Wing Chun – Structure or no Structure, that is the question!
After years of training and research, my teacher Robert Chu developed some basic tests to see if one had an understanding of and ability to control pressure with the frame of Wing Chun’s stance. This is very important to be able to control one’s balance and use of power. Since that time the Chu Sau Lei Wing Chun system has developed its whole approach to teaching based on the key principles of structural base. It’s become the buzzword in Wing Chun now and I hear all the time people talking about structure. However, every time I see what people are doing and expressing as their view of structure I can see they have little-to-no idea of what it really means in the sense that we use it.
The term ‘Structure’ or ‘Body Structure’ is being used to describe people’s explanation of why they do something, as if by saying it’s the ‘structure’ then it will be right and work. Over the last few years I have taught many open seminars to other Wing Chun groups. It made me realise why Wing Chun is developing a reputation these days for being an art that would not work under real pressure. Some people have become locked into the theory and not the ‘alive’ practice (i.e., working under some pressure!) We do have some excellent practitioners of Wing Chun, but not nearly enough!
I hit a wall during some of the open seminars I taught, as I quickly realized that many people had not come to test what they had been taught to see if they could improve their understanding of the martial arts, but rather had come to merely acquire a few new techniques and maybe enjoy a day out! It was a shock for them to be given principles that they found hard to understand. Why were they hard to understand? Funny enough, the reason was due to the fact that they can be tested under pressure, but the small amount of pressure they were given as a test was too far out of the normal comfort zone for them to operate within. So in the end, I could see half the guys were feeling ‘great’ but I can also see that the other half hated me for letting them know that they were not training correctly and did not have a clue. Well, no one likes the bearer of bad tidings as they say.
To be fair, I like to test the ego of new students by pushing them to test their belief systems. If they are open-minded they can take or leave what I show them. If they are already closed-minded they will blame me and say they didn’t like the way I teach etc. All good. The martial arts can have a big impact of our egos - some good, some bad. It’s important to develop a sound understanding of what makes us tick if we wish to improve and grow.
I hear a lot of people say: ‘In theory I would….’ Theory is half-baked, people! It’s all-good to have ideas, but they must be tested and you must have a protocol of how you carry these things out. Wing Chun is not a concept art as many choose to believe. Concepts are just ideas and not core standards. You must have principles, which are tied to the natural mechanics of the human body.
Principles are the key, once you have an understanding of the correct Principles then you can have concepts based from your core Principles. Concepts without core principles are just somebody else’s ideas, which are not a system at all but a person’s personal style of application. This is a limited approach to the martial arts in general.
It would seem that some people have been taught the same ideas for so long that they can no longer see the truth. I often show people the reason why we do what we do in terms of the structural control and then test it. Believe me or not, even after physically proving the correct use of the body you will hear people say, ‘Oh, in a few years I will make it work’ or ‘That’s great now I know what I’m doing wrong, I will work on it’ Work on what? You can learn something that you can’t make work straight away, of course, but you must be able see it works and understand it fully. The rest is in your normal training to get better at doing what you understand. But something that doesn’t work doesn’t get better.
If you buy a car you want it to drive well now, not in 5 years time! If it’s a powerful car then you may need time to get used to driving it, but you can see the potential in the car right now.
Now this is the same for other martial arts! It may take time to improve the skills that you are training but you can begin to see results now.
Let’s look at words. Why? Because we seem to get so wrapped up in words it becomes a whole new realm to disagree about! Does a word really mean what it is intended to or does that word represent an understanding of a situation or a chain of events? The words ‘body structure’ means what? Really body structure within the context of the martial arts can mean many things to many different people. When I talk about body structure, I use the term as heading to the complex subject of how, why and when the body and mind work to achieve a specific goal. That's not to say body structure itself as a physical manifestation does not exist, or that it is purely a word, but in terms of a principle it's really just a label for many things.
The term rooting or having root is often used in the martial arts to describe either the idea for the physical application of controlling one's body position under external pressure. We use a word as a label for understanding what we are doing with our bodies. Therefore, one might say, in order to maintain balance under external pressure (i.e., someone pressing or pushing you) that you may need to have good root. Now this does not mean that by saying a word that you can automatically control your balance. The word is just really a label of communication to inform you of the correct protocol to apply in the given situation you're in. That would mean when training you are taught if someone is pressing towards you then you must lower your centre of gravity and direct the force through joints using the correct vector angles to gain alignment and engaging the correct amount of muscular contraction and tone, which would allow you to maintain your given position. Also, this would take into consideration the fact that you would need to constantly adjust your pressure via the feedback of your nervous system to your brain. Therefore, you can see that it's much quicker and easier to tell someone to root under pressure, rather than explain what that word means, in relation to the activity each time. So yes, you can say there's no such thing as rooting or structure, but you can also say there is no such thing as ‘base’ in BJJ. And again we run into the same problem. What is base? Really base is no different to body structure. In fact, having good base and having good body structure is the same thing. The only difference would be the environment that you relate to a protocol on what it means in relationship to the activity that you are involved in.
