Essential Half: the Training Partner

I had the pleasure of running the latter half of class on Monday night. In that time, I wanted to make a special point - that the partner attacking the wing tsun student is incredibly crucial to the wing tsun student's progression.

There must be an emphasis on the attacking partner that s/he must attack with intention of hitting, with the proper distance of hitting and with the emotions of hitting. too many times our partners "go easy" on us or go "mentally lazy" as they play the role of an attacker.

What good is it to learn how to apply self defense moves against someone doing some softcore, pseudo attack??? I mean, yes, there are times where slowing down is good, but there are also times when it is not. In particular, when drills are what relatively well ingrained into the student or that the moves can be considered "elementary".

I wanted to create the idea that the attacker's role is to..well..be the attacker, not just simply model a punch, but actually try to punch the wing tsun student (without actually hurting them should contact be made).

As such, the wing tsun student must not see his/her partner as a partner at all, but as the enemy. The wing tsun student must remember that there's more to it at stake than purely going through the motions.

For some reason, our detail-oriented martial art some times leads us astray from the realities and blatantness of a real attack.

The partner is crucial. If s/he is giving you half-assed attacks to drill, you might as well just sit down and twiddle your fingers.

Until then.