Juany118
Senior Master
I'll have to dig when I get the chance.
Sorry but the first part makes no sense. You need to connect to the pole, to feel it's weight and orientation to, as corny as it sounds, make it an extension of yourself. This requires a hand or prosthetic.
Following that Biomechanics are what they are. More than a few of the movements in the form require wrist movements to achieve certain angles. Now you can adapt your personal method to minimize the need for such movements. So yes wit is indeed used in the adaptation.
My first career path was teaching. The "best" way to teach an individual students is to, while maintaining the core principles/material, seeing the student's strength and weaknesses and taking this into account when teaching. In this case it would be looking at the missing hand and simply saying, again while maintaining the core principles of WSLVT "these methods will work perfectly fine, these need a little tweeking and these might not work well at all." It's not changing WSLVT in the least, it's simply adapting the instruction so the student can still excel.
Using an example from teaching History wouldn't work (my personal teaching experience) but I will give one I see every week in Martial Arts. My current school teaches TWC and Kali. One of the members of the school has a form of cerebral palsy known as Spastic diplegia. It primarily effects his left leg but the stiffness doesn't simply have the left hip and knee with limited movement but the left foot is permanently in a severe "pigeon toed" position.
Now this of course limits mobility a bit, but with the tight footwork of WC it isn't as bad as it would be with other arts. His kicking is more effected because of the limited hip movement of course but if you were to just watch his upper body move you would think you were watching a dancer, the way he flows in that manner is impressive.. A large reason for this is because when the rest of the class is performing drills that he would not be able to perform, Sifu or one of his assistants will partner with him for other drills. Again the principles of neither art have been changed, Sifu simply sees the limits that the student has and focuses on the drills that are minimally effected (if at all) by the disease or that can help with the disease itself as he has done research into the various types of physical therapy that benefit the condition. All of this so the student in question maximizes his application of the principles of TWC and Kali, the arts themselves have not been altered, the teaching of the art has simply been tailored within the already established boundaries.
The above is actually why I was personally offended when someone thought I was being disparaging about someone having a physical difference. I would never be disparaging towards one of my fellow students and by extension WSL.
Odd you know so much about what others have posted when you joined but today and only posted for the first time 3 hours ago. That said if you actually look at Callen's posts, we do have some points where we are not precisely on the same page BUT when he responds it has substance. It is simply someone who, in essence, is simply doing the martial arts equivalence of a catechism.
But the problem is this the idea that PB is teaching the "pure" version of WSLVT ignores the reality of his physical issue, as illustrated repeatedly, and the differences between himself and other first gen students. As an example more than once WSL stated that one of the purposes of chi sau is to learn sensitivity to the movements of the opponent so that "...You begin to feel a pattern in your opponent’s movements, allowing you to sense the proper angle of attack...", that "...the highest achievement wing chun is to be able to allow your opponent to guide you into the exact method of attacking and defeating him." The feel is important because touch allows for faster reaction. Tests have shown that processing visual stimulus takes 250ms where as touch stimulus takes 150ms. It's simple science.
Now two of main proponents of PB here say that it's only about "setting up" and "baiting" your opponent as if the two concepts are mutually exclusive and that the idea that chi sau is about feeling the openings is simply repeated misinformation. Thing is they arent mutually exclusive and in a real fight you want to feel and flow as well because while one of the goals of course is to use tactics that bait and set your opponent up, you can never rely on the fact that your opponent will "take the bait" and so being able to flow and strike where your opponent is vulnerable is an equally vital skill. So logic dictates one of the following.
1. When WSL said a quote I posted in an older thread (and summarized above) about you never being able to completely control your opponents actions you need to be able to flow and let them show you where to strike he was speaking a truth anyone who has been in a real fight, especially against other styles, knows.
a. if 1 is true then those who say the above is misinformation are wrong. This then leads to another question. Is this a misunderstanding of PB teaching on their part or has PB changed something as others changed things?
2. It was misinformation BUT then this also raises a few questions.
a. how could someone with as much reported real fighting experience not realize you can never truly control the actions of every opponent regardless of the amount of "baiting" and "setting up" and that's where being sensitive and capable of flowing through the small gaps you feel with that sensitivity comes in?
