Why is it that almost everywhere, the martial arts are taught as if people were going to a dance? Even in our Chinese self-defence system, the most practical and enlightened of them all? Why does one spend the majority of the training time learning choreographed ballet movements by heart, when aggressors tend to attack in a wild and completely uncoordinated manner? Why is it always assumed that the opponent uses the same fighting style? Perhaps because the student wants to close his eyes to the apparently completely unpredictable reality out there, preferring safe ground to look for what he will never find there. It reminds me of somebody who has lost his house key in some dark alleyway late at night, but prefers to look for it in the light shining from his front door ...
Or could it be due to the indolence of some instructors, who would rather teach partner dances for 15 minutes so that they can withdraw into the back room for half an hour to get back to their newspaper or computer game?
In any case it is due to indolence that the WingTsun tango is more popular than the only means we have of finding our way in the Clausewitzian "fog of war" of a fight: our tactile sense and timing.
Should we no longer take account of the fact that a street fight follows no rules, and is totally unscripted, but is more in the nature of bloody chaos?
Why do we not look for the key to the unpredictability of combat where we can be sure to find it?
Sections, partner forms and partner dances are indispensable for flexibility, balance and coordination, and even for timing and fighting spirit. But there is one thing they cannot do: they cannot teach us to feel. And feeling is what is important in WingTsun. Without a superb tactile sense, we possess no information about the opponent and his actions in close combat, and stand in the rain of his attacks.
How sensible is it to practice a thousand predefined defences to a thousand equally predefined attacks in partner forms, in the hope that the attacker will behave in just the same way as that nice training partner we had yesterday evening? In the end all we have is a thousand different defences that are waiting for a thousand suitable attacks. Just for the moment, let us assume that our answers are waiting for real attacks in the street, and that the defences we have learned by heart really are suitable. How can we possibly manage to select the appropriate one from the enormous number of memorised responses within a few milliseconds?
Let us imagine we are holding a conversation, but we cannot think of a particular term and it cannot be replaced. How long do we need to find it in a dictionary?
How long does it take for us to recall a technique that is stored on the surface of our memory? And how long will the process take when we are in the stressful situation of a fight, and a cocktail of hormones is putting us at the mercy of our emotions?
Fortunately WT is not oriented towards techniques, but to principles! How often have we told our students this? Now let us keep to our promise!

Keith R. Kernspecht