THE SKILLS OF SPEED, AGILITY, ACCURACY AND PRESENCE OF MIND
The Seven-Star jump is excellent in training agility
Question
The course will include material from Levels 11 and 12 of our Shaolin Wahnam Kung Fu Syllabus. The skills of speed, agility, accuracy and presence of mind are important at those levels.
May Sifu talk about what are the main methods to develop speed and presence of mind?
Additionally, when fighting against multiple attackers, one may sometimes not be in time to dodge or use opponents as shield and having a high level Golden Bell will be a bonus as one can withstand even weapon strikes. Will Sifu teach the formal method to develop Golden Bell during the course?
Dr Damian Kissey
Answer
Skills of speed, agility, accuracy and presence of mind, amongst other factors, are important in this course and in combat as well as daily life.
The skills of speed include various speeds in performing various tasks. If a kick is coming fast, a practitioner must have the speed to counter it. If he is not as fast as his opponent, he must know how to use tactics to slow down his opponent.
On the other hand he must also use the right speed for the occasion. In his sparring, for example, he may slow down to observe or test his opponent. In sparring, for example, opponents often jump away as soon as an exponent makes a move. In this case the exponent can ignore his initial attack, cover his opponents adequately and move in to accomplish his strikes.
This is more important in daily life, as actual combat seldom happens in our law-abiding society. He must adjust his speed to suit his situations. If he is too fast, he may not accomplish his tasks.
The skills of agility include both physical agility and mental agility.
I recall that when I was learning Shaolin Kungfu from Sifu Ho Fatt Nam, he taught me a special way of jumping from the Severn-Star Set. I practiced it diligently for a few months, and honestly thought I was good at it. But I was a good student; I never complained and continued to practice the jump diligently. On hindsight I believe my practice greatly contributed to my physical and mental agility
In our school, excellent methods to train agility are the leopard techniques, “yit hai hor seng” or “completing many patterns in one breath”, the flow method, and the six harmonies, especially the harmony of elegance.
In leopard techniques, not only we must have speed, we should also be agile. In “completing many patterns in one breath”, we have to complete many patterns, like in a sequence, in picture-perfect form and in just one breath, without being out of breath at the end of the series of patterns.
In the flow method, we may start our series of patterns slowly but all the patterns are in one smooth flow without any staccato movement. Gradually we increase the speed of the flow. Chi kung and “completing many patterns in one breath” will be very useful. Eventually we can perform the series of pattern in a fast flow.
The six harmonies are harmonies of the leg, hand, body, essence, chi and mind. It is useful to perform any kungfu movement with the six harmonies in mind. The six harmonies contribute to agility, both physical and mental.
The skills of accuracy ensure that a performer accomplishes his tasks. Besides speed, he needs to have right spacing. In sparring or real fights, exponents often do not have sufficient reach. This, of course, is understandable if practitioners want to purposely not hit their sparring partners, in which case they must be aware of their spacing. But in real fights when practitioners need to hit their opponents, they often miss by a few inches.
Similarly in real life, practitioners must have reach, otherwise they will miss many opportunities. They must have both right timing and right spacing, which can be learnt in our “four arrivals”. We do not merely train kungfu; we transfer the philosophy and skills to daily life.
Presence of mind is a very important skill in combat; it is more important in daily life. Kungfu training is an excellent way to train the presence of mind.
In most other martial arts, combatants lack the presence of mind. As I have often mentioned, this is their problem but it is useful for our family members to know. Most martial artists simply hit each other in sparring with hardly any defence, which shows a lack of presence of mind.
An excellent way to have presence of mind is to sink our chi gently to our dan tian. All masters in the past did this as they assumed their poise patterns. Our family should do this, but others may not.
Some of our kungfu practitioners are proficient in their sparring with family members but throw away their kungfu techniques when facing other opponents. This may eventually be due to a lack of presence of mind, and can be remedied by using “safety first” and the “element of threat” in their combat application as well as practicing the “30-opponent programme”.
The “Becoming a Shaolin Wahnam Kungfu Practitioner” course is fairly advanced and there are many topics to be taught. Hence, these skills of speed, agility, accuracy and presence of mind, which are basic in our school, are not taught in the course.
Golden Bell is certainly very helpful when sparring against multiple attackers. However, not many practitioners have Golden Bell. Nevertheless, the way of training in our school can develop Golden Bell, often without the practitioners’ conscious knowing. Many of our senior practitioners have this skill of Golden Bell.
I taught Golden Bell in Finland in 2016. It was a golden opportunity for our kungfu practitioners as Golden Bell is seldom taught.
As there are many topics to be covered in the “Becoming a Shaolin Wahnam Kungfu Practitioner” course, I shall not teach this art during the course.
The questions and answers are reproduced from the thread 10 Questions on "Becoming a Shaolin Wahnam Kungfu Practitioner" in the Shaolin Wahnam Discussion Forum.
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