Ip Man Ving Tsun France - Robleyacademy Bordeaux - Roland Tong Lineage

What is Chi Sau?
Chi Sau/ Sticking Hands is the most famous training method in Wing Chun, but it’s widely misunderstood.
It’s not sparring. It’s not a competition. It’s a sophisticated sensitivity drill that teaches you to feel your opponent’s intentions through touch and react instinctively …. faster than your eyes ever could.
At the Rob Ley Academy, Chi Sau is where everything comes together. Your structure, your timing, your reflexes — all tested under real pressure. Full article on our blog — tap the website link in our bio to read it.

Up at the Peak with Sam, Cedric, Aicha and Regis, looking out over Hong Kong.

Taking students here is one of the better parts of teaching. You can talk about Sigung Ip Man in a Kwoon in Cornwall for years, but standing above the harbour at dusk with the whole city switching on beneath you does something a lesson never quite manages. The lineage stops being a chart on a wall and becomes a place, with a noise and a smell and a view.

Somewhere in the streets below, this art was taught in rooftops and back rooms to people who needed it. Now four of my students are stood above it all, carrying a piece of the same system home with them.

That's how it travels: not through institutions, but through people and their experiences.

No egos up here. Just students, and a very good view.

Where in the world has your training taken you?

Train the same system wherever you are 👉 robleyacademy.com/online-manual (link in bio)

Josh in action at the Hong Kong Fighting Union event in 2019. He won his fight.

Competition is a different sort of lesson. There is no stopping to reset the distance, no chance to explain what you meant to do, and no room for ego once somebody is trying to hit you back. You find out what stays with you under pressure.

That is why I have always respected the students who are willing to step up. Winning is a good result, of course. But getting on the platform in the first place takes honest courage.

Josh did both that day.

Have you ever tested your training under real pressure?

Build the foundations properly 👉 robleyacademy.com/online-manual (link in bio)

An old photograph with John Wong Hong Chung at the VTAA in Hong Kong — taken on a visit five or six years ago, I think.

I had met John plenty of times before this visit, but have not seen him since. I have only just come across this photograph again.

John's father, Wong Shun Leung, and my Sifu, Grandmaster Roland Tong, were good friends. That makes this a particularly nice photograph to come across.

The older I get, the more I value these visits. Ving Tsun lineage is not only names on a chart. It is the friendships, conversations and mutual respect that carry from one generation to the next.

Always good to be back at the VTAA.

Who have you been pleased to meet again through your own training?

Learn the system as it was passed down 👉 robleyacademy.com/online-manual (link in bio)

My Sifu, Grandmaster Roland Tong, looking cool as ever in his green sunglasses.

He was already in the front of the car. I jumped in for a chat, and my kung fu brother later took this photograph.

There's a version of the martial arts world where everything is solemn. Bowing, silence, stern faces, and a great deal of ceremony. There was a place for respect — he would have been the last to argue otherwise.

But this was also what it looked like. A chat and a laugh in Hong Kong.

Some of the most valuable things he taught me were at the dining table, before and after dinner. That was when he talked: about Ving Tsun, about people, and about how to conduct yourself.

The art was always serious. The people did not have to be, all of the time.

No ego. That was the whole thing, really.

Who taught you the most outside of training?

Learn the system as it was passed down 👉 robleyacademy.com/online-manual (link in bio)

Reg, Chris, Cedric, Aicha and Sam, standing under the sign with Sigung Ip Man behind us.

I’ve been in that room many times now and it still catches me. Not because of the bust or the plaques, but because of what the room represents — this is where the association was formed to preserve the art properly, and where the seniors still gather. To bring students of my own into it, from a Kwoon in Cornwall, is not a small thing.

These five trained hard that week. They also ate a great deal, got thoroughly lost at least twice, and asked better questions by the end of the trip than they did at the start. Which is rather the point of taking people.

You can teach the history in a classroom. It lands differently when someone is standing in it.

We’ll be going again. If you’ve ever wanted to see where this art comes from, keep an eye out.

Have you made the trip to Hong Kong yourself?

Train the same system, passed down unchanged 👉 robleyacademy.com/online-manual (link in bio)

Sil Lim Tao at Temple Street Night Market, Hong Kong — Wing Chun First Form | Ip Man Ving Tsun Sil Lim Tao (Little Idea) — the first form of Ip Man Ving Tsun / Wi...

After a class at the VTAA during our November visit to Hong Kong.

I took my students along to attend the class, and they had the opportunity to train with everyone in this photograph—mostly through Chi Sau.

There are well-known Sifus from several Ving Tsun lineages here, including Sisuk Pang Chi Yam and Sisuk Mok Ho Ching, both students of Sigung Ip Man and both juniors of my Sifu, Grandmaster Roland Tong.

Chi Sau gives you something a photograph cannot. Through contact, my students could feel different structures, timing, pressure and approaches from people with many years of experience. They were not simply meeting names from the lineage; they were actually training with them.

Afterwards, we stayed to catch up with old friends and make some new ones. A good class, a good evening and a valuable experience for my students.

What have you learned from doing Chi Sau with somebody from a different lineage?

Develop your structure and sensitivity 👉 robleyacademy.com/online-manual (link in bio)