Ever trained a technique
with follow up’s and wondered why you are feeling crowded or the techniques
are not easy to place?
Well maybe its not the fault of the
style, technique, footwork, instructor or indeed yourself, maybe it’s
your training partner that’s at fault.
How so you may ask
The human body is a very complex and
mobile piece of machinery that reacts to pressure or hard contact. If
you strike an area of the body it will give, bend or react the best
it can to try and absorb the force.
If you are not making physical contact
with your strikes during training, and your partner is not reacting
as he/she had been hit, you simply cannot expect your techniques to
flow as they should.
There is however more to this than meets
the eye, because what might seem to be a annoying problem can actually
run much deeper.
I believe that any students who train
a non-contact martial art should spend some time investigating how the
body reacts to strikes.
Wing Chun, in my opinion cannot be trained
as a contact style as the techniques can be particularly nasty i.e.
eye, throat and groin strikes, palm strikes to the floating rib or any
of the elbow strikes.
Failing to train in a realistic manner
where the attacker simulates being hit can also be detrimental to the
defenders footwork. He/She may adjust the stance/stepping distance to
compensate for the lack of movement from their partner. This may be
a quick fix in class but in a real life situation you may find that
your attacker is not where he should be after your first technique lands.
