Attitude:

Attitude is the ability to think quickly. You must be mentally prepared. Once you know you are going to fight, you must resolve not to quit until the enemy is defeated and you can escape safely. You must also decide to attack as many times as you can, as quickly as you can. Commit before the fight that you will not quit until your enemy is defeated.

Flexibility:

Flexibility, when put into practice, allows you to adapt to any fighting situation. Lau Tzu, a Taoist Master said, "Under heaven nothing is more soft and yielding than water, yet for attacking the solid and strong, nothing is better; it has no equal. The weak can overcome the strong; the supple can overcome the stiff. Under heaven everyone knows this, yet no one puts it into practice." Like water, flexibility never forces its course of action. It is fluid. It flows from one movement to another without hesitation, yet it never clashes force with force. It rules by yielding to its surroundings.

Sensory Overload:

Sensory overload is a principle based on a very basic scientific fact. It has to do with the short term memory. The short term memory has a very specific function. Information from millions of tiny sensors or nerves throughout the body send information to the brain. Information received by the brain is instantly placed in the short term memory where it is quickly analyzed. The brain decides whether or not the information is useful. Then the information is either sent to the long term memory as useful information, or is thrown away as useless junk. The one drawback of the short term memory is that it if it receives information faster than it can process it, it gets backed up. It is basically overloaded.

To use this principle to your benefit in a physical confrontation, you must send unmanageable amounts of information to your opponent's brain so his short term memory will overload. You do this by delivering a rapid succession of blows to several different targets or sensor nerves on his body. His brain will be able to deal with the first few blows, but after the third or fourth one he will begin to experience "sensory overload." If you leave no time between blows for analysis, his short term memory will not be able to deal with the volume of information being sent to it. In effect, the enemy will be paralyzed as long as your attacks continue. The enemy will be thrown off balance mentally and often physically.

Straight Line:

The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. When you are fighting, always attack the closest target, and attack it in a straight line. If the enemy's arm is closer to you than his face, forget the face and attack the arm. If you attack the target closest to you, it will more than likely give way to more desirable targets. Think of what would happen if you and the enemy threw a punch at the same time. Assuming both of you are moving at the same speed and the enemy threw a curved punch while you threw a straight punch, your punch would land first and his attack would be nullified. A curved punch loses more power than a straight punch. There are two reasons this happens. First, the curved punch has to travel a greater distance. Second, it simply takes more energy to move in a circular fashion than in a straight line. You have greater power if energy is devoted to a straight punch.

If students of Wing Chun practice these principles of speed, they will find themselves on the path that leads to mastery. Mastery requires practice and knowledge. Practice and knowledge are endless dimensional cycles of learning. So practice to verify and develop these principles of speed for yourself. These simple and elegant principles will transform your fighting ability.