How do you train teui ma?

[Eric]

Hello again YM folks,

I was recently thinking about how my school organizes their YM training, and it seems to me that the main part of learning to fight with your chi sao really comes from the teui ma training: knowing when the feet have to follow the hands and when the hands have to follow the feet.

I was just wondering, what progressions have those teachers/practitioners who read this have used to instill a concept in themselves or instill it in others?

Thanks!

[Eric]

Guess nobody trains footwork :confused:

[sauchi]

Hey Eric,

Its an ancient Chinese Secret:D

You can start by training your foot work by recognizine your position on the dummy + you can practice the different ways of changing from one basic foot position to another.

[Eric]

Ah, ancient Secret, I should have known.

Anywho, I've never seen much in the way of footwork training in the YM dummy, then again, that could be because my focus was never shifted there. I've mostly seen/done teui ma training through chi sao: push/pull exchanges, focus on how the feet follow the hands or vice versa, and above all else, body unity.

What in the dummy form should i focus on for footwork, body angle?

[sauchi]

eric,

I wish I could help you but I haven't practiced much YM wing chun.
I did a long long time ago, but I switched over to HFY.

I could tell you that in HFY if I wanted to focus on my foot work, I work check my angles when using the dummy. When you are facing ask yourself can I hit my oppent with both hands or am I in range to strike with any of my four limbs with that distance. This is Key to HFY. Simutaneous Attack!!

It works. I just sparred with someone today and believe it works for me.

As for training footwork for moving, I couldn't answer you there again since I don't recall learning any footwork in Yip Man WC, but you are right about Hands and feet move as one while, elbows and knees are as one.

That is rules of the six harmony. Tai Chi also follow these rules too.

[JimH]

Hi Eric,

"it seems to me that the main part of learning to fight with your chi sao really comes from the teui ma training"

Not sure what you mean by 'fighting with chi sao..."

As I understand chi sao, it is a training tool used to cultivate certain responses in the student, attributes if you will.

In fighting, I would never be thinking chi sao...

"I was just wondering, what progressions have those teachers/practitioners who read this have used to instill a concept in themselves or instill it in others?"

Again, as I understand teui ma, this means moving your horse. What Moy Yat said was that teui ma is something your senior does to you, he moves your horse. This is the beginning of moving chi sao for the student and the constant remains true most of the time w.r.t. the senior moving the junior in training.

In practice this involves a senior brother, often very senior, moving you around the room. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say tossing you around the room.

As the senior rolls with the student in Luk Sao or Poon Sao he 'moves you' by pushing you, pulling you, jutting, jerking, palming you, he runs your hands in every way possible, takes you off balance, takes your hands off the line, will suddenly break away from you (separate), he will flank you, close in and jam you, and periodicaly trap and collapse your legs - and this happens virtually all at once. Or in the wonderfully understated way they say it in Chinese: He moved your horse..... :D


The idea of course is for the junior to learn to recover from the dizzying array of subtle and not so subtle 'attacks' that the senior will use to take away your balance, structure, distance, facing and anything else you thought you had when you started off.

When I had 'my horse moved' by our dai si hing I felt like I went from standing on the floor to being placed in the middle of an ice skating rink wearing roller skates that were too big for me and untied... I could not maintain my structure for more than a few seconds even after weeks of this training. It would take the better part of a year before I could even begin to maintain anything for more than a few seconds with my dai si hing.

Lots and lots of fun though!

Jim