Paul asked me about learning the 7-Points Dotting Hands as he was under the impression that it would be easy to learn. Yes and no.

Yes, in that moving the arm is not difficult.

No, in that the challenge is to do justice to the sequence in terms of application, proper structure, power generation, etc.

For Paul, I pointed out to him that the practice of the 6-Blocks is one way to leapfrog the learning of the 7-Points. This is because when I designed the 6-Blocks I took into account the learning of Wing Chun, Tai Chi and NGK. In this regard, when you practice the 6-Blocks you are not just practicing blocks. Instead the 6-Blocks teaches several things such as :-

a) If you do Wing Chun it reinforces the learning of the elbow as a hinge to make the arms move like a swing door and softens your arm movements.

b) If you do Tai Chi its a way to learn how to actually use the 3 Chi Rings while using the techniques. You will feel as if you can control a sphere right in front of your chest. And of course, if you get the 3 Chi Rings then you also acquire the beginnings of the ability to use the arms as a bow to issue power.

c) If you are into NGK then you need to go far enough into realizing how to use body movements not just to complement hand techniques but how the body moves to conceal your techniques and use hidden techniques. This is why there is a saying that NGK is to be taught to instructors and not to students because a student would not realize what is hidden in plain sight.

So there’s a lot that went into this simple exercise of doing 6 blocks. Most people would read the word “blocks” and thought it was nothing more than that. This is like my hidden joke, like that ending in Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade, where in the cave guarded by the ancient knight Indiana and the Nazis finally found the Holy Grail. However, they were confronted by many grails, of which one is the real one. How would the Nazis and Indiana choose?

To get the most out of 6-Blocks and move towards the capability to jump right into 7-Points training :-

1) Learn each movement. Count out loud the 6 movements in this way – 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3. Do each movement deliberately, visualize how they are used as a block. Keep body still and just do arm movements. If practicing with right arm, have the right leg forward.

2) After many repetitions you should be able to count 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3 and do the movements quickly without stopping. Try doing 3 repetitions non-stop. Count 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3 (Rep-1), 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3 (Rep-2), 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3 (Rep-3). This trains you to automate the movements.

3) Try starting from any of the movements. You should be able to move into the sequence easily from any of the blocks.

4) Study the movements as a paired movements. 12, 34, 56. Next try 23, 45, 61. You can create other pairs for example, 42, 15. This teaches how to flow even if you are out of sequence and as a technique how to close a space or open up a space. Prior to this you are focussing on the arm move. When you study paired movements especially on how to open or close a space that’s when you see how moving your body as well can help. After this stage your practice of 6-Blocks will no longer be just doing the sequence as an arm exercise but as a arm-body movement exercise.

5) From (1) to (4) you practice with right arm, right leg forward. Now practice with right arm, left leg forward. This will train your body to move in another way. Learn how to switch from right arm to left arm without pausing.

6) Practice the sequence with right arm, right leg then step (whether forward or backward) to left arm, left leg. Next do right arm, left arm, right leg and step to left leg.

7) Add a punch to each block. We can start with same hand block, same hand punches. Once familiar try right hand block, left hand punches.

8) Continues the punching exercise with two punches for each block. For example, Block-1, right punch, left punch. Later switch to Block-1, left punch, right punch. You can also try three punches. Example Block-1, right punch, left punch, right punch and Block-1, left punch, right punch, left punch. Once familiar you can add advancing as you step.

9) Study how the body moves to generate power when you do right hand block, right punch and right hand block, left punch whether doing one punch, two punches or three punches sequence.

10) Study how to apply all 6 blocks to control space, how to close space, how to open up space, and how to attack. This part you need a partner. You can do line drill like partner feeds you a punch, you do the blocks. You can also do push hands or sticking hands and drill the blocks within.

11) Practice until arm moves like a whip. Then learn to put entire body behind arm when it stops to generate feeling of hitting like iron bar.

12) Are there more? Probably, the above can occupy a few weeks, if not months of practice.

