Winter 2015 Seminars

Student & Instructor Seminars - November 2015

With Dai-Sifu Rainer Tausend 7th PG

National instructor for the IEWTO, Dai-Sifu Rainer Tausend, returned to Dublin on the weekend of November 21st and 22nd.

Dai-Sifu Tausend, the official country coach since 1998 travels to Ireland three times per year, each year to teach the students and instructors from the six schools of the IEWTO - Blanchardstown, Dublin City Centre, Maynooth, Navan, Sligo and Wexford.

Dai-Sifu Tausend, Sifu Canavan, Sifu O'Leary with the attendees at the student seminar

The weekend seminars give IEWTO members an opportunity to gather together to train, to take advantage of Dai-Sifu Tausend’s vast knowledge of Wing Tsun, to catch up on developments and news from the European Wing Tsun Organisation (EWTO) and, of course, to grade.

At Saturday's instructor seminar, Sifu Tausend spoke about fighting with principles rather than techniques. After a few drills to demonstrate and practice this the instructors worked on their programmes with a new focus on the use of the principles rather than a mechanical following of the movements.

Dai-Sifu Tausend, Sifu Canavan, Sifu O'Leary and the other attendees at the instructor seminar

Sunday's student seminar was very well attended. Sifu Tausend spoke about how using the entire body makes it impossible for an opponent to prevent the Wing Tsun practitioner's movements. To practice this the students first repeated a turn from the Chum Kiu form while a partner tried to stop them. After that the students moved on to using the same principle to control an opponent's resisting arms in one of the openings from the Blitz Defence.

Dai-Sifu Tausend demonstrates the use of the body to control an opponent's limbs

The students then moved on to using small movements to create openings after initial hand to hand contact is made.

After a short break Dai-Sifu Tausend, Sifu Canavan, Sifu O'Leary and Si-Hing Nicolas Maraite tested students for their grades. Notable among those who graded were the head instructor of the Sligo School, Micheál Preston, and Maurice from the Dublin City Centre School who were both awarded their 1st Higher Grades. A hearty congratulations to them both and to all the other students on their grades.

The IEWTO would like to thank Dai-Sifu Tausend for another excellent weekend of seminars. We return to training with much to consider and incorporate into our daily traning and we look forward to his next visit in Spring 2016.