look closely – the walls are running with sweat
Not outside, the British weather did that all by itself, but inside. Even with the doors fully open the sweat was literally running down the walls at yesterday’s chi sao gathering in Redditch. Dread to think what it smells like today………
Massive thanks to all four of the gentlemen pictured here, my own sifu, Sifu Shawn Rawclife, Sifu Colin Ward, Sifu John Brogden and Sifu Karl Stanley, for making the chi sao gathering yesterday in Redditch possible. All four organisations were well represented and everyone mingled seamlessly training alongside each other as it should be.
150 people from across the country filled the room, travelling from as far as Yorkshire and Dorset. We even had an international flavour with folks making the trip from Wales…..
With well over a hundred people training in close proximity to each other for six hours it is testimony to the friendly and non confrontational approach encouraged by the chief instructors of the various groups represented that there was only one minor accident in the whole day and everyone had almost permanent smiles etched on their faces throughout the day.
It was great to see so many people with such a wide range of experience
happilly training with each other, from almost total novices to seasoned instructors and it was a real privilledge to have had so many Sifus and senior students under one roof at the same time. Everyone who attended the day had a great time and I’m sure everyone is eagerly looking forward to the new year in anticipation of the next chi sao gathering.
A big thank you once again to everyone who came along and made it such an enjoyable day.
I’m sure that the saying always used to be never bring a knife to a gun fight…….maybe they were wrong. Interesting reflection on how quickly the gap closes in a real fight and how relying on a concealed weapon to even things up is a big mistake. I hear so many people say they carry this or that, from sprays to kubotans, to protect themselves. As this fairly dated video shows unless you’ve got your self defence weapon in your hand already when the attack begins, you might as well forget it
Some common sense at last…….
More protection for householders – Yahoo! News UK
Chi sao today – coming along nicely
Just like being in the seventies
retro wing chun – no accounting for taste
Just done some training and after working my elbows for a few rounds I thought I’d post this up.
Training elbows is always an awkward one. The solid bone in the kinetic chain means that there isn’t enough yield to practice on the wall bag without jolting yourself to pieces. Focus mitts are okay but you need a partner to hold them and there isn’t always one about when you want to train. Best bit of kit that I’ve found for training them is the maize bag. When you add sand to the bag it gets really heavy, really quickly. Mine is just on the border of needing someone else to help me lift it when I decide to take it down. The fact that the bag can swing is great for creating a moving target and for taking just a little bit of the jarring effect out of the impact (it’ll still make your teeth rattle if you pack the bag with sand though!) but of course the trick is to hit into the bag and make a nice dent without the bag moving away.
There will be a video of me training elbows on the maize bag going up in the members area of Worcestershire Wing Chun kuen in the next few days, its only a short clip but it shows me working up a sweat…….
BBC News – Karate punching power \’all in the brain\’
via BBC News – Karate punching power \’all in the brain\’.
The BBC are running an article that suggests training in martial arts helps to build brain cells!
Admittedly for combat sports that train full contact all the good work is probably undone by regular blows to the head, but for the rest of us this is just another piece of evidence that helps to support the idea I’ve always subscribed to that martial arts are good for your health. It may be a stretch but increasing brain matter seems to me to be a good way to lower the risk of adverse brain related conditions in later life.
So the olympics are over and the football season is nearly upon us. Pundits on every media stream are telling us quite rightly that footballers can learn alot from the olympic atheletes and we have government campaigns aimed at getting more people involved in sport especially youngsters. I think the message from the olympics should be much more than that. The various stories of atheletes overcoming hardship to follow their dreams are inspiring and cross the boundary of athletics or competitive sports into other areas of life from academic studies to arts and crafts. If you want to be good at something the only person stopping you is you (within the bounds of finances and the law). The genuine satisfaction shown by atheletes who missed out on medals but performed a personal best is a reminder to us all that the only person who you need to compete against is yourself, that if you do your very best then you can be proud of yourself (and quite honestly who else matters?). Obviously this applies as much to training Wing Chun as it does to anything else. Of course as someone who is officially middle aged, who would be considered well past their peak for most if not all competitive sports it helps that Wing Chun can be practised well into old age and the olympics has inspired me to train even harder. I won’t ever get a gold medal, or even a bronze one because we don’t have them in Wing Chun but that’s cool, I’ll just be as good as I possibly can be happy in the knowledge that its a personal best.
sifuian 