don't lose sight of forests for the tree - basic skill in wing chun

Yesterday I went on CMAC's fb wall and posted

"I have a window of half/one hour to practice wing chun, anyone interested? i won't hurt you :)
an hour anytime between Now - 6
meet me at Rivera library."


To my surprise, it immediately had an respondent. He has a bigger frame than I am, seems very sturdy* as well. We went to the yard next to the library and practiced for some rounds. Indeed, my guess was right: very sturdy, tends to sink to a horse, which makes an easy target for wingchun practitioner. 
However, we had a good fight and we both learned a lot so let me write something about what I re-discovered to be something I need to work on:

Don't lose sight of forest [and get punched] for the tree


"Forest" is the whole body, the general intent, or the aura of an opponent, and of yourself. 
"Tree" is one technique, one counter-strike, or one side of your body of an opponent, and of yourself.

If I lose sight of the forest, as I did, I get punched. In fact, I was trying to show him the effectiveness of moving my wrist ("the taichi shiza" as it was mis-conceptualized) while this happened. Using huen-sau to divert then hit is easy to show, but when comes to using huen-sau as pure defense, it took me some time to think at that moment. Pah! I got hit in my oblique.

This triggers me to trace down my memory lane of that one time, when I was chi-saoing Martin. I kept getting hit on my left side because whenever I punch with my right, I focused so much on the punch that I forget to block with my left. 

So if I focus too much on one thing, be it trying to think of a particular technique or simply deliver a punch, I will get hit. However, a question naturally rises: is it because my left side is considerably weaker than my right side? No, because in the picture above, I was unable to block with my right hand (a gun sau is more than enough). 

Right-Left imbalance is not so much a cause of "Single Tree Syndrome" but as a result of it. 
Too much emphasis on one side without consciously noticing the other side will certainly result in an uneven development. Although the forms that I practice are consistently symmetrical and I never skipped training one side, why was I still feeling weaker on my left side?

1. natural tendency. Despite I was born using left-hand, my family saw it as an "illness"* so I was corrected to use right. Nurture beats nature.
2.  

* in a European history book I was assigned to read had interesting discussions of both left and right government using social policy to cure mental illness in the interwar years (between WWI and WWII). 
"Dark Continent" by Mazower, Chp4


don't lose sight of forests for the tree - basic skill in wing chun

- summary of fight
don't lose sight of forest [and get punched] for the tree

- forest: the whole body mov't, both yours and his

- tree: one technique/ one part of body

- if one loses sight of forest
=get punched
=left-right unbalance


forest can be broken down into trees, but trees can never grow into forest without stepping out first. 
= first general, then specific is easier than vice-versa
=in a forest, there might be trees, but also bushes, flowers, deer, rabbits, ocelot...


(- dan'zelwha? )