Today in sparring class SiFu spent about ½ an hour working with me.  ½ speed, just setting things up, taking shots and countering.  I’d throw something, and he would have me throw it again and again as he worked out counters to it, and then he would throw something, and do it over and over again, making me react differently every time.

He made me step out of my comfort zone, which is hard blocking.  I like to cover up and just take the full brunt on the technique with a leg or arm block, and then power through with a counter-technique.

We’ve worked on “sticky hands” type stuff a lot, but it’s really not my style.  I can get it in drills and such, but when it comes to real-life applications, I tend to revert to my tried-and-true bulldozer methods.  Everyone else seems to get it easier than me.

For some reason, today the lesson stuck.  I went on to fight Joe, who we call “little Joe”…to distinguish him from “Big Joe”.

Anyway, Joe and I were working out, and after the second or third time I flowed with his block, and came around it and tagged him, he said “Jeeze, you’ve got some serious Wing Chung workin’ for you.”

That made me feel good.  I finally got a small taste of what it is like to “flow like water”, and be “soft as cotton, hard as steele.”

The arm techniques are starting to flow.  Now all I need is to loosen up the leg techniques a little bit.  I’m still indefatigably Okinawan with the kicks.  All power and straight lines.

Who knows, my TaiChi might actually start to look like Tai Chi, and less like I’m having a slow-mo epileptic seizure.