So how fast should you punch?
As fast as you can! Well…yes and no. Let’s breakdown this question a bit. (Hint: Is it even the right question?)
At first, I was surprised to get comments on our videos which critiqued our punches as slow. Slow? Maybe we were slowing down for filming purposes. No. Perhaps we couldn’t move quickly enough. Uh, nope. This bothered me until I identified the underlying misconception.
The following post is a personal essay my student Mariano Wechsler. He shares his sensory experience of “becoming WingChun”:
Root down, branch out.
I drive my legs to the ground rooting myself down in the Earth. Like an old Oak sucking water from deep among the soil, I draw the energy from my feet into my legs and up to my torso to deliver power through my arms.
This pulse of energy passes through my body again and again like waves crashing ashore, one after the next.
I exhale sharply at the end of each movement as every muscle locks in clock-like synchrony. Continue reading
Motivate forward potential into action.
As I outlined in the previous part of this series, there are three types of WingChun footwork: stances, steps and strikes. For this article, Part 2 of 4, I’m going to describe the essential aspects of stances.
Like a drawn bow, a stance creates and stores potential energy (of position) in your legs, ready to be transferred and released into kinetic energy (of motion) as a step. I’ll analyze this model so you can apply it as a useful training strategy. Continue reading
Ready, set... Go!
I’ll end this series by starting with a quick review. Feed, Read, Deed is a model to process an attack and proceed a defense.
The Feed is how an opponent actually assaults you. The Read is how you optically register and mentally recognize it. The Deed is how you actively respond.
In other words, the Deed is a decisive act based on your best Read of a given Feed. It can range from fright to flight to fight. You may freeze up, take off or face down the threat. Of course, screaming, pleading or fainting is also possible! Continue reading
Balance your Selves.
Self-Defense is as much, if not more, about your Self as it is about Defense. 99.99% of the time you can avoid the Defense part (unless you live in a dangerous locality or frequent fight clubs).
But you can never ever escape your Self.
I love articulating the intelligence of our art as a scholar「文士」of WingChun. However, when I drift into excursus, brains saturate and minds wander. So I pause and shift to warrior「武士」mode. Continue reading
