Building Your Own Chi Sau?

By Sifu Nick Francis

In my last update, I was inspired by listening to some guitar rifts to explain how we want to learn and enjoy through playing Chi Sau. This week I would like to build on this by using another analogy.

Come with me to the local car factory.

Have you ever considered what is involved in building a car? Typically, if you are like me, it's never really crossed your mind. When we are age 16 (some states age 18), we try to reign in the excitement and challenge of getting behind the wheel for the first time as we learn to drive.

For nearly two decades we had simply opened the door and hopped in as a passenger, heading off to our preferred destination. Then, all of a sudden, after watching for so long, we take the wheel, often overconfident that we can handle what the road throws at us. Even more often, we find ourselves now apprehensive.

This is the analogy I'd like to use when starting to play Chi Sau. We have seen it done, we are instructed on the positions: 

Tan Sau

Bong Sau

Fook Sau

So we begin to roll, sometimes confident, sometimes apprehensive.

But I dont think this is a very good analogy. I don't think playing Chi Sau is like taking a car out for our first drive. I think a better analogy to think of us first having to build our own car.

I find this a better analogy because how can you rely on a car when you dont even know what that car can do, or should do. When we figuratively go for that first drive, we have expectations of course. We expect the petals to do what we tell them.

Press the accelerator to go forward.

Press the break to stop.

To think of Chi Sau like this simply won't work. And worse off, it will cripple your learning from the beginning.

This is why we are visiting the car factory today.

We are not going to select the parts to put in the car, instead we are actually going to build the parts themselves. We must design them, understanding what they need to be able to do. Then, once we design them, we need to build them. Once we build them, we test them. Once we test them, we repeat the process until we get a car that we trust and believe in.

In this case, we build our tan sau.

We will build our bong sau.

We will build our fook sau.

...Until we get a Chi Sau that we trust and believe in.

Let's simplify this idea a little bit more since few of us have actually had a role in designing, building, fixing or upgrading the modern automobile.

Imagine you are registered for the local pinewood derby race, where with the help of adults, kids build their own unpowered, unmanned miniature cars.

The first thing that happens when you register is that you get you pinewood derby kit. It has a block of wood for the body, plastic wheels, stickers, and metal axles.

So what must we do now is simple.

We need to make a car.

The block of wood has to be crafted into a car body. We have to choose how to weight it? Will it be aerodynamic? Will it be functional or aesthetic? Do we want it to be fast or do we want it to look cool?

With this in mind we go to work!

We craft the body.

We design the wheels, the size, the tread, etc.

We select the axles and wheel base.

And wallah! We have a car.

Only one thing remains to do before the big race, we have to test it and make modifications. In light of our goals, we ask...

• What do we like?

• What do we not?

We problem solve until we get the desired results.

We rethink our ideas. We build new prototypes, and we repeat, repeat, repeat.

This is Chi Sau.

We give you a Tan Sau.

We give you a Bong Sau

We give you a Fook Sau.

We show you how to build a prototype:

Dan Chi Sau - Forward and Back

Lap Sau Drill - Up and Down

Pak Sau Drill - Side to Side

Poon Sau - Movement and Changes

but this is just the beginning...

Here is an old commercial that Saturn car company used to try to sell its cars. Unfortunately, it confused a lot of people. But for us, I think it makes a lot of sense.

Don't act like you know how to drive, when you don't yet even have a proper car.

https://youtu.be/e_oWmY_mkCA