Dai-Sifu Rainer Tausend returned to Ireland on March 13th to give a weekend of student and instructor seminars. The instructor seminar took place in the Blanchardstown school on the Saturday starting at 1pm and finishing at 6.30pm with all instructors attending from the Dublin City Centre, Blanchardstown, Finglas and Larne schools.

The seminar began with Sifu Tausend examining the instructors performing the Siu-Nim-Tau, Chum-Kiu and Biu-Tze forms. The instructors then worked on basic Blitz-Defence. This deals with the pre-fight ritual where an aggressor talks themselves into a close distance from which to launch a surprise attack. The Wing Tsun practitioner will not stand with a classic basic guard/stance but will adopt a natural body position which allows them to protect themselves and keep a sense of distance similar to Geoff Thompson's fence. However as soon as contact is made between opponents then the real Wing Tsun kicks in with rapid counter attacks using chi-sau reactions. The instructors worked on this for many hours and for the second part of the day the instructors worked on their individual programmes.

The student seminar took place the next day in the recently opened Finglas school. Again, Sifu Tausend started the day by checking students performing the Siu-Nim-Tau and Chum-Kiu. Sifu Tausend again started with Blitz-Defence options against an opponent who is trying to intimidate you by shoving/striking you. Classic Wing Tsun principles state if your opponent steps into a distance where they can strike you then rather than waiting for them to attack, instead you take the initiative and attack your attacker. However a lot of real life attacks start with the attacker talking themselves into a close position so as to deliver a surprise attack. As it is not recommended to adopt a classic Wing Tsun guard/stance against every person who comes to talk to you, again a more natural body position that still gives you protection is needed. In order to protect the groin one knee is placed in front of the other however this restricts the ability of the person to pivot in the event of a shove/strike. Therefore the chest collapses slightly using the same idea of a crumple zone in a car crash, the body can pivot slightly and from there a counter attack can be made. The students started from this scenario and worked many variations in the event that their initial counter-attack failed.

The day ended with students being tested for their grades. Congratulations to the following students who successfully passed the exam for their respective student grades (SG). If your name is not on the list please contact us and we will include it.