Basics, Basics, Basics.....
Some people said in another thread they felt some other people haven't really talked about basics so let's get started, shall we?
First of all, let’s list each one and why it is important:
YthingyMa – The foundation of wingchun, without it you cannot maintain your ‘balance’ or your structure. With it you can stay solidly connected to the ground and deliver energy from it up through your body to your target. I find that practising this every day helps me to stop really falling over or floating away in a cloud of insubstantial excitement. That is, if you really really practise it, if you get out there and practise it with other people, on a bus, on a train, on a plane, with Sam-I-am, with green-eggs-and-ham.
Punching – Somewhat interchangeable with the unpronounceable ma, punching is the connecting of your body through the joints, ligaments, bone and muscle. With punching practice your root becomes more solid yet relaxed and your structure allows you to develop energy and direct it through your body (or any other nearby conduit) and away from the ground, using the ground as a virtual ‘wall’. Or, if you think that the ground is actually a ground and you can keep your feet on it as opposed to wall which you'd fall off unless you really really had a good root (but it's not for me to say that none of you really have a good root, I haven't had a chance to root you yet, but let me say I've been out there and rooted a lot of people, and none of you really have a good root).
Siu Lim Tao - SLT is key and used in many ways: precision of structure, precision in striking energy, precision of root. If you really really have been out there and found and practised these things you don't talk about it at all... maybe because you can't explain it in a very real way, or maybe because while all of you smack talkers are here trying to talk about things like this we are actually practising, away on seminars, away with the fairies, away away over the Seas (and bottles) of Rye.
Chi sao - if you're really really good to your sifu he might let you experience chi sao. I mean really experience chi sao. This helps develop the other basics and sensitivity, some people say sensitivity is key: sensitivity to the elders of your line, sensitivity to other people who have interesting and useful thingies to contribute (that lets you lot out anyway) , sensitivity to your opponent's energy. But they are wrong, they are not really experiencing sensitivity like a twenty-nine year-old fight virgin *****... who is busy, so busy, (Burns in Smithers' wet dream voice) twirling, ever twirling, developing sensitivity to direct energy from his opponent's fist through his teeth and downwards into his jaw. Where, where is, where oh where is this insight really going? Well I'm sure you don't understand, not because you don't not understand what the **** I'm talking about but because you've never really experienced it in that other place that isn't here in my head.
Then we have advanced concepts. Some people say that some people don't talk enough about advanced concepts. Now it's important to talk about advanced concepts as if you imagine they are basic, so that you don't just try them, but you know that you can do them, probably (sorry no, not probably) even better than any other poor delusional practioners who have made it their adult life's dedication to learn and practise and absorb and make these thingies into part of their everyday training and deep misunderstanding.
Am I missing any marbles? Anyone have any new insights into these thingies?