If I am training with my BJJ teacher and I can’t do something or solve a problem then the first thing I do is go back to basics. Base – balance, position, control of weight, release of power, timing these are the key Principles. This is the same as body structure on the ground. Then you have concepts, which would be the dynamics of understanding control of pressure and application via these principles. I don’t tell my teacher well that’s what I was told by … I don’t say well it may work when I can do it better… I don’t say well I been doing it for x years…. If it’s not working now it’s not going to work. My BJJ teacher will always say something like just move your hip or just make your base. It’s always the Base/ Position – key Principles.
When I am wrestling I find new students very quickly learn to control their balance, otherwise they get thrown around all the time. This is a core principle. Pressure tells you when something is wrong. It gives the chance to test and develop and therefore learn more quickly.
Wing Chun is the same, that’s why we have Chi Sao. It is Wing Chun’s rolling, a testing ground for feeling out your understanding of pressure control with resistance but it must be done in a robust manner to test the core power and balance.
Chi Sau must be dynamic and must be done with the tempo and rhythm that represents the normal movement and aliveness of your sparring. All too often I see Chi Sau performed in a static compliant fashion, which has no relation to the dynamic flux of a combat situation. If Chi Sao is trained in an unrealistic manner, as it so often is, you will see a person become even less co-ordinated than normal. This is totally the opposite goal of the practice in the first place! You then have Wing Chun students with an eye for the wrong things altogether! In fact a student of Wing Chun from another school once asked me my opinion on their Chi Sao skills and when I told them they were not training the right things they started to defend their methods and attack mine, which was in fact very funny. They had such a strong belief in their compliant training methods that they could not see the facts. I did offer to have a friendly test of these ideas and they said that they don’t test it. Okay, no problem, but then it’s hard to have an opinion. You don’t have this problem in Wrestling or BJJ. Everyone knows if what he or she are doing works or not. The sparring is controlled of course and has many rules, but within these rules you can still test the core principles. Chi Sao must be the same or it’s training you to not deal with the correct level of pressure you will receive in reality. This will in turn increase the level of shock factor in a real fight, which is the last thing you need. Wrong place to find out!
Ask Question to yourself daily, even the same ones. The answer sometimes changes!
Sparring… Yes or No? Good or bad?
I ask lots of Wing Chun guys what kind of sparring do you do. Most Wing Chun guys only seem to do Chi Sao, which is important, but it’s only one of the building blocks you need for the skills required in a fight or self-defence. It is only part of the mixture. Sparring is an important method of training to help you start making use of these skills in a more open environment.
The guys that only Chi Sao with no pressure will say they are not fighting but that they are working sensitivity, but they don’t spar! So when do they test if they can take pressure? When do they test if their sensitivity training has paid off? Chi Sao must be linked to your sparring. Therefore you must train skills for development in a controlled way, but you must also Chi Sao with pressure, which crosses into Gor Sao (Crossing Hands), which in turn becomes sparring.
The other end of the spectrum is that if they do sparring then they automatically think they are better for it. Tough training equals better skill – wrong. Remember sparring is also training. It’s not a fight. A fight is a fight, be it a real fight or a sport fight. Hard sparring is a benefit to one’s development and is close to being a sport fight but sparring on the whole should be used as a tool to develop and check your skills. It should be done with different goals and levels set in place. Tough training is useful if you have a plan of what you are going to improve upon. Pressure testing your sparring means you try to put the hurt on each other. That’s not day-to-day training and not for everyone, but the minimum is to glove up and hit, move around and see what is working. You must be able to play the game otherwise you will have no chance of a home run.
Power is number one!
That is a full understanding of power. Some assume that we are talking power against power. In fact I have even taught some students whom even after some time imagine that as they can now issue power that that’s all we are talking about. Producing power is 101 and often misunderstood. But that is only one stage. Controlling your own balance and producing power are the starting points.
I have another question for you – can you punch full power and not lose control or give your base away?
