Week 19

Action-reaction. For people who are tense and resistant this is a good way of getting them moving by using their energy against them. This is a concept that we used to use in BJJ and Systema, it was talked about all the time in tai chi chuan but I never felt it was taught well or that I managed to begin to understand it. In BJJ I used to use it to get triangle chocks and bow and arrow chokes. In Systema is was constantly used to create movement in the opponent, perhaps what I need to do in my wing chun is to become less thinking and just try to flow more. I found in this lesson the more I think then that is when I make mistakes and loose flow.

Martin showed us the beginnings of this action-reaction drill from the lap/punch out of the 3 drill. When the punch is blocked, give energy by lifting the arm up and across his centreline at a 45 degree angle, when he feels this forward motion he will want to push against it. Let him and simply lap the arm and punch. We looked at various attacks from here; hitting through the centre, arm drag, kau sau, x-arm lock trap. To my memory, this was about creating gaps, feeling them and maximising your use of them.

Pak/lap drill: Working more reps – punching on every lap, then punching on every pak then inside gate lap. A final combo was working the inside gate on a cycle rather than selectively – pak, inside gate pak, lap and punch and repeat the roll. The partner is simply feeding punches forward. Don’t be shy about working it slowly and building it up.

Pad training. Started off with chain punching, as always Martin goes out of his way to emphasis that chain punches with fights. The pattern was start in pre fight stance, throw first shot hard by employing explosive footwork to compliment the hit, then follow up with several seconds of punches. For me, for the first time since I started back with Martin did my initial punch feel like anything reasonable on the pads. I felt like i had good feet and body structure. However I did notice that towards the end of each chain punch series my rear foot was lifting. So I need to make sure that i sit down and drive through every single punch.
Progressed to looking at the use of the lead elbow by again driving with explosive and balanced footwork. The drill was L punch, R punch lead elbow, then L punch, L punch, lead elbow. Got lots of practise with our weaker arm. Ended the session with a pyramid set to 7.