in touch with yourself and passing a wondrous legacy to others.
16. Two things in Wing Chun define you – your patience when you know little and your attitude when you know much.
17. Breakthroughs in Wing Chun are like adding a new colour to your palette; it adds new dimension and depth you have to rework through the entire picture.
18. At first the student manufactures structure by putting their limbs in place until learning to relax and forward when positions then find themselves.
19. Letting go of force and using structure instead to deliver incredible power is a strange, disembodied feeling at first for the Wing Chun student – one the mind takes a while to get used to.
20. The Wing Chun path is full of ‘epiphany’ moments – the experience of sudden and striking realisation.  These are ‘light bulb’ moments where you truly grasp, feel and understand a new part of your training.
21. Only having gained control of your own structure and balance can you turn your attention to borrowing and disrupting your opponents – this is why it is critical to have fully understood Sil Lim Tao before moving onto Chum Kiu.
22. “I am not teaching you anything.  I just help you to explore yourself” – wise teachings from Master Lee Siou Long.
23. To use Wing Chun effectively you must master it – to do this you must master yourself.  To master yourself you must come to trust in the correct use of the principles and techniques of Wing Chun.  Most importantly, though, you must trust yourself and your body.
24. Mastering Wing Chun requires breaking off self-limiting shackles and releasing your incredible potential.  This is not a ‘next belt’ activity.
25. Sharing and clearly explaining insights / experiences with a training partner allows you to progress twice as quickly.
26. Progress is slow learning from your own mistakes.  Real speed comes in learning from other mistakes.
27. The process of helping others to understand better helps you to understand at a deeper level – a cycle of continuous learning and refinement.
28. The cells in our body are replaced entirely every 7 years.  Who can you become in that time?  Transform and reveal your amazing potential.
29. “We are so used to being stimulated from the outside that we find it difficult to be quiet and enjoy the stillness of our own mind” – a wonderful insight from Geshe Keslang Gyatso.
30. Training inner aspects of Wing Chun takes just as much time and attention as the external ones.  Training both together is the path to mastery.
31. Once you have structural body unity next comes body and mind unity – allowing you to move and respond effortlessly with relaxed, maximum force.
32. As logical calculations give you a controlled way to deal with mathematical problems, Wing Chun principles offer a structured way to deal with an attacker.
33. Just as meditation offers a path to relaxation and self discovery, Wing Chun principles provide the means to use these in a controlled way.
34. In Wing Chun you will face may walls – yet each wall has a door.  To pass through you must ask the right question and accept the challenge of the answer.
35. Although learning Wing Chun does not follow a linear path, there are certain elements of structure that must be mastered before other parts can function correctly.
36. Seeking the meaning of The Little Idea will bring an understanding of correct structure, moving away from positioning the arms in Siu Lim Tao to the arms finding their correct positioning through structure and forwarding.
37. Relaxation and structure allow control through feeling; sensitivity allows us to switch from a path of resistance to one of acceptance.
38. In Wing Chun we must find balance in ourselves before we can seek the bridge to the other, after the other we find balance with all things.
39. We all must walk a path, but choose not where the path will lead but one which you can enjoy the beauty of as you pass along it.
40. Using correct shifting around the core allows the Wing Chun fighter to be like a ball in water; deflecting the opponent without resistance or force.
41. There is no linear path between technique and principle; they are different levels requiring a leap of faith – trusting structure and yourself.
42. It is often said by Instructors to their Students that they should not use tension – which confuses them as tension is the starting point from which Wing Chun begins as it moves to find the way to relaxation.   It is always better to remove frustration and more tension by helping the Student understand this.
43. The beginner should recognise they must change the way that their body and mind works – whereby concerted effort and time will gradually reduce tension.
44. Relaxation is not a war that is suddenly won – instead, it comprises many lengthy drawn out and hard fought individual battles; in the legs, shoulders, arms, hands etc.
45. In a world where things are demanded immediately and are fleeting, Wing Chun is reassuringly slow and enduring.
46. I know those who stand beside me have endured as I have, with determination they too have transformed themselves.  There are no short-cuts in Wing Chun.
47. On yeilding: “Softness is the mind of a willow, which turns the force of the wind against itself.  Suppleness is the way to be strong” – insights from Sifu Donald Mak.
48. For those with an inqusitive mind Wing Chun offers the world of introspection – calling upon an understanding of neurology, psychology, biology, anatomy, physics and much more.
49. For those who seek to understand, Wing Chun helps take the first step.  In finding yourself you can connect to others and the natural order of things.
50. In seeking to make sense of the world around us we must first look inside.  Wing Chun offers a positive route to discover new meaning in life.
51. Applying Wing Chun learning in life – feel and control obstacles, do not fight them with strength, be empty, relaxed and let them pass you by.
52. Wing Chun provides the mindful student a path from the shackles of rational control to the freedom of natural expression through movement.

