Comments from participants:
Dan Robinson:
very good day, good time had by all. Was good to see so many people turn up. I was expecting about 30-40, there was possibly double that on the day.
Was a good look at all the aspects wing chun can offer, and a good mix of people attending.
Thanks to shaun, alan, paul and alan for sharing their collective knowledge and time with us. Thanks also to jon broster for organising the day, and the uma for having us all descend on the gym on gwoklin’s day off.
Nick, special thanks for taking the time (as always) to look at the different flavours on offer, and helping us understand a few of the finer points. Hope you got back home without too much hassle. See you soon.
I hope another of these days happens in the future, it was nice to see that instead of all the style bashing and ‘my lineage is best’ that sometimes occurs online, everyone just got stuck in, in the realisation that actually we’re not all that different. It was all taken in good faith with a good attitude to learning from each other.
Anyhoo, shawn rawcliffe started the day with a look at street applications of wing chun, looking at various options.
Alan gibson looked at turning as a response to pressure applied on your stance, and grew some drills from there.
Paul smith again looked at his interpretation of street uses, and his experience as a doorman. He was basically looking at how to end a fight as quick as poss, with a little on how to deal with a knife armed attacker.
Alan orr had a good look at stance and structure. He had some simple structure tests which people all tried, with mixed results. He then went to chi sau without strikes, the idea being to maintain stance whilst trying to disrupt your opponents.
Was all in all a very good day, a good mix of ideas and people.
As for the body structure stuff, alan orr’s whole take on that was ‘how can you win a fight if you can’t even stand your ground’ (not an exact quote, but in essence what i took from his words). We started that with a simple structure test where your partner placed his hand in the middle of your chest and steadily pushes into you, gradually pushing harder as your stance absorbs it (or not). this developed into non striking chi sau, not moving your feet and using stance to absorb and redirect. I think we also did a similar thing with alan gibson only taking the force onto a tan sau, redirecting it to one of your feet and to the ground. I think things like this are helpful and one key to finding and developing power from the ground, so it helped me a lot. I think if you need a good look into this i would recommend contacting alan orr directly, or nick forrer (above) nick has a good understanding on this matter and is on here a bit.
i dont know enough about any of this to comment, all i know is that the stuff alan showed, and that nick showed me after the seminar, it works. and it works well compared to other stuff i’ve seen.(in my limited experience)
Anyone else at the seminar? anyone else care to share what they learned that day? I hope so, because it was a good day which opened my eyes (which is happening a lot lately with wing chun) to a good many ways of doing things, now i just gotta sift through it all and filter out what doesnt suit/work for me.
Chee
I’ve been on holiday so I’ve not been able to comment earlier. It was nice to meet Nick at last, he’s bigger and more solid than I imagined!
Overall it was a very worthwhile day and very much an eye-opener for me to see so many interpretations of Wing Chun. But really Alan Orr’s approach was the one I found most intriguing but difficult to comprehend (more later).
As has been mentioned before, Shaun Rawcliffe and Paul Smith’s sections of the seminar were more technique oriented, drawing on their personal experiences of close quarter protection and door work respectively.
Alan Gibson’s section was excellent especially from a learner’s point of view. The initial drill was simple and structured, training some key concepts of Wing Chun like the sensitivity, elbow control. There was progressive building on top of this drill … when your partner pushes or pulls … stepping … control (laap) and punching. From a personal viewpoint a very satisfying experience.
Finally Alan Orr’s section. I think we almost went through all of Robert Chu sifu’s structure tests. I think we could have done with more time and/or more of Alan’s people to give pointers. I only really “got” the bong sau test after some advice and it was certainly quite different to what we, and I guess, most people do.
I have to say that the “look” of Alan’s (& Nick’s) Wing Chun looks very different to most. When they engage their structure it looks like they are leaning in with their bodyweight, but if the pressure is removed they don’t topple forward they just relax back into their stance (great sensitivity). When I chi sau’ed with Alan and Nick (earlier), it was a total joke on my part, I was totally off balance the entire time!
I liked Alan’s spinning top analogy where he likened himself to a spinning top that just spun incoming force off his centre. He then illustrated this using Nick as his partner. Instead of stepping away from Nick, as most people are wont to do, he simply turned Nick about and pointed out that he was in an equivalent position to having stepped, but without giving up his stability.
He then demonstrated a scenario where he did step but it was only half a body width and into his opponent, bringing himself into a range much closer than I would be comfortable with (clinch range).
Alan showed how he could simply hit 3-4 times at the range before someone could register the fact. Another way seemed to be some kind of wrestling move which I don’t have any experience with so I can’t describe what he was doing.
In closing I would like to thank Jon Broster and everyone at UMA for organising and holding such a great event. Also to all the instructors who presented their material and experience.
Personally, I would love to train some more with Alan Gibson and Alan Orr (and Nick), but that is for the future, family time permitting.
Right, time to big up Alan Gibson …
I don’t have my notes with me so it is all from memory and getting hazier by the moment. So hopefully the others can fill in.
Alan started with a punching - wu sau drill. One person punches, and the other receives with the wu sau, pivoting in the stance only if the pressure of the punch is great enough. The other hand is of course punching. Then your partner punches over your punch which retracts into wu, etc.
He was very particular about elbow positions of course. The punching arm elbow must be down to control your partner’s other arm. This also means distance is another crucial aspect. I had played with this drill the weekend before with Dan, but only on the day did I think that it was kind of like a “hands” version of the tui ma drill.
On watching Alan a second time I realised he was only pivoting very slightly, not like the exaggerated pivot I was doing! You really have to accept what comes.
I really can’t remember too clearly from this point on. The drill was extended into what if the puncher pulls on your arm and the responses to that, e.g. stepping, lan sau, punch, etc.
That’s pretty much all I can remember without my notes, and even they are suspect. So over to Dan and Nick.
This was another part of the seminar that I enjoyed a lot. The reason being that it was about building core skills rather than focusing on fixed responses. There was a real sense of progression in the drill.
