What is the purpose of chi sau?

[rett2]

My take on the purpose of chi sau is it's prepping for a scenario like a woman in the passenger seat of a car getting assaulted by her date in the driver's seat. She can't win on strength, she can't flee from the confined space, but her arms are well trained to be like coiled springs to snake in through the tangle of arms and jab his eyes and throat. It's about getting hands on someone's face from clinch range to use cruel techniques that are only justified in an underdog situation of great danger. Long fingernails made stronger with lac polish are a plus. At same time as they attack the snake arms are instinctively deflecting his attacks. Any advantage she has is the element of surprise and her near-instantaneous response time to his actions through her sensation of the forearm contact. Whole thing decided in a couple of seconds max. She buys a few seconds to get out of the car, or she just makes him more enraged and it goes very bad. And it won't work if she's socially conditioned to feel compassion for the guy who's attacking her. ymmv, many years since I did wing chun. It didn't really work for me (or maybe I didn't really work for it, probably that was it).

[Sihing73]

Hello,

To me Chi Sau is training how to deal with energy.
Chi Sau trains principles of adhesion and also trains one to always present forward energy.
Teaches not to try and fight force with force but to accept a stronger force and flow with it while also training to redirect that incoming force away from your center.
But it all really comes down to energy play, imho. If you understand how to accept, redirect and extend energy then this will go a long way in helping improve your ability to utilize those same skills in a fight. Of course, anyone who tries to turn Chi Sau into some type of fighting or sparring has, imo, missed the point.

For Chi Sau to be effective it must be trained without a competitive mindset. What I mean is that while you can try to hit the opponenet your focus must be on proper technique and remaining calm not matter how frustrating it gets. I know people who, when they play chi sau, go all in for quick slaps and then feel confident that they could touch or hit their partner the problem is that those "slaps" have no structure or power behind them. To my way of thinking it is better to have a solid connection rather than be able to "slap" someone fifty times. Although, there is a time when such "slaps" may be warranted.

Anyhow, bottom line is energy play in my thinking while utilizing that energy to test and improve structure.