CHAIN REACTSUN - Stefan Fischer

It takes a considerable amount of practice and training to apply reflexes in a street fight, which is why in the WingTsun system, the beginner will start with the highly effective ‘Blitz Defence’ program, Lat Sau and the ‘Universal Solution’ (‘If the way is clear, go forward’) to provide possibly life-saving self-defence skills in a reasonably short time frame. 

REFLEX TRAINING UNDER GM YIP MAN & GM LEUNG TING 

Under Grandmaster Yip Man, the chi-sau (sticky-hands) training was the main way to develop contact reflexes but the problem in the traditional method has been that there was no real teaching structure behind it and that it was designed for teachers who only have few students and hence do a lot of hands-on training with each individual. It never was a systematic teaching method but rather was taught, based on what the teacher felt like on that day. This was not a good method to teach the increasing number of students and to maintain a high skill level throughout different schools in different cities, countries and on different continents. It also made it easy for teachers to ‘forget’ less liked techniques. Because of this, Grandmaster Leung Ting created the chisau syllabus, which is divided into seven sections, which the student learns up to the 3rd Technician level. This is then followed by the Biu Tze form and wooden dummy sections. The standardized sections enabled the teacher to consistently and methodically teach all techniques, combinations and attacks to the student no matter in which country or school. Practicing chisau trains the reflexes but due to the structure and multiple learning goals it took quite a long time to develop usable reflexes. 

REFLEX TRAINING UNDER GM KERNSPECHT 

WingTsun is an ever-evolving system and it has been a thorn in Professor/Dr. Sc Kernspecht’s side that it took such a long time to develop usable reflexes. His research into the matter saw him come up with a new training method to implant the reflexes. This new reflex training does not replace chi-sau or any of our other training methods but rather complements it. It’s a very flexible method that does not put much emphasis on technique, positions or structure but is solely concentrating on implanting usable reflexes into the student’s muscle memory. It also puts a lot of emphasis on the softness in the defense as to not provide any impulses to the opponent. The reflex training is practised at three different distances: • Long range (contact with wrist or hands, arms nearly extended) • Medium range (usually contact inside of opponent’s arms) • Short range (anti-grappling, on the ground, clinch and ‘dirty boxing’ range) Whereas in the past the realistic application of reflexes in a fight was more suited for higher levels of WT practitioners, the new ReacTsun training shaves several years off that learning time and enables the WingTsun student to use simple reflexes in a real life situation pretty early onwards in his WingTsun journey. 

WHY TRAIN OUR CONTACT REFLEXES?

‘So, why reflex training and what is it good for?’ you may ask. For the advanced WingTsun student, having good contact reflexes opens up another dimension of fighting and how to deal with attacks. Traditionally in WT we follow the motto ‘Attack is the best defense’, which is mirrored in our ‘Universal Solution’, whereby we attack lighting fast with a front-kick to the vulnerable kneecap, then chain punches followed by elbows and knees, as soon as an opponent enters our ‘magnetic zone’ field. The use of it on the street has proven to be highly effective but, depending on the situation, it does not always take reasonable force and our self-defence laws into account, especially when involved in the so-called ‘ritual fight’. With good tactile reflexes you can allow yourself to react after an attack has commenced and the technique is developed spontaneously by the attack of the opponent.

Once you have contact with the opponent the four WingTsun fighting principles apply: 

• If you get contact, stick 

• If the pressure is too strong, give way

• If the opponent retreats, follow 

• If the way is free, attack. 

A good metaphor for this would be a train ride: once you get on a train you will be as fast as the train and neither you or the train will overtake each other, just as once I have contact with my opponent and feel his movement, I will be as fast as his attack. Because of the high sensitivity acquired through the reflex training, I basically have a spy (my hands) imbedded right with my opponent on the front line, who is reporting to me every planned movement of my adversary. Because of the established contact with my opponent, I immediately assess all possible attacks from that particular position — i.e. inside, outside. Furthermore, I have implemented a reflexive response for all possible scenarios through the WT contact reflex training, which allows me to react on the slightest movement or sometimes even on only a change in muscle activation of my adversary. From here I have two different options of response the easier and much less sophisticated one is an aggressive wooden dummy style response which uses my own power to trap, jut, shock and attack my opponent on the slightest impulse he gives. Obviously this is not really suited if your opponent is much stronger then you. Alternatively we can use the more advanced Biu Tze type response which is incredibly soft and flexible in its defensive movements without giving the adversary any pressure or response toward his attack, to not trigger a chain reaction where he might right away respond to my movement and so on. In Wing Chun/WingTsun we prefer to follow the Wu Wei principle, which means to follow the flow of nature (or, in this case, attack) without trying to stop it, rather than constantly trying to fight and control the situation, which is unnatural and self-defeating. It is better to understand the true nature of the attack, behaving completely naturally and in tune with the natural progression of the attack, and just absorb it and let it pass without resisting. This in itself does not solve the problem (that is, disable/stop the attacker) but on a theoretical level it should allow me to defend endlessly. If you wanted to translate this in a sports scenario, a good example would be someone in a MMA event preventing one takedown attempt after the other. One a practical level, endless defence is obviously not really an option as there is a need to stop your opponent at some stage. In line with the yin and yang philosophy, the ‘softness’ of the defence is followed by devastating counter-attacks, which seem to come out of nothing without any warning signs or impulses to draw from for the opponent. This approach is particularly satisfying for the advanced WingTsun practitioner as most Biu Tze applications and techniques are tailor-made for this and perfectly work with the constant change between absolute softness and devastating, fast and powerful attacks. □

Blitz Martial Arts Magazine, JANUARY 2010 VOL. 24 ISSUE 01