If you can to (11) you have already picked up some of the essentials of NGK even if you do not know what it is. But then its like opening a Christmas present. When you finally receive the present and you open it then you will see what it is.

The first step in learning the 7-Points Dotting Hand sequence is fairly easy.

Feet apart.

Body facing forward squarely.

Learn the 7 movements.

If you have good memory you can learn all seven movements at once. Otherwise, learn the first two movements. Then add on the third movement. Practice the three movements until you can remember them.

Thereafter, add one movement to the sequence and keep adding until you finish learning all seven movements.

1, 2, 3 = 1st learning sequence

1, 2, 3 + 4 = 2nd learning sequence

1, 2, 3, 4 + 5 = 3rd learning sequence

1, 2, 3, 4, 5 + 6 = 4th learning sequence

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 + 7 = complete learning sequence

When learning you can keep track of the movements by counting the 1st movement as One, 2nd movement as Two, and so on.

The Ngok Gar Dotting Hands are not difficult to learn forms. In fact, they are fairly easy to learn.

So why not teach students right away? Why waste their time with other forms?

One reason is that if the forms are taught to students easily they would not appreciate them. However, if you make them jump through hoops to be given the privilege to learn students would appreciate the learning opportunity so much more, and hence train seriously.

You begin the learning of the Dotting Hands by learning the 7-Points Dotting Hand sequence. As its name implies there are but 7 movements in the sequence.

These 7 movements can be learned under 5 minutes. Thereafter, its just a matter of practicing the sequence over and over until you are familiar with it.

From this point on you will find that you can actually go through the 7 movements super fast. But being fast is only one of the many learning objectives.

The next objective is to learn what each movement means. At this point it would be advantageous to rope in a partner to help you train. The role of the partner is to feed you the attacks to train your reaction, your timing, your awareness, and so on.

At this point your training of the sequence is not done. You next want to keep at it until you find the natural body movement that follows the movements of the technique.

The body movement will add power and range to your blocking and striking. The body movement also has the role of teaching you how to adjust your body to assist in attack and defence.

If you can find the body movements then the next part will come easily. This is where you can add in the use of stances. Once you get the hang of using the stances you can begin to learn how to step.

So far so good as far as learning how to use one single hand. Don’t forget to work the other hand also.

The next part of the learning is to add in the other hand. The hand doing the 7 movements can be considered the dominant hand and the other hand the supporting hand. This is the basic training for learning the two handed Dotting Hands forms.

There’s still more that can be learned from the single hand sequence but I think this should be sufficient to occupy a beginner for a while.

I would say that until today Ngok Gar Kuen is still a little known style, so much so to the outside world it may well be a secret style.

Not much is written about the style. Ngok Gar practitioners seem to be a tight lipped bunch. If you come across a DVD series from China on a style known as Yueh Jia Quan which is the Mandarin name for Ngok Gar Kuen take note that it is not the same style as the Ngok Gar Kuen that I am referring to here.

Even amongst those who learned the style, the majority would not have access to innermost part of the art. This should not be surprising as a similar policy is followed by many other styles of Chinese martial arts in the old days.

I may disagree with this but there’s nothing I can do about it. This type of secrecy can cause knowledge to be lost or misunderstood. My favorite story here is how some Wing Chun practitioners consider the Biu Jee form to be about emergency, recovery techniques.

This might be so, but really? Seriously? If you consider the design of a combative system you would know why I have doubts that Biu Jee is about emergency techniques.

I can understand the need for secrecy though. Think of it this way – if your life depends on your skills to win or at least survive a fight would you openly or widely disseminate the knowledge?

The dilemma is that it is impossible to keep the system entirely secret. How do you practice the techniques if you are not allowed to show it? Problem, right?

And if you rely on teaching the system to make a living how do you attract students if you can’t showcase your offering to the public.

This is where the idea of public forms come in. These are forms you can show to the public without the fear of your techniques being stolen.

