–Preface–

The following text is part of a series documenting my time in Tucson, AZ, in the Spring of 2025, for Augustine Fong’s Wing Chun Gung Fu Federation Annual Seminar. The series is broken into short digestible parts, some describing my experience in Tucson generally, and some with detailed notes from the seminar.

Saturday, 26 April, 2025 – The Seminar – Day 2

The Seminar – Chi Sau Notes

A student asked how to handle all the competing suggestions from different teachers. Sifu Fong suggested when being corrected by different advanced students and instructors, listen and try the correction. Adjust and use what helps. I might add, it is wise to give the recommendations a fair hearing, as there might be some less obvious lesson there.

Sifu Fong suggested keeping the forward energy “natural,” and not too forward.

A student asked why sparring is no longer incorporated into the training. Sifu Fong commented that Americans like sparring, and it is often done for a marketing purposes, but now he doesn’t do it.

The “+1” concept was touched on again. People seemed very curious about how to achieve +1, and how to counter it. Sifu Fong said that one’s demeanor and look can put the opponent at a disadvantage prior to contact. Once contact is made, do not lose the upper hand in control.

In chi sau, when using the taan sau to straight palm strike, if the opponent defends with a jaht sau, roll the striking hand around to a fuhk sau, while simultaneously striking with the opposite fuhk sau, or riding, hand. This is a way to build simultaneity, and attack a distracted opponent.

The hands should be in a constant state of change, from active to passive and back. This is represented by the yin yang symbol.

The Seminar – General Notes

One must have the skill to kill in order not to kill. The seeming contradiction in terms is common in Daoist thought. This reminded me of Rory Miller’s violence continuum. The polite person doesn’t like the forward person. The forward person doesn’t like the bully. The bully doesn’t like the violent person. But, the violent person isn’t actually violent. It is their willingness to be violent that tames the bully before violence occurs.

We discussed the concept of the cone while in chi sau. Imagine the base of a cone is at the chest, and the point is at the hands. Your cone meets the opponents cone while rolling. Keeping a focus on this imagined cone, or cones, can help in chi sau.

This particular group had some interesting height differences. I recall being challenged by this in my early years, and finally realized that I had to change my angle of attack, or the angle of the, so-called, cone. The mistake people often make, is to attempt to raise or lower the plane of attack, by raising the shoulders, or extending the elbows. I asked, out of curiosity, and received the same explanation from Sifu Fong.

Sifu Fong brought up the term “ergonomy” (i.e. ergonomics) when speaking of the position of the body. I didn’t really take notes on this, but my understanding was to be “natural,” as with everything else.

Several students asked about the “empty mind.” Sifu Fong tried to explain that the mind is not truly empty, but rather was gently focused on some individual thing. Many people struggled to understand this, and wanted to know what Sifu Fong was focused on. Sifu Fong would not provide a concrete answer. He said a new person will probably be focused on their movements, but an experienced practitioner will focus on something else. I wanted to chime in, as I have practiced and taught Vipassana for years, and this was exactly what he was describing. Maybe I will write an article on Vipassana, or Insight Meditation, The Secret of the Golden Flower, and Chan one day, to help people with this subject.

One should learn, through practice, how much muscle is necessary to make a smooth motion. This requires timing, power, and adjustment (from the thirteen principles).

The previously described “tensegrity” combined with correct motion, leads to a “supernova” force. This was pictured as two objects colliding at extreme speeds.

There were several unique teaching aids Sifu Fong liked to use. They included the following:

The tensegrity icosahedron, as described before. A geometrical object formed from sticks and elastic bands. When a single stick is held still, the rest move simultaneously in relation to each other.

A ball between the chi sau hands. The hands must move in tandem. When one hand is forward, the other must be back.

The large right-angle wall-brace was also used. This illustrated the usefulness of the keeping the elbow in contact with the body. It also illustrated the pivot stance, as the base acted like a foot rotating on it’s heel, or the back of the brace.

We went over the Thirteen Principles, but I felt the conversation was a little confusing and jumped around a lot. Sifu Fong left us with some nifty acronyms. TCC or The Way (Dao), Conserve, Control. And DRAG, or Decision, Reaction, Aggression, Guts

I spent a lot of time over the years analyzing the thirteen principles in my own way, so I didn’t take many notes on this.

More to come…