News - 14th of April 2009

Tuesday the 14th of April saw the Blanchardstown WingTsun school celebrate its 5th anniversary. Si-Hing Michael O’Leary who is the head instructor in the Blanchardstown school taught the first class on Tuesday the 13th of April 2004. Since then the school has seen many students pass through its doors, some of whom only trained for one class, others for a few years and those who still train.

Students started the class with the Siu-Nim-Tau form before moving onto an application from the Cham-Kiu form. Michael demonstrated the movement where the sidling Bong-Sau turns into a lifting punch. There are three main points to this movement.

1.The body turns from a 45 degree angle in sidling Bong-Sau to a 90 degree angle when performing the lifting punch.

2.When the Bong-Sau turns into a lifting punch, the pivot point is the knuckle of the index finger.

3.The fist of the lifting punch will be parallel to the ceiling with a slight bend in the wrist.

From there Michael demonstrated how this can be used in a self-defence situation and following this the students worked on pressure testing some of their more basic techniques. One of the key elements to this exercise is that it is not WingTsun against WingTsun. One person has to play the part of the aggressor and the other plays the part of the defender. The aggressor can use any technique they want to attack while the defender uses WingTsun techniques.

Another key element is that while the exercise is kept very low contact, the aggressor does try and make contact with their punches, kicks, etc. The WingTsun strategy is used where the defender will wait until the aggressor steps in to attack. It is at this moment that the WingTsun person will counterattack. This requires the aggressor to make committed attacks which are the hallmark of a real life self-defence situation.

Students then worked on a scenario where the attacker does not directly engage with them but dances around them, feinting, etc. A common mistake for students to make is to chase their opponent using WingTsun footwork. A WingTsun step is only used when by doing so you can simultaneously strike your opponent. If you require two steps to strike your opponent then only the second step uses WingTsun footwork. The rest of the time you just approach your opponent keeping them under pressure and limiting their ability to feint and only when they are so close that you can strike them is the WingTsun footwork used in conjunction with a punch.

Everyone worked on this for 30 minutes and had lots of fun. One important point is that each person should fail to defend properly some of the time. If they are 100% successful then the pace is too easy and they are not learning. If a student or instructor never puts themselves in a situation where they might get hit then they will never see any real improvement in their ability. Similarly if they are getting struck too much then they will get frustrated and again will not learn. They key is to keep the pressure testing at a pace where you can see what you have learned is working but where you will also find room for improvement by losing from time to time. As your ability increases, so too must the pressure of the exercise.