Class Notes

Why Theory is Needed?

Why Theory is Needed?

Bruce Lee loved to talk about his theories of Wing Chun. But people got bored. His theories went in one ear and out the other. What's all that "blah, blah, blah." got to do with fighting anyway? "Can you beat up the world champion kick boxer or not? That's all that matters!" Then Bruce lee would demonstrate his one inch punch on the detractor. WHAM, the guy would fly back. Now everyone was all ears. They all wanted to know how Bruce Lee could develop such force. 

It is theory that can overcome hurtles. Theory can be used to develop a new champion who is better than the old champion. Theory can be used to devise new methods that can break the a world record in something.

When teaching students,  you can only spoon feed them so much. After awhile,  they have to learn to think on their own. A teacher cannot fight the student's  fights. Also a teacher can only present so many scenarios. Always something will come up which was not covered in class. For these reasons Wing Chun has a theory. For those who don't understand theory their are guidelines or simple principles for fighting. 

The overall fighting strategy of Wing Chun is to use economy. That means economy of motion and economy of effort.  Various Wing Chun principles try to steer the practitioner towards this overall high level strategy.  Use the geometry of the shortest path but do so using complete relaxation. So if something seems like a struggle and you feel a lot of force then you are not doing something correctly and must search for a solution to meet the principle or guideline. 

Tactics are how you implement the principles. Strategy is what you want to do but tactics are the methods to do it. So when struggling with a force a principle might be to change. Tactics include all the methods of change. For example in the crossed hands position a strong forward force can be met using the Replacement hand, the Disappearing hand, the Insertion hand, the Folding hand or the Meeting hand. These things come from experimentation or from your teacher or classmate.

Wing Chun is a theory for fighting. It is a system, not a random collection of ideas. It consists of pieces that all work together to achieve a fighting goal of efficient combat.

The Value of Theory

When I was in grade seven I used to compete in shot-put along with my classmate who was always a little better than me. He set the record in eight pound shot-put one year with a distance of about 27 feet. After that we went on to 12 pound shot-put. The Olympic people throw a 16 pound shot-put.

My distance for the 16 pound shot-put was about 40 feet on a good day when everything went well. My friend in competition threw the shot-put about 47 feet. So one day I watched him very carefully to see what it was he was doing. I went home and sat down with a pencil and paper and within a few minutes I could see it.  The old method of throwing the shot-put was like in the top picture on the left. A lot of big strong people we beat used this approach. we used approach number two in the left diagram to do this. But my friend did something different his approach was like that in the second diagram. The whole flight path for his throw was longer. So I went out with my shot-put and trained this idea. I called my friend over and said let's have a little competition. He said sure.

My friend threw his usual of about 46 to 47 feet. I threw 48 feet or a full eight feet more than ever before. He asked me what happened. I told him I practiced a lot and got the feel for it. A few weeks later we competed together in some provincial event. I threw about 46 feet. He threw 48 feet. I was a bit nervous. My action wasn't smooth. He was relaxed from his many competitions and at his best. From that day on I took an analytical approach to all sports.

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