Philosophy By Grandmaster Henry Sue

How to become a successful and natural Kung Fu fighter?

Well, first of all, you have to put a fighting element in your in Kung Fu training otherwise it will only be a demonstration art. A lot of people conveniently forget this. Why do they? They like the demonstration arts so much, because A. they do not hurt themselves, and B. it makes them look good, look tough, and flexible. So they train a lot, and jump, and do the splits, and their kicking looks quite dynamic, but they don’t fight. Without the fighting their Kung Fu almost looks like a dance, and that is probably all it will ever be.

So to be good at Kung Fu you have to add a fighting element to the sport. Fighting in a skilful way that is of course, not just who is faster or stronger, or who can defeat the weak. Fighting is ‘entering into the defence zone of another person with a skilful technique that makes you unstoppable, and allows you to deliver a very beautiful and controlled hit to where you wanted to place it’. When people hear this they say ‘well, that’s nice, I would like to be able to do that’. So how can we do that? First of all it requires patience and dedication. But many people nowadays do not have that patience, they want everything immediately. The whole world is full of fast food and micro-waved meals. People want their Kung Fu like that. So they jump around and train to become flexible and agile. Then they step in the ring and want to fight. Of course it doesn’t work that way. Because they have not taken the time to train all that they have learned in the ‘fighting way’ they can’t use it when it counts.

If you just train the fluency of the movements without anyone stopping you it will look nice but is no good for fighting. Just because you know how to use the energy and have a rhythm does not mean that you can fight. Sometimes this gets worse. Because they still want to represent the art these people pretend to fight, but as they do not want to hurt one another, they put on the biggest boxing gloves that they can find. This makes their movements not natural, affects their sensitivity and can destroy all the detail of a beautiful technique.

In a real fight people always move, if you do not practice fighting in your Kung Fu then you will not be used to this and you will find that when you try to deliver a hit, the person has already moved from that position. You have to know how people react when you touch them, so that you can learn how to use their energy and return it to them in an effective hit. So you have to practice ‘fighting’ in the safe surroundings of your school with as many different partners as you can. Occasionally this can cause you some pain or injury, but without it you will only be learning a demonstration art.

So how can we become a more successful fighter?

First you must train your techniques and combinations so often that you become really familiar with them. This requires intensive regular training. All this training will allow you to capture the essence of the movements, which will enable you to internalize it. If you then continue to train after having done all of this, your hands will become so fluent that you almost look like a magician. All the skill will then come from ‘within’. It’s like playing the piano. First you have to learn the notes, then the compositions, and then you have to practice hard and long to become familiar with them and fluent in them. Then, and only then, after you have trained hard and long enough you can start to play from within and ‘your hands will flow like water’. You will be able to make the piano do whatever it is you want it to do, just through the magic of your fingers. Kung Fu is the same. When your hands become so familiar with every movement that you don’t have to think anymore, you will be able to manipulate every punch and hit that comes towards you and place your hits wherever you intended to deliver them. You will be able to hit however hard or soft as you planned to. But can you imagine how many years it will take for people to reach that level?

You must also know that ‘fear cancels out all your knowledge’. When you are not sure how to move your hands, because you don’t have the magic yet, then you have to remember how the hands should be moving. But then when the punch comes in, you’ll be too late because you’re still thinking about how to react. So you must train your mind and body to such a degree that your movements become a reflex. This will give you the confidence to overcome your fear.

Finally, as I said before, you must practice on a real person, not on an imaginary person, in a fighting situation. And not on one person, but on many, as everyone moves and reacts differently. ‘You don’t just want to be good at playing your own piano, you should be able to play every piano’.

So train yourself to get natural, train this naturalness on another person, train with as many different people as you can in a fighting situation, and train until your movements become a reflex so that you will be able to react without having to think. Until you have ‘internalised’ the techniques and movements and they become part of you, you will not have a chance to win a fight with them.

Grand Master Henry Sue

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This entry was posted on Friday, December 12th, 2008 at 3:30 pm and is filed under Fighting, Instructing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.