What Is Chi-Sao?

What is Chi-Sao? Commonly translated as "sticky-hands", chi-sao is a two partnered activity, in which contact is always maintained and from that, partner A tries to hit partner B and vice versa. It's pretty much the soul of wing chun and, of its many benefits, the primary one would be the development of tactile reflexes.

I'm sure most of you know this. So let me tell you what chi-sao isn't:

• It isn't fighting
• It isn't a measure of one's fighting skill
• It isn't required (to be a good fighter)

Many wing chun'ers get caught up in chi-sao and focus their entire time practicing it. Easily, the other variables such as bridging distance, endurance, no-contact and peripheral vision are left on the back burner.

I always find it interesting that when someone with wing chun experience wants to check out another school, for some reason, they do a 'pseudo-chi-sao challenge fight." Why don't they just fight instead? I don't understand that.

Sure, maybe the other guy is not so good at chi-sao, but if he can tackle the chi-sao expert...hey, you tell me who's got good kung fu?

Take this video, for example. It's called "Superior Blocking"..which i think should be revised to "Superior Waste of Time". There's nothing behind the hits...just 'Tapping"..maybe they're just being nice. But, you can still be nice and controlled but really have a good, nicely placed fist that's ready to hit. It's just tap-tap-tap and it really looks like even if the hits get to its targeted, it really has no effect.

What's the point of tapping? if you had the choice to have one knock out right punch or a plethora of tactile reflexes for superior blocking and different angles of attack..which would you have? I'd opt for the knock out punch.

So what is chi-sao to you?

Until then.

Hack Away The Unessentials

I'm sure you've read the quote "hack away the unessentials"..or something like that.. made famous by the great Bruce Lee!

To this, are you familiar with Pareto principle? Also known as the Law of the Few or the 80/20 rule..it roughly states that 80% of the outcome is determined by 20% of the causes

Or it can be stated that 20% of what you put into something contributes to 80% of the progress.

It's a common rule in business - 80% of your income comes from 20% of your clients.

Now in the context of Wing Tsun, how does this apply?

the Pareto rules applies to us this way:

What is the 20% that contributes to the 80% of your wing tsun skill?

Perhaps your chain punch is lacking in power - so focus more time on the chain punches ONLY..nothing else, no chi-sao, no stance training, no partner exercises (haha, I wonder how Si-Fu feels about this concept...)

Perhaps your stance/structure is weak - so focus all efforts on stance training, and nothing else, no chain punches, no pushups, no forms training.

For some, training 20 hours per week is not easy to fit into their schedules. Beyond class, maybe you can only devote an extra hour per week. And when it comes to wing chun, there's just too much to work on: forms training, chi-sao, stance, partner drills, variations of drills, variations of chi-sao sections, physical conditioning, etc etc.

But if you only have 1 hour a week, or maybe 30 minutes, twice a week, why waste it on SNT if you already know it? Why waste it on lat sao if you're already comfortable with it? why do any of that when you know your chain punches are incredibly weak? or that you can't coordinate step and punch? or that you can't even keep all your weight on the back leg??

Find out what exactly is that 20% that you need to focus on and hammer away at that for that one hour...and according to Pareto, you'll get the most value out of it!

Until then.


*NOTE: IF YOU ARE FOLLOWING MY 1000 CHAIN PUNCH CHALLENGE, PLEASE VISIT www.mightygrasshopper.com AND SUBSCRIBE! Click on the "TRAIN WITH ME" TAB for all posts related to the program! I've been updating that quite regularly and a new post is up!