The Importance of Taking Notes After Wing Chun Class

Even in martial arts, taking notes is vital to our growth and education. Taking notes help us remember things that we might forget. This is especially true in Wing Chun. I learn so much after each class that I have to write down the main points I learned. Sometimes I forget some things but I write down what I can.

You should try to take notes right after your Wing Chun class so everything you learned is still fresh. For taking notes, I use my iPhone and use the Notes application. It doesn’t matter if you use your phone or a notebook, the important thing is to track your progress.

Some of the things I suggest you should write down are any tips or techniques that you learned in class that are beneficial. You should also jot down anything that you need to work on. By doing this, you can review them and work on what you need to improve on at home or when you’re free. Then the next time you go to class you can test your training and see if you can put the techniques you noted to good use and if you made any improvements in the areas where you needed work on.

I consider note taking a part of Wing Chun training because it is a good way to help us understand the fundamentals of Wing Chun in action as well as defining and interpreting the theories of what we learn in class through our notes.

I never delete my notes and neither should you. You should use these notes to chronicle your Wing Chun education and keep them as a reminder of what you’ve learned and how much you have improved.

Remember Any Wing Chun Technique

Here’s a story about remembering any Wing Chun technique we learned.

This past class, we were reviewing old techniques and I had a bit of trouble remembering them.

Some of the movement seemed familiar but I haven’t really practiced these specific techniques in a while.

So I decided to step away for a moment to grab my phone. Then I typed in the technique name in my Notes app on my iPhone. There it was, I found my detailed notes I took from over a year ago.

It was all there in detail because there were 9 techniques that we were reviewing in class that day.

It was amazing that my notes held up even after a year.

One thing that helped was making notes of any short hand I used. For example I use the acronym RH for Rolling Hand and ReH for Resting Hand. ORH for Opponent’s Rolling Hand and OReH for Opponent’s Resting Hand. This is especially important for hand placements and what I’m doing with my arms.

Another thing was that I wrote them in detail so once I read my notes, things just started coming back to me because I used words I’m familiar with.

Lastly, using keywords in my notes helped because if I forgot a techniques name, I could still search for it based on keywords that are relevant to it.

The point is, I was really happy to quickly reference the notes I took about the techniques I learned over a year ago. I’m currently using the Apple Notes app that comes with the iPhone because I can easily type between the phone and my computer. Another good alternative is Evernote.

The reason I prefer writing my Wing Chun notes in an app instead of a notebook is because it makes it much easier for me to look things up.

Photo Credit: Wai-Lun Tsang