Steve McMinn, personal trainer and the author of the seminar feedback article, is featured in the upcoming book "The practical strength training guide for self-defense and martial arts" as listed for release by mid May 2007 at  www.kungfutheworkout.com.

 Wing Tsun Vancouver goes to the Island. Download the seminar feedback here:
http://realisticselfdefense.tripod.com/pdf/wingtsun_in_victoria.pdf (333 kb, 4 pages)

How to bring Chi-Sau to life!
As always, the mini articles in our blog are intended to encourage a analytical training, to promote the ability to look at your exercises and the understanding thereof from different viewpoints. The articles are by no means supposed to be complete. Anybody who has experienced training with practitioners of different  wing chun styles found out soon enough that Chi-Sau (clinging arms) as training method may not be compatible. You train Chi-Sau with your training partner, you learn Chi-Sau from your instructor, you teach Chi-Sau to your student, with anybody else you employ the end result of intense Chi-Sau training, you demonstrate or fight.

I wrote already earlier in the blog about the different  wing chun styles. Let's just say that the training goals and effects are viewed differently, which is more than understandable in a highly interpretive art like wing chun.  wing chun stands as a synonym for a variety of different Wing Tsun, Wing Chun or Ving Tsun styles.

When talking about Wing Tsun Chi-Sau let's look at possible variations of your daily or weekly training routine. First of all, training partners or even other instructors who differ in height, reach, weight, strength, let alone skill and ability require for your progress a very patient and dedicated instructor who can adjust the exercises to your very specific needs.

1. Now, let's start with distance. Train with your arms as far extended as possible without loosing the ability to maintain contact, balance or proper responses. Train in the ideal distance with movements as trained in your forms (Siu-Nim-Tau, Cham-Kiu, etc.). Now work as if your positions are almost completely collapsed, in the closest range possible.

2. Another variation is speed. Begin with correct but extreme slow-motion movements, switch to 'regular' training speed, then try to work with extreme speed. Here, during the last application, you may encounter a drastic drop in accuracy and ability to maintain contact.

3. Let's continue with pressure, starting out with a touch, which can barely be felt, resume with 'regular' pressure, and finish with very heavy pressure, under which you begin to understand how different muscle groups indeed have to be connected from toes to fingertips to maintain a stable yet highly movable structure.

Some of you might now ask what 'regular' means. This is of course almost impossible to describe with words. Feel free to join us for our next

Why have we chosen only three variances in these three groups of exercises? You can of course choose as many as you would like; three stands more or less for minimum, optimum and maximum of a particular exercise.

The preceding ideas are only a first few to bring some dynamic into your Wing Tsun Chi-Sau training.

 Go here to find an overview of past blog entries of interest!