I know this idea works because the first time I saw a Ngok Gar Kuen public form I was totally unimpressed. To me it looked like a rough kind of striking art. However, when I had the techniques demonstrated on me, I went whoa……

Later I found out that those techniques that wowed me were the inner techniques of Ngok Gar Kuen. However, don’t get me wrong, you can still see those inner techniques in the public forms. Its just that they do not appear in the sequence that you see for the inner techniques.

You can say that the inner techniques in the public forms have been encrypted. The inner techniques can be right in front of you but you still don’t quite see them.

There’s nothing wrong with learning the public forms. You can still learn something from them, many of the techniques are not included in the secret forms. I think of the public forms as a normal length novel and the secret forms as a digest version of the novel containing the essential parts of the story. Its just that the secret forms contain the most often used, essential techniques. You can consider the non-included techniques as add-ons.

Many Ngok Gar old timers are old, retired or even left this world. From a secret style Ngok Gar Kuen looks set to be an extinct style in the coming years.

I saw a video somewhere mentioning that the failed Presidential candidate Kalama Harris loves Venn Diagrams.

I am not much into Venn Diagrams but I thought it would be useful to summarize what the Ngok Gar Kuen system looks like using them.

In words this means that the Ngok Gar system consists :-

I) Outer (for public consumption)
Static Postures to develop structural and tension power
Dynamic Techniques to train power generation
4 Core Emptyhand Forms for public demonstrations
4 Core Pole Forms for public demonstrations
Applications

II) Inner (not to be divulged to public)
Single Dotting Hands for basic training (inner forms)
Double Dotting Hands Forms (inner forms)
Applications

III) Added-On (supplementary study material)
Emptyhand Forms
Pole Forms
Other Weapons

Recently someone I taught 6 years ago asked me if I was still teaching. I was wondering who he was. Fortunately, I had taken some pictures of him back then.

So there his name was on a folder. OK, I remember him now. I must have taught him for a super brief time. If I remember correctly, we didn’t even get to finish more than 3 techniques! I might have briefly explained how to use the techniques and some push hands.

He said he had been taking part in push hands competitions overseas. Ah, so he must have learned quite well from another teacher, at least to the stage of having enough confidence to go out and test his skill. He even started learning Chen style a year ago so that’s another feather in his cap. So I wondered why he was asking me since his learning seems to be in good hands.

He showed me a clip of him competing against someone a head taller and nearly double his weight. Yikes! From what I can see his opponent looks more experience seeing that all the attacks were coming from his opponent’s side. His opponent had the leg up in terms of timing, strength handling, response and techniques. That they were engaged in fixed position push hands while standing on top of posts certainly did not make things easier.

He observed that Mongolian wrestlers had the edge when it came to push hands competition. I don’t know about this but if I try to wrestle a wrestler I certainly would lose too.

One thing we learned in traditional martial arts is that you never know who you are up against. If you get into a fight in the street you don’t have the time to feel the opponent, no time to think about what you want to do. You only have time to react. So all the training is geared towards the unknown opponent, whatever style or no style he may be from.

There is one thing we know for sure and that is you know yourself. If you don’t, then you need to train harder. There is a koryu channel that I have been following. Occasionally the student would bring the master a weapon that the master has never used or seen, and asked how the master would use it. With a look and a quick feel of the weapon the master can present ideas of how to use the unknown weapon against the katana. Then he would consider how to use their swordsmanship against this unknown weapon

I don’t know what the student is expecting from me but too bad for him I no longer teach. Anyway, he didn’t tell me what he wanted and I didn’t ask. I took the opportunity to exercise my thinking and analysis skills.

If the student had asked about what I think of his performance in that clip I would recommend him to :-

a) Work on developing a good, flexible structure that is adaptable to redirecting and absorbing the opponent’s strength in a split second

b) Work on positioning. A lot of times a good position can win half the battle

c) Train the reflexes. Don’t just react but react in accordance to a trained series of responses

d) Understand the role of strategy in push hands especially how you respond to elicit the feedback that you need to win. Study Game Theory to know more

e) Work on techniques for different range of resistance

f) Develop a limited number of techniques that can respond to a wide number of attacks, counters and counterattack. Learn how to change the sequence of techniques on the fly through the use of insertion and replacement

g) Once you have the above, go on a tour of self-discovery by testing your developed skills against people of all sizes and different skill levels you meet for the first time. Then go back, study your failures, work on the needed improvements and do it all over again. When you are ready then go and enter a competition for the fun of it

The form Sam Chin (三战) is common to Fujian styles particularly the different variants of White Crane Boxing, Dog Boxing and Tiger Boxing.

