A couple of weeks ago I received an email form a reader just like you asking me if they where too young to start wing chun training.
I get a lot of questions about when is the best time to start training, what are the best tips if I don’t have a school nearby etc.
However this question resonated with me because its a question we often ask ourselves about any endeavour we seek in life that we want to do. Wing chun being no exception.
The person in question is 17 and I sincerely would like to thank him because its for people like you that I write this blog.
The simple fact of the matter is that wing chun can be started at any age, from about 10 years old and up, depending on your health and physical ability.
However just learning the moves is not enough.
A child can rope learn and be taught the positions, strikes and techniques. But it takes a disciplined mind and attitude to really get the most out of it. At 17 I think this is the perfect age. It is a time of maturity and adjustment. For many life will change immeasurably during this time. Many will be looking at finishing high school and starting a new adventure in life. Having a real look at what they want to do after school. That’s how it was for me and I look back at the time as literally life changing.
Unfortunately I didn’t have wing chun back then.. It would be a couple of years later that I literally ran into wing chun by accident.
I guess the point I’m getting to is that whether we think we are ready to undertake a goal, be it wing chun, or even a new stage in our life we don’t know if we are ready until we take the first steps forward and taking action. By taking that simple step you have succeeded and prevented failure. To get the most out of wing chun requires the right mindset. Do it to learn, to develop and have fun.
This mindset will help you overcome obstacles in your training and other aspects of your life. For example I could not work out how to train in Chi sao to save my life. It was embarrassing I didn’t get it.. I was the only one that could not do it. Kids, new students even newbie’s 20 years older than me could do it however after what felt like an eternity still nothing… You tell me after about a month and a half of training and nothing, what would you do?… I was resigned to the fact that I wouldn’t be able to do it and that other aspects of wing chun will have to be my strength. Given this was a big part of wing chun it didn’t exactly leave me all happy inside.
So I trudged along and when our instructor gave us a session of chi sao sparring I had to grin and bear it and apologise to my training partner.
Then one day out of nowhere it clicked…with no effort it all gelled and it worked! I was sparring like a man possessed my hands where fluid, light where they had to be; strong as iron when I needed. They where working independent of me without me even thinking about it (which was surprisingly easy). And I was good and got better…I understood what I need d to do .I had the feel I could control my opponents and could do it blind folded (which is easier than you think)…I had learned the basics and some advanced techniques of chi sao.. It was so easy yet I was so quickly ready to write myself off.
That got me thinking. What other things in my life have I attempted and quit before the right time that I thought was too hard. What other obstacles did I have that I thought I could not achieve. What was I stopping myself from doing that I really wanted to do…This was my chis sao moment and from there I unlocked a world of possibilities for me. I was wrong about everything…I was wrong that I could ever learn chi sao. I was wrong that I could learn wing chun or any martial art. I was wrong I could never win a tournament fight. I was wrong that I could not win a black belt weapons demo trophy even though I was a beginner…
I was wrong and that was the true blessing that wing chun training has taught me. That I was wrong about all the misgivings and things I couldn’t do…
Then it dawned on me, what else was I wrong about…what else could I not do…it was then that the doors opened to another world of possibilities and to this day I thank wing chun for the lesson of teaching me that I was wrong.
