Wen Hsiu Quan

For someone like me who loved reading up on martial arts in any good books that I can find I feel really spoiled to have the internet at my disposal. Where I used to have to buy a book and sometimes try to figure out what picture the typed words in it is painting I now have tons of Youtube videos to go through. Sure- we have to be careful with the information we find on the internet. That is certain... Then we also have to bear in mind that you can learn only so much from a video, but that a lot of videos, but not all, are actually intended to get you interested in the martial art the maker of the video is teaching and you get only shown enough to get you curious. Over the years, however, I have found some very generous Youtubers who share huge amounts of information. All of these people do an excellent job in promoting their art. Just to let you know who I am talking about- here are my favourite Martial Arts Youtubers up to before now: Jesse Enkamp- Karate Iain...

Hi, everyone! One of the my favourite training tools is the Wing Chun Dummy. Too bad I don't own one myself. Still- Regardless of what style you practice- this simple piece of equipment reminds you of one very obvious thing about fighting- Your opponent is not  a punching bag.  A lot of what I see in the way punches are done for basic practice or in forms makes it easy to forget that our opponent's have arms and legs. The path that our fists take toward their targets are often not without obstacles in the way. You would agree with me that it feels easier to land a hard punch on a wide open target than it is doing the same with a target that is behind an arm or a hand.  The creator of Wing Chun Quan- The Shaolin Elder Ng Mui knew this. That is why she deemed it necessary for a fighter to practice hitting a solid object, but with the portrusions that we see on our wing chun dummies these days. Punching bags serve a purpose too, of course....

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...