Ngok Gar Kuen (岳家拳) is a Hakka style so it is no surprise that there is no Sam Chin form in the system. NGK training begins with tension standing stake practice of various postures (行功头). This is followed by a series of 18 movements made up of a basic footwork pattern and various basic techniques (二行功, also known as 行功尾).

In Sam Chin practice I see practitioners walk through a set of basic techniques while holding muscular tension, controlling the breathing, maintaining body structure and learning to issue power by compressing and suddenly releasing the force. The core principles governing this is Swallow, Spit, Float, Sink (吞吐浮沉).

I once asked Master Cheong if we have Swallow, Spit, Float, Sink and he said we do Sink, Swallow, Spit. However, after learning from L recently, listening to his explanations of how to move and observing his movements I would say that it is highly likely that we actually do Swallow, Spit, Float, Sink.

If that is the case then in 行功头 we do the practice by first learning how to hold the posture properly. Then each time we change posture that is when we will do the Swallow, Spit, Float, Sink in a sudden burst of explosive macro and micro movements. In effect, there are several things to be learned such as how to form the correct body structure, how to connect, stretch and extend out the power, and how to issue power.

Once these things are learned properly then we move on to the 二行功. This time we put into practice what we have learned in 行功头. Because we are now practicing techniques the focus in on doing the techniques quickly while at the same time executing the correct biomechanics.

In effect, instead of practicing one Sam Chin form we practice two different sets of exercises that complement each other and when added together is teaching us the same thing we would have learned from a Sam Chin form.

Beginners in NGK start their journey with 行功头, a name for a series of static postures that gives me a headache to translate. The word 行 can mean “to perform” while 功 can mean “work” and 头 in this context “beginning”. Thus, 行功头 can be translated to mean “to perform beginning work” or “exercises that a beginner must begin with” which is what they are.

My first teacher, Ah Leong, said that NGK (岳家拳) is from Emei and has the characteristics of internal and external. This means that one must be hard yet soft. At that time I didn’t really understand what he meant.

The practice of 行功头 meant to me these boring, at least I found them boring, series of postures that I have to hold with certain parts of the body tensed, then quickly relax before changing to the next posture, tensing the body and holding the posture.

Decades later when I learned from Master Cheong, he said to relax and hold the posture at a certain angle.

This month I had the privilege of picking a few valuable insights about 行功头 from another old timer of the art, L, someone who is a disciple of a contemporary of Master Cheong. This contemporary is in fact the son of Master Cheong’s teacher.

One insight that was mentioned reminded me of the principle of Heaven Earth Man (天地人) which in GM Wei’s Tai Chi is a method of unifying up the entire body. The other point was the use of the body’s core, basically, the dan tian area. I remembered this part from Ah Leong’s days. This is also reminiscent of the elastic waist (弹腰) power principle that I learned from one of the lesser known lineage of Ip Man Wing Chun.

The third insight I got through feel. L got into a stance and asked me to move him. He felt like an iron sphere in that he was strong and his centre could not be located to allow me to uproot him. At that moment I had a thought – 9 crooked pearls. L’s strong posture reminded me of the feel of my Tai Chi teacher’s posture. My Tai Chi teacher too had a strong posture but the feel was like a layer of thick cotton wrapped around a ball of steel.

When the essential body structure principles cultivated from 行功头 are put into the techniques they elevate and amplified the practitioner’s power. NGK techniques are fast and powerful, reminiscent of a cannon constantly charging and discharging, whilst propelled forward to mow down the opponent.

