It's been a while since I've posted due to technical problems, busy schedules and a few things to ponder of late. Recently at Altrincham we had the first session of our “fight club” intensive lesson as we call it. The point was not to be a vicious test of masculinity but to see where our skills fitted with more “combat” based contexts and to offer new ideas to students alongside some conditioning

The other day after training I had an email from one of my loyal students Chris, who has been working hard at my club for many months now sent me something I wasn't expecting; a humble chart. Following on from my last entry regarding the 8 basics of WT he wanted to get clear in his mind the relationship between the handshapes and footwork in WT.When repping and applying handshapes I always emphasise

Wing Tsun is Chinese in essence although arguably our version is as much German/English as anything else. Irrelevant of semantics of the number 8 has huge significance in Chinese culture and crops up in many other martial arts too. Whether by design or coincidence the number 8 makes up the number of basic hand-shapes, basic steps and sections of the Siu Num Tau. Hand-shapes:1. Tan Sau – Upward facing

A little test I like to perform when a new student walks through the door is something very simple – a short question is all it takes “if you were going to hit me as hard as you can.....how would you do it?” Understandably this is sometimes followed with awkward shuffling and wringing of hands. It’s not an idea or a concept people are comfortable with, but if you turn up to a martial arts class

In my last entry I talked about the relevance of fitness and exercise to martial artists and tried to illustrate my belief in its necessity. I spent many years training badly, training infrequently and training the wrong stuff with good intentions. I’m glad to say I can pass on a little bit of what I learnt through my own endeavour to you and illustrate my logic and thoughts as to why you need to

Fitness, exercise and performance are all issues that cause much debate in the martial arts and the wider world. The fact it is a billion dollar industry across the globe tells us all we need to know about the incessant hunt for new ideas, products gadgets and to some extent fetishist tendencies of those involved.How many gyms does your local area have? Even twenty years ago the idea of attending a

If you ask our old friend Joe Public to name a martial art you tend to receive a narrow set of answers. Karate, Judo, Tae Kwon Do, Kung Fu (a coverall for hundreds if not thousands of styles), perhaps even boxing or wrestling or global brands such as UFC might all get the nod.So what? You might ask. The common thread is that by and large all of those are sports. They have rules, referees, specific

I've started all of this blogging stuff at the tail end of 2009 and as an end of year, reflective kinda mood takes hold it all seems more than appropriate.The last 12 months have been turbulent in all areas of my life for a million reasons. But I still turned up for training day in day out. I still went down in the dungeon and flung a kettlebell about, picked up a bar or got down on my knees for all