chi sao

Could people from all lineages tell me the aspects of chi sao in their wing chun. For practitioners that have touched hands with different wing chun, could you tell me your experiences, what did you notice the same, different. Did touching hands with others give you new insight into chi sao and did your chi sao evolve from those experiences. For a practioner who has touched hands with many lineages, yip man, hung suen, pan nam, chee sim, yuen kay san, etc what line did you find the most skillful and inspiring.

i did chi sau with people from different lineages. I don' know under whom they studied. I also touched hands with a guy that studied in hawaii for 10 years. the major things i noticed were they had little root so i moved them around. also, they were a little more tense and a little more open then what we are.

With folks from several other schools over the years and have found that anybody not from my kwoon directly sucks and does chi sau all wrong.

This is, of course, a joke. but it does illustrate something that I have found, every school teaches chi sau differently.

For example, some schools seem(to me) to push and shove their way through chi sau. They place importance on uprooting and moving an opponent.

others seem very rigid to me. This may be because they have been taught to ensure perfection in the angles and positions of the arms.

Our school has been called "sloppy" in the past, due to our light touch and constantly flowing technique.

I don't belive I am qualified to call any of these methods "wrong" because chi sau is a learning exercise. if uprooting your partner in chi sau teaches a valuable skill for fighting, so be it.

as for changing how I preform chi sau, no it has not, however my chi sau has changed tremendously over the years due to constant practice with multiple partners, both from my kwoon and from the outside.

But to get a really good idea how another school operates, i would forgo Chi sau and jump right to "ok you do what you do and I'll do what I do"

Much more fun too :D

"I HAVE DONE CHI SAU with folks from several other schools over the years and have found that anybody not from my kwoon directly sucks and does chi sau all wrong."


That is actually the subtitle of this entire wing chun forum.

When you have reached an acceptable level in your chisau, chisauing with other quality practitioners as much as possible is priceless. You see, everybody has their own chisau signature – the way their energy and techniques are executed. Some are very firm, some very soft. Some are very direct, some are very complex. By chisauing with as many people as possible, you will accumulate and understand the different energy levels and angles of attack. The application of this ability is obvious in a real fight.

As far as wing chun is concerned, chisau is very revealing in one’s wing chun skills – you could say that chisau is the barometer of a wing chun practitioner’s ability. Unfortunately, and for this reason, the chance to learn from our fellow wing chun practitioners is mostly lost due to politics and personal egos. Most schools don’t encourage their students to chisau with other people for fear of them learning the truth. Many so-called wing chun practitioners don’t want to chisau with other people for fear of them learning the truth. Remember – the barometer? Instructors tell their students that other people are doing it wrong because they can’t explain to the student why he was so easily manipulated. The instructors don’t want to chisau with other people for fear of being shown up in front of their students. They give excuses like: What does it prove? I don’t chisau with other people because they will write about it on the Internet. They are using too much power. Blah, blah, blah, and the list goes on. The truth is, the objective and principles of chisau are the some regardless of your lineage or school. The only difference is, whether you can apply it or not.

There’s no quicker way to progress in wing chun skills than engaging in chisau, or gor-sau, depending on your level. And there’s nothing more inspirational to a wing chun practitioner than engaging in chi-sau or gor-sau (depending on your terminology) with someone of a high calibre.

Train hard & smart, my friends, for the road to personal self-discovery is accepting the truth along the way.
On second thoughts, forget that, for my truth may not be your truth.

:D :D :D

Excellent, Chisauking!
- kj

Yeah, nice post Chisauking.

You seems to be a well travelled man in the Wing Chun circle. I am interested to know who you have chisaued or have seen (in person, on tape or on the Internet) that you consider as quality practitioners? No need to tell me the bad as I know the list is endless :p

While it's an excellent idea to chi-sau with other people (and with as many people as you can) I'd have to stop shy of refering to it as a "barometer of your kung fu". While it may be an excellent indicator of your skill at chi sau, and while chi sau is an absolutely indespesible component of your kung fu training, it is not your kung fu. It's only one part of it.