岳家拳 is one of the few Chinese styles that retain what I would term as the unique flavor of traditional kung fu. Those lucky enough to have a glimpse of this disappearing world would know what I mean. The culture is one thing, this aspect can be copied and replicated. What is difficult to replicate is the skill discovered, cultivated and utilized in a living art, passed from one generation to the next. You can only appreciate it when you have to jump through hoops to get it.

A long, long time ago a master of Tai Chi (not my teacher) told me that if we want to learn something badly enough a guru will appear to teach us what we desire.

I have not been looking to learn anything lately because running a business is a lot of work. One day I am looking at a country’s interest in a particular aspect of public transport and the next I am looking into chemical separation.

However, there has always been some parts of what I know that is missing certain information, knowledge which I could use to round off what I know.

The average master would feed you drills and forms to learn, practice and move you along the learning curve. Rare is the master who would tell you what he really know, the hard won insights that he has acquired, the stuff that in the old days a master would only pass selectively on, in most cases to a son; perhaps an adopted son and in some cases a lucky disciple who has proven himself.

To be offered the inside information from the beginning is like striking lottery, a one in a million chance of winning. Since I don’t gamble I will never win a lottery. But I won the CMA learning sweepstakes.

In learning Chinese martial arts we say that there is always another higher peak to climb up to. This is why learning and practice never ends. The more you think you know, the more you realize that there is still a lot more to learn. The paradox is that in the beginning you need to accumulate knowledge to make progress but at an advance stage you need to discard what is not useful or necessary to make the breakthrough, A case of less is more.

It is not so much how much you know but how well you can apply what you know. The refinement of skill is like sharpening a pencil. You need to shave away what is not necessary to make a pointed tip, a tip that is sharp and can allow you to draw refined lines.

A typical traditional Chinese martial art can have a lot of drills, forms and various learning exercises to go through. At the end of it what really matters is can we use it.

A good skill is like a warm knife cutting through butter. Bang, bang and the opponent is done. There are things I have been told through the years and I am hearing it again, things that are atypical of the Chinese martial culture, things that would not be welcome in today’s more open learning environment, but you can’t access this aspect of the traditional culture if you do not agree with it because like it or not, that’s the way it is.

Today this type of secretive culture is diminishing. But don’t be too happy because it also means that the golden standard that defines the excellence of a style will also diminish in terms of the skills that make it what it is.

Striking a balance is important but in today’s short attention span society, little patience to put in the time required, I fear that for some traditional Chinese martial arts time has already run out. I am glad that I still have the opportunity to get a glimpse and obtain something from this vanishing world.

The video below is one of the better ones I have seen demonstrating the use of traditional Chinese long pole. This channel is a good resource if you are into traditional Chinese martial arts.

Recently, I had the chance to learn from an old timer of a style that is dying out. There may be younger practitioners out there but the insights shared by this master on the use of empty-hand techniques and long pole applications are on the next level.

In the spirit of today’s sharing environment I wish I have a video to share but unfortunately, the only video is the memory I have in my mind so too bad if you were hoping to see something. Even in writing I am carefully choosing my words.

But do not be disappointed or surprised because high level kung fu is something you don’t share like common two bit information. If you get the knowledge easily you may not value it as much as the person who have spent a lot of time and money to acquire the knowledge and put in the practice to gain the hard won skills and insights.

It is common knowledge that the pole does not make two sound when it comes to usage. This means that the moment you try to attack a skill master of the pole you get hit right away. The video I posted above hints of this, but then since its showing the practice do not expect to see the high level aspects of this side of the pole usage.

You can say that I was lucky to be offered the chance to learn something about a pole form that I have been interested in for a long time. Before teaching me the form I was first shown the true nature of the pole in application and yeah, man the traditional Chinese long pole is a frightening weapon.

In the hands of a true master, the long pole does live up to its reputation of not making two sounds. Every attempt I made to attack was instantly met with a counter, one sound and bang, bang, I am defeated.

Such a learning opportunity is not to be wasted. Now I have to practice to do justice to the knowledge that I have been entrusted with.