Thinking without thinking?

The art of Chi Sao

Bruce Lee, before developing Jeet Kune Do (Way of the intercepting fist), started his martial arts training in Hong Kong in Wing Chun under Ip Man. One exercise that you practice in Wung Chun to improve your sensitivity, reflexes and the way you absorb and send back offensive energy is known as Chi Sao or sticky hands. Chi means ‘energy’ and Sao means ‘hand’ (Sao can also spelled Sau in English), Chi Sao is sometimes called “thinking without thinking”.

What does “thinking without thinking” mean? It means that when you are practising your Chi Sao, you need to switch off your thinking and turn on your feeling and sensitivity; it means that you are shifting your focus from the level of the conscious mind to the unconscious (or the subconscious). The unconscious mind remembers all the techniques and moves that you have ever learned and it can surface all necessary responses to our opponent’s attacks without the involvement of the conscious mind.

The conscious mind d is limited to processing 1-3 tasks at once, or about 40 bits of information, the subconscious can process thousands of tasks at once, and millions of bits of information per second (for example, monitoring all body functions). It is much easier if you can rely on your unconscious mind in order to react in that split second with a technique that you know but it is berried somewhere deep in your memory and by the time you would remember it, you would be punched in the face and on the ground.

Chi Sao does not replace sparring and fighting. It simply complements these disciplines and what I have noticed is that the best Wing Chun practitioners are all really good at Chi Sao. There is a saying in Wing Chun, “Stay with what comes, follow as it retreats, thrust forward as the hand is freed.”