Wen Hsiu Quan

Sun Tzu wrote in the Art of War wrote "If you know yourself you have one third's chance at victory. If you know yourself and your enemy you have two thirds' chance at victory. If you know yourself, the enemy and the battlefield victory is certain." All good and simple until you realise that the time at which you will know all 3 of the above shall very rarely occur. What it tells us about tournaments- where we can leave the battlefield out of the equation since we can safely assume that both fighters would know it ( fighting area, rules etc.) it means that your chances in a tournament should be 50/50 right? Well... if only the outcome of fights or sparring matches hinged on knowledge alone... The fact remains, where fighting is concerned, victory is seldom if ever guaranteed...  This is not only true for fighting, but for many areas in life. Growth, be it in financial investments, business or our personal lives, require the taki...

I remember learning the concept behind chi sao (sticking hands) in Yongchuan or Wing Chun. Although many teachers insist on having one learn and memorise the different defensive positions found in Wimg Chun forms I have found that these positions are naturally occurring events in a sparring match if a student understands the basics. Later- when I have learnt about Shaolin force training, though, I have realised that we cannot just discard basic movements or positions in martial arts. They are practiced repeatedly for a reason. Wing Chun is certainly not the only Chinese martial art that has fixed positions that one learn to move from the one to the other. In fact- Karate and Taekwondo forms have the same thing. Each of these positions represent a certain moment in time. It may be the moment your attacker's arm got lifted to expose his ribs, his fist got knocked downward to expose his upper body or face or that moment of having created just enough space for th...

Those of you who have been following this blog for a while would know that I value relevance over effectiveness. I have a very simple reason for doing so. I simply do not deem a martial art effective if its teachings are not relevant to everyday life. This is because fighting in itself is subject to the same laws that govern the universe as is everything else under Heaven.  Understand this and debates over which system should be studied or which technique should be preferred becomes of very little concern to you. I have once again found a lot of photos with which to decorate my post so that it looks a bit more appealing than just a mass of text that I want to drop onto you during the weekend- so I'll just ask you to enjoy the photos as you scroll down to what I have to say... Scroll on... Okay! We are here! The idea to write a post on subtlety has come to me during this week. I have realised how I had yet to apply one very valuable le...

Every style has its precautionary measures. Kickboxing coaches will tell you to keep that guard up, Wing Chun teachers will tell you to parry towards the opponent's centre line and with classic Shaolin you have to keep your hand over your groin when you do high side kicks or roundhouse kicks... That is all well and easy to remember until the free sparring starts. Back in 1997 I have used a free form of sticking hands when I trained with friends. It worked well, but there were numerous times where I used an inward block against the inside of a sparring partner's arm. This was not intended, of course, but then again- when we block and redirect a volley of punches- how much of what we do is actually intended? The hands go where they need to without you thinking and when you realise what has actually happened you realise that some of what has happened during the bout was not as prescribed by the text book. With a full-o...