Chi Sau may be one of the most misunderstood of all martial arts practices. It is uniformly misconstrued by martial artists outside Wing Chun, which is understandable, but sadly practitioners within our style also sometimes get it wrong.
This lack of comprehension extends to most aspects of Chi Sau including:
- The reason for practicing
- The way it should be practiced
- The desired outcome
- It’s application in self-defence
Let’s begin with the reason for practicing Chi Sau. To quote Chu Shong Tin, ‘Chi Sau develops the fighting reflexes in Wing Chun’. That seems straight forward, but of course it is not.
Confusion often arises from the way it is and should be practiced.
A couple of things that Chu Shong Tin told me helped my understanding. He said, “When playing Chi Sau do not try to win” and “ roll to the best of your ability while ensuring that your partner can do the same”.
The most obviously non-combative stage of Chi Sau deals with the moment that our forearms intercept the forearms of an opponent as he delivers a strike. This particular sub-group of Chi Sau is called Look Sau. While doing Look Sau our forearms stay in contact as with our partners as move through several agreed strike/attack positions. As we advance the positions and shapes are done without being pre-determined and partners may disengage. This is actual Chi Sau.
Martial arts critics say that in a fight they would not leave their arms out in space to be controlled by an opponent in the way that Wing Chun people do when rolling. This is a reasonable point. Their mistake is to assume that our fighting looks like our Chi Sau practice. Chi Sau is not fighting or even sparring. It is an exercise to develop the fighting reflexes.
People often confuse fighting training with rote learning of predetermined actions. Hours of practicing drills where you know which strike is coming and seek to hone your response though repetition does not instill pure reflexive ability, it simply polishes your movement. This is similar to what a musician achieves by practicing scales. Chi Sau training on the other hand develops the ability to jam, (improvise).
So, what is the desired outcome of playing Chi Sau? An important, but not the only skill we seek to develop is how we deal with force when our limbs come into contact with an opponent’s. This matters to a Wing Chun person because of our preference to intercept an incoming blow with a strike of our own. Generally this will involve forearm-to-forearm contact but it can be upper arms or legs as well as hips, shoulders etc.
The aim is to learn to receive the incoming force on our arms in such a way that it is even and all options of attack and defence remain equally available. Think of a stick balanced upon another in a t-shape. One could equate this process of accepting and adapting to force with the way that a surfer deals with the buffeting of waves on his board in order to remain upright and balanced. At first this must be learned in a co-operative manner. A surfer does not begin to hone his skills on a massive gnarly wave. He starts with gentle tiny waves and even these are initially quite difficult for the novice. It is the same with Chi Sau.
As well as balancing the forearms novices focus on the correct shapes and applying them against the opposing force with the edge of the circle rather than the face. It is hard to explain without a physical demonstration but this is one facet of structure.
Non-Wing Chun martial artists point out reasonably, (if somewhat gleefully), that the fancy hand traps and elegant moves that one sees performed by two Wing Chun students playing Chi Sau never seem to be applied in real fighting situations. This is a fair comment and fundamentally true. I worked as a bouncer for six years and believe I have had more experience than the average martial artist in real combat situations. In all those events, (maybe sixty or more), there would have been only a handful of times that one of the delightful Chi Sau techniques that I performed some thousands of times in practice actually happened in the real world where your opponent is trying to hurt you. But that is not the point of playing Chi Sau.
Chi Sau skills applied in real fighting situations enable an adept practitioner to strike through the guard or attack of a physically stronger opponent. As well, the sticking quality developed in Chi Sau training allows a Wing Chun person to control an attacker even if that person is actually faster than them. These things are immensely important in fighting.
The point I wish to make is that Chi Sau is not a fighting method; rather it is an exercise that develops skills that advance one’s competency in fighting. When done properly it is not only an extremely efficient training technique, it is also great fun. To prevent the flailing arms, ill temper and wasted time that can arise from not understanding this I usually draw on CST’s guidance and advise new students that when playing Chi Sau – don’t try to win.
Many find this to be a particularly difficult instruction to follow!
~ Mark Spence