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Originally Posted by
RGVWingChun
I agree that its not the "drill/exercise" itself but what what it teaches you, but the question seems to be can you develop "sensitivity" - or much broader, what wing chun seeks to teach - without doing a sensitivity/control drill? How do you develop contact reflexes without doing any sort of contact reflex training?
Chi sao isn't to develop "sensitivity" or "contact reflexes" -- it is a platform to teach/learn various contact skills. As chi sao is an unrealistic drill, any "reflexes" you develop will be wrong.
Good grapplers develop contact skills without doing chi sao -- how? By simply grappling. In other words, by using their contact skills in sparring.
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Chi Sau should be a means to an end, not the end itself....I think with that in mind for training, the unique method of chi sau develops the sensitivity (as well as other traits useful for fighting) that is pretty unique to Wing Chun's fighting concepts and method. I still maintain that without this training you are not doing wing chun...."stick to what comes, follow what leaves, hands free strike direct" is the principle....how do you do this principle if you don't understand the recieving and the sticking?
Firstly, your translation of the kuit -- "stick to what comes, follow what leaves, hands free strike direct"-- is very, very wrong.
Secondly, chi sao does not develop "sensitivity". Sensitivity is nothing more than timing derived from our tactile sense. But you don't -- and can't -- develop timing from chi sao since your partner isn't behaving realistically (he is not fighitng you). What chi sao "develops" is a false timing.
Thirdly, all forms of unrealistic training involve (by definition) doing the actions, movements, and skills wrong. So, the more you do unrealsitic training (chi sao), the more you waste your time and the worse you get.
Fourthly, you can learn and/or develop functional skills by simply doing that skill realistically.
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I personally think that the "skill" of wing chun is best understood through the chi sau training, otherwise you are left with simply a series of set techniques (this is presupposing that one trains chi sau with no set techniques but seeks to take advantage of every opportunity that presents itself through the openings of the opponent's defenses and not as set techniques - which, in my opinion, is not chi sau). May as well be Krav Maga and for self defense you are left to memorize a series of techniques which you can only hope that in a real situation will be executed exactly as they were in your training or else you are training to be defeated because you have not trained for adaptation.
If that's "all you are left with", then your WCK training was very, very incomplete.
WCK has a method, an organized, strategic approach to fighting (without which you are lost). It has various tools (skills and tactics) to implement that approach. It has a kuit to point you in the right direction. Instead of practicing the skills in an unrealsitic exercise that unrealstically represents contact/attached fighting, just learn and practice in contact/attached fighting.
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It is through Chi sau that one learns to flow and adapt to a changing situation and stimuli in the same way that "rolling" in jiu jitsu brings about their skill level to learn to apply the proper techniques for the proper situation. Would you have the skill of Jiu Jitsu without rolling? Probably not...likewise, could you have skill of Wing Chun without Chi Sau.
Go fight some non WCK people while in contact/attached and see if that "looks" like chi sao. It won't. That tells you that chi sao is unrealistic training. To develop your WCK movement/actions into fighting skills you need to practice using them in contact/attached fighting, i.e., sparring.
That's what rolling is in BJJ -- rolling is using your BJJ skills in sparring.
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now, stepping out of bounds a wee bit.....I personally think that many who want do not incorporate Chi Sau in their Wing Chun training probably do not understand it and it becomes nothing more than a rote drill (which explains the "set techniques" and "routines" that ends up looking like a 2 man fighting form rather than freely flowing and applying techniques.
my humble opinion again,
Moses
I practiced chi sao for 20 years before I realized that I had been wasting my time for 19 years! Once you can ride the bicycle with the training wheels on, it is time to take the training wheels off (and you don't even need the training wheels in the first place). Continuing to ride around with the training wheels on won't make you any better. You get better by just riding the bike.
Nothing is "rote" about sparring (which is riding the bike) -- all the functional martial arts use realistic sparring as their core platform for teaching/learning and for training (which is why they are functional).