Wing Chun training at home.
I was reading a question someone had posted in a web site the other day asking how could they teach themselves Wing Chun at home, by watching You Tube, and by buying a wooden dummy to practice on. It was great that one of the several people who responded had the decency to explain to him that it just wasn’t going to work. It wasn’t going to be possible to teach yourself Wing Chun, whether from a book, a video. You need a teacher. Someone who can correct your errors or rather who can provide you with knowledgable feedback so that you can adjust to a better performance of all aspects of Wing Chun.
So what is the purpose of a Wing Chun class? We’ll initially it is where you learn the basic elements of the system. How to stand, walk, punch and kick. How to perform the first form – Siu Nim Tao. Then what??? We’ll there seems to be a range of actions. Some wait until the next class and go over everything from scratch again, others go home and practice till next class then come back and learn a bit more. Some do a bit of both.
It is virtually impossible to teach yourself Wing Chun. I can’t imagine the level of sheer genius you would need to understand the system and develop a reasonable level of skill. There are a few websites that offer you to learn Wing Chun on-line or by correspondence. Please do yourself a favour and not throw your money away. The Wing Chun system has to be shown to you. It is not so much an oral tradition as a physical one. You will need to feel the correct way to form the movements. You will need to have someone feel the way you do something and give you instant feedback.
You can see from the image above that there is always something to learn or improve on and that you need your Sifu to be there with you to see what your doing and offer a correction or add to your understanding. Here we see my Sifu – Grandmaster Jim Fung, still getting his Sifu, the legendary Chu Shong Tin, to look over him doing the Mook Yong Jan (Wooden Dummy) form.
The same thing applies to us, practice & practice, go to your class and let your Sifu watch you, correct you, tell you when you are getting it right. Don’t waste your class time playing catch up each lesson, practice at home a lot, you will progress well and use your class time to get your technique checked, corrected and improved.
Happy training
Sifu Chris