Structure is not just about the understanding of vector forces and kinetic chains, it’s what you do with them. Linking power and delinking power is the key to being able to root your body and control your centre en masse whilst also being able to release pressure and direct it using your joints correctly. This is the higher levels skill. To have power you must know the stepping-stones to developing it, before you can be free to express it in a functional manner.
Many practitioners at a high level will naturally develop structure skills in order to deal with opponents. This can be from years of training and time dealing with the same problems over and over. This is normal, but only the practitioners that spend a lot of time gaining feedback from their experiences will stand out. They will often teach what they think they are doing and believe it to be so. But can their students also do it? Can students develop the same results in a quicker time span? This is often the problem - they have naturally solved the problem and have passed the need to know the real answer. With Body Structure we talk about the natural use of body mechanics etc but what is natural? The correct, natural way is lost for most people. They spend a lot of time not exercising, not working out, then start martial arts. That is why for most people learning forms in their art is a method of relearning the basics of body movement. Of course once you have learned this then forms are not of so much importance.
I teach the three forms in Wing Chun very quickly in order for the student to get an overview of the system and its principles. Nonetheless it is guys with a strong understanding of the forms and the movements that ultimately have good sparring skills as well. The forms reinforce your intentions within your striking and reactions in Wing Chun as we have Chi Sao to play with the reactions and changes to our base principles of controlling an opponent. If you train your Chi Sao in a non ‘alive’ manner this will not be the case. If you never spar this will not be the case.
The victor writes the history. If it works it’s right, right? Well not always. Any test must be based on more that one person’s ability to pass. The key to learning structure principles is to reach this higher level of course, but by learning and basing your understanding on core principles you will end up with a clear course of development to take you on this wild journey of martial arts.
I think it might be worth making the point that there’s a difference between something you just have acquired and something that you can teach. A system or clear set of paradigms is important if a skill is to be passed on. Otherwise it is very easy to end up with person ‘A’ thinking person ‘B’ understands what they are teaching and also for person ‘B’ to think that they understand what person ‘A’ is teaching, when in fact they are both completely on different wave lengths.
Doing things is a natural way would be great if life were that easy. I'm not saying this approach doesn't work because it often does, however, research has shown us that what we learn when we are young becomes hardwired skill sets. In order to make a change or redevelop our early learning we sometimes need a new to track run on. This means developing new protocols, which take into consideration our new environment and situation. Once we reach a level of new conscious competence we can become free again and then aim to develop unconscious competence.
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. Aristotle
A limited mind has limited understanding. That is why I push my students to have an open mind to what we are doing but it is also important to have a protocol of what you do and why you do it, otherwise you can chase your tail. You have to believe in what you do. As long as you have tested it and are happy with the results then you are good to go. Mostly I have new guys come that have tried different arts and have not reached a level they feel they should have from the time they put in. They come ready to learn. That is the way to be, ready to learn.
When I first went to train with Eddy Millis at the Shark Tank in LA, Eddy showed me his legs kicks. I had never seen anyone kick that hard, but the funny thing was that he was not trying to kick hard! Well, after he’d shown me the principles of this method I was able to see very clearly why he could kick so hard with no effort. The reason I could see this was due to my understanding of the protocols of Body Structure; it allowed me to see the keys of what he was showing me. The next step was adding this new layer of principles back into my own kicks. This was easy due to the fact that Eddy’s kicks used the same principles, but as a K1 fighter had a deeper level of layers, which translates as more experience. Another such person is Steve Morris, he kicks and punches very hard and has massive experience and skills.
So lastly if Body Structure is using natural mechanics is there only one way? No of course not. There are some Principles that I see as set in stone and others that can be used differently depending on which platform you work from. I work off a Wing Chun and wrestling platform within my Body Structure. Others will use different platforms; this is not what is important. It is the full understanding of Principles and Intention that are the important factor.
Is Wing Chun Soft or Hard, Internal or External? You think about it. I will tell you what I think next month!
Alan Orr is
a disciple of Robert Chu Sifu and the European representative of the Chu Sau
Lei Wing Chun system. Teacher of Tui Na Chinese Massage Therapy
He is also the UK representative for Guro Mark Wiley in the Filipino martial
arts and Sensei Eddy Millis of Shark Tank in NHB/Grappling.
Web:
www.alanorr.com
www.thechinesemedicineacademy.co.uk
www.warriorfunctionaltraining.com
For further information Tel: 07958 908 196 or email: info@alanorr.co.uk