Holy Smoke Batman... I trained with the Master!

After attending Matt Tucker's class in East Grinstead I came away very excited at the prospect of learning Wing Chun again. So you can imagine my excitement upon receiving an invite to Master James' Instructors class yesterday evening!! Really I didn't know quite what to expect other than the fact that I would be training with a bunch of instructors all having trained with Master James for a number of years... An ass kicking was inevitable.

I arrived at the class in good time.. nervous as hell but hey that was to be expected. After meeting with Paul and Matt, we were formally introduced to Master James who invited us to observer his instructors practicing for some demonstrations. Here we witnessed some great sticking hands, lok sau and dan chi sau. And then even more impressive use of the pole and knives.

After relaxing quite successfully, thanks mostly to resigning to the fact we wouldn't be training, Master James then asked everyone on to the mats to practice their Chi Sau. This is where I realised that my Wing Chun was not gonna stand up to much pressure!!! I trained with 5 different instructors, and the beatings varied from mild to major! I managed a few hits here and there but overall I was being taken apart (thank goodness Paul was aswell! It wasn't just me being rubbish!). All because of the slight differences in training and application!

Sadly for me the last instructor I trained with was a bit lively. Managed to get a good elbow in with a chop to the neck follow up... Great you say, except Master James Sinclair saw and complimented me... Even better I hear you.. well it seems that Billy McInstrutor wasn't too happy about the new boy getting one in on him and proceeded to rip me apart with blows to the head and body coming thick and fast! Ah well! You live and learn! And if you take a hard hit, acknowledge it - don't try and continue fighting!

Then it was time for some Q&A with Master James. He such a polite and humble man. Always taking time to explain something and encouraging you to question him. He has a great knowledge of the art and his is school is without doubt the way forward.

I think I shall have a de'belting ceremony, where I will burn all my belts awarded so far as an offering to the great Kung Fu god. This will show that I recognise my belt means nothing and that I am glad to relinquish it... Or maybe I will just put them in my drawer as a reminder that my old style didn't even come close to this one.

Thank you Master James for a fantastic class. I will be attending many more!

theflynnmeister

(oh and by the way, I have stopped smoking again!)