The Physiology of Wing Chun:

1. Diaphragmatic breathing activates the calming, energising Parasympathetic nervous system and avoids the Sympathetic system’s ‘flight’ or ‘fight’ response.
2. Modern scientific insights in anatomy and physiology support the ancient wisdom that guides us to understand, respect and develop our bodies.
3. The control of adrenaline is hard to practise in a class environment but it is key to correctly using power and structure in a fight situation.
4. Practising focused Qi Gong, channelling internal focus and energy helps prepare for and control the chemical physiological responses in a fight.
5. The Levator Scapulae is the muscle used to shrug and also incorrectly lift the Bong Sau from the shoulder.  Isolate and remove the use of this from your Wing Chun training.
6. Many Wing Chun instructors will tend students to keep their shoulders down when doing Bong Sau.   This often confuses students until they realise that to do this means learning to use different muscles.
7. As with every aspect of Wing Chun learning, internal introspection of muscles, relaxation and structure will lead to the path of the correct Bong Sau application.
8. A basic understanding of the anatomy of the back and shoulders helps greatly the student seeking the path to the correct use of Bong Sau.
9. Isolating the Scapula is critical in being able to relax the shoulders without compromising the upper structure (top triangle) of the back (Ting Bok).
10. With relaxed back structure and with the shoulders isolated (Ting Bok) relaxed triangulation and structure in the arms allows the Bong Sau to natually to form and find itself.
11. Until the isolation of the back and shoulders is achieved the Bong Sau can only be artificially placed into position using the wrong muscles.
12. When the elbow is stabilised the speed and power of the Tricep muscle can be effortlessly released.
13. To learn balanced control of the elbow introspect how the Fook Sau (inner), Man Sau (central) and Tan Sau (outer) hand shapes affect the elbow.
14. Force on the inside of the forearm to the Fook Sau requires balanced adjustment to the elbow Lateral Collateral Ligament.
15. Force on the outside of the forearm to the Tan Sau requires balanced adjustment to the elbow Medial Collateral Ligament.
16. Balanced control of the elbow Medial, Lateral and Collateral ligaments maintain the arms structure and allow the Tricep muscle to drive this forward.

The Neuroscience of Wing Chun:

1. Chi Sau develops direct links from the Somatosensory Cortex to the Motor Cortex, a fast track bypassing the Pre-frontal Cortex.
2. Sil Lim Tao maps out body positional structures direct onto the Primary Motor Cortex region – a mental map of the form techniques.
3. The Pre-motor Cortex is responsible for preparing limb movements.  This has a slow and a fast route – Wing Chun teaches us to use the fast route.
4. Following an opponents arms and consciously putting ones arms into place involves the use of the Pre-frontal Cortex.  This is the slow route to the Pre-motor Cortex.
5. Using sensitivity and relaxed structure taps into muscle memory and the Primary Cortex which has super fast links to the Pre-motor Cortex.
6. Wing Chun literally involves reprogramming our brains – which is why proper attention and application in Sil Lim Tao is critical.
7. The use of peripheral vision allows the brain to avoid the slow track of conscious processing in the Pre-frontal Cortex.
8. Mapping structural positions of Sil Lim Tao to the Primary Motor Cortex involves writing and re-writing our brains as we learn and progress.
9. Chi Sau training allows us to train Somatic Reflx Arcs – direct links between touch and skeletal muscle response.  This is what is referred to in Wing Chun as ‘Sensitivity’.
10. By training the Somatosensory Cortex we can create automatic, lightning fast Wing Chun reactions.
11. The Parietal Cortex is involved in visualising and using the Centreline, triangulation & gates (inner/outer/high/mid/low).
12. The Parietal Cortex is where our brain collates the other senses to build a picture of and interact with objects in the environment around us.
13. The Cerebellum controls posture, balance, timing and sequenced learning; it is heavily engaged when training Sil Lim Tao.

The Psychology of Wing Chun:

1. Having trained your body and mind in Wing Chun you have become a powerful weapon.  Now find the trigger to let yourself unleash its power and do your thing.
2. Trusting in your structure is a big step but a bigger one is trusting in yourself; allowing your body to do its thing in a combat situation.
3. It is important to have calm, calculating focus on defeating your opponent.  This is not the same as getting in cheap shots.
4. In the deliberate absence of anger you must be able to channel the same fighting focus, power and intent from within you through your training.
5. It takes practice and control when pumped up on adrenaline not to let animalistic rage take you over and instead employ Wing Chun principles and techniques.
6. With every step forward in Wing Chun comes the feeling of having to take two steps back.  Embrace it, as this always remains throughout your training.
7. After the ‘peak’ of elation from having a breakthrough moment in your training comes the ‘trough’ of having to slowly embed this new learning through everything you have already learned.
8. Most top athletes use visualisation techniques to get themselves into the right mental space to perform.  You can in Wing Chun also – in fact, it is a critical part of balancing the 3 – Dantien, having a mental focus and control over yourself (emotions) and your movements.
9. It is your mind which makes your world.  When you train in Wing Chun train your mind at the same time as you practice your body.
10. The path to a quiet mind involves self forgiveness – repent for your wrong doings and redeem yourself not to do it in the future.
11. Like a toddler learning to walk, the Wing Chun mind seeks more stable, connected, coordinated, controlled, relaxed, refined and effortless movement.
12. Trusting in your structure and letting go of muscular force is a critical step-change point in Wing Chun – a red pill / blue pill moment (Reference to the The Matrix where Neo must make a choice to enter  whole new world).
13. As an internal art Wing Chun is an exercise in mindfulness – it is a journey of self realisation and self actualisation.