I did Chi Sau with an extremely nice fellow a couple of years ago that I met up with, and was very impressed with the quality of his chi sau. His structure was very tight, he had a good smooth roll, could adhere and sense my arm position very well. But once we stopped doing Chi Sau it became apparent to me that he didn't really have any understanding of angling, intercepting, closing on an opponent, ground fighting, timing, any stepping except for straight forward, any sense of how chi sau links to stepping, any sense of how technique manifests using chi sau developed skill, or anything else. Pretty much just chi sau. When we actually broke to a small distance, and I just came it at him (not even all that fast or hard, not with any more speed or force than we had both been using during chi sau) the guy couldn't cope. He just wasn't used to someone moving around that much, nor did he have any idea how to move around. Had been studying for years, and had never done any kicking, or dealing with kicks. Couldn't deal with random punching attacks thrown against the upper body either. And keep in mind, i'm not talking about rapid fire Bruce Lee 1000 punches a second attacks. The guy couldn't fight his way out of a wet paper sack. But he had extremely good chi sau.

And then there's the question of what you're using chi sau for, and how you do it. I look at chi sau as a cooperative exercise to build listening and sensing skills and teaching you how to stick to your opponents attacks, allowing the oppoents force to direct you in the appropriate direction to step/turn to absorb/redirect incoming force while counter attacking from a more advantageous position. It's not a fight. I've had people try to break my nose before. I've also had people try and lean (body at a 45 degree angle to the floor) their weight into me to push me over, try and clench me around the waist (something akin to a body lock), turn it into a wrestling/judo match, go immediatly into a flurry of chain punches, never try and actually attack at all, etc. We also try to keep your partner out at the wrist while rolling, where some roll real close to the elbow. So we would set up, and person would adjust to midway up my arm. I would adjust back to the wrist. They adjust back to midway up my arm. I adjust back to the wrist....note: we haven't even started rolling yet. So the point here is this: If two people can't agree on a common platform and purpose for a cooperative developement drill like chi sau, what's the point in rolling with them? It's like two boxers arguing over how to do pushups. Not very productive, and unless you're goal is just to "reveal the truth of their crappy skill to some so-called WC practicioners" then I don't even see the point to it. And that's just ego-stroking, something I don't have a lot of time for.

I guess what I'm getting at is that although chi sau is a core component of what comprises your kung fu, it is not in and of itself your kung fu. It's a very important part of your kung fu, but it's just one part. So really, I don't know that it really functions that well as a barometer of your Wing Chun skill so much as it demonstrates how YOU do chi sau.

Just some thoughts.

Quote:

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Originally posted by Sandman2[Wing Chun]
I did Chi Sau with an extremely nice fellow a couple of years ago that I met up with, and was very impressed with the quality of his chi sau. His structure was very tight, he had a good smooth roll, could adhere and sense my arm position very well. But once we stopped doing Chi Sau it became apparent to me that he didn't really have any understanding of angling, intercepting, closing on an opponent, ground fighting, timing, any stepping except for straight forward, any sense of how chi sau links to stepping, any sense of how technique manifests using chi sau developed skill, or anything else. Pretty much just chi sau. When we actually broke to a small distance, and I just came it at him (not even all that fast or hard, not with any more speed or force than we had both been using during chi sau) the guy couldn't cope. He just wasn't used to someone moving around that much, nor did he have any idea how to move around. Had been studying for years, and had never done any kicking, or dealing with kicks. Couldn't deal with random punching attacks thrown against the upper body either. And keep in mind, i'm not talking about rapid fire Bruce Lee 1000 punches a second attacks. The guy couldn't fight his way out of a wet paper sack. But he had extremely good chi sau.

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Except for the ground fighting, IMHO you should be able to develop the above listed skills within chi-sau - and test them. If his pivoting and stepping was off you can use that.

I understand that you're saying that it appeared good in quality while rolling, and then came apart when you weren’t really testing him, maybe he, as an individual, wasn't use to being tested(??)

I believe that while it starts at the simple poon-sau platform, it needs to develop over time to cover a much more broad spectrum of things.

Rather than just 'bong-tan-fook', you need to add stepping at angles, pivoting, breaking contact then coming back into contact - depending on what you're working on of course.

me and my friend did 2 hours of chi sao today

While it is true that chi sao is only a part of wc training, why is it that it's focused on quite deeply? I've touched hands with one line of wc and he just performed one trap and that was it. In chi sao everything is suppose to be alive and always adaptable to what ever happens. There are always counters to traps until one is completly shut down. Isn't chi sao suppose to bypass thinking and rely on touch feeling? How does one apply this when there's a flurry of attacks as Sandman states?