Heya guys, just wondering if any of you guys have used the rattan circle? The seniors at our WC school (me being one of them) are starting to use them for making the hands independent. Also helps with switching left and right brain functions which is really need in WC when you are doing like 3 things at once :( .

Also helps raise endurance and strength and gives nice sharper movements to your blocks. Other WC practioners will know this nice clean snapping is essential for good Chi Sao :). Explained it also gives nice explosive power and a whole lot of other stuff, I was kinda tired after class and didnt take all of it in hehe (fucking uni assignments)..but I was just wondering any of you guys had any experience? Good, bad? No idea what Im talking about?

Seeing as I cant find a pic it has a diameter of approximately 25 cm.

I have seen it in magazine articles and heard of before. What style of WC trains with it?

What kind of stuff do you do with it? I've never even SEEN one.

Is it the thing that you put between yourself and your opponent, held suspended by your abdomens? Something about making you aware of your center . . . I'm not too sure, maybe I'm talking about something else entirely.

Randy Williams uses the rattan ting a lot. Not a lot of stuff on the web by/about him except his products anymore. Here's one of the few links I found that mentions his use of the ring:

http://www.panthervideostore.com/catalog/product_info.php/products_id/805


I'm not overly familiar with its use, myself. Never really saw it as something I needed; the dummy trains everything the ring can and more. Add the swords and you'll have snappy movements like nobody's business. Of course, you could just use dumbells, but where's the fun in that?

This is a good description of the rattan ring from: http://www.cyberkwoon.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8939

Here is an img of it as well http://store2.yimg.com/I/tigerstrike-martial-arts_1767_4198106

The ring itself is a circular piece of rattan wood approximately 13 inches in diameter; it is used with either both hands in one side or opposite sides. We like our students to have reasonably good understanding of the Wing Chun system before they learn to use the ring. However the benefits of training with the rattan ring are not exclusive to Wing Chun practitioners. It can also aid other stylists in developing their art, helping them to maintain a good tight and solid structure, in both defense and offence. Karate practitioners for instance should try performing their katas with the ring on their arms, to see how open their centerline may be. During Wing Chun ring training, Wing Chun techniques are obviously used. Nevertheless as the ring is just a circular piece of rattan it should lend itself to any style

Try to start ring your training with an open mind, dont let its simplicity fool you, the ring when added to a competent martial artist becomes a sophisticated training tool. Often students who try using the ring on their own give up in the early stages, mainly because they cant either keep the ring on the arms or because they find it too awkward. These are understandable misconceptions, when you start to use the ring you will find you need to exert quite a bit of outward pressure just to keep it in place. This in turn tends to make the elbows fly out to the side, which is very uncharacteristic of a Wing Chun practitioner, and to start with a little uncomfortable. The outward pressure used in the early stages to keep the ring in place is normal, this will however cause your arms and shoulders to tense up. So you may find that your arm and shoulder muscles get tired quite quickly at the start. Oh and dont forget the bruises that you will probably get at the wrists from constant use, some tiger balm or a good liniment, like Chinese dit dar jow will help with this (see your local Chinese herbalist for a good dit dar jow).
So as you can see this is normally enough to put the student right off. However with practice the ring will stay put, without using force. This will allow you to adopt the correct posture, being more relaxed will also aid in making you techniques more fluid. It will be at this point that you will begin to reap the benefits of training with the ring. Many Wing Chun purists will say that all the techniques you perform with the ring can be performed on the wooden dummy. To a degree this is true but the ring gives you more freedom of movement, the dummy works and teaches you the correct angles and entry positions, but is confined to a set space. The ring on the other hand allows the practitioner to work on all the movements from the dummy whilst moving freely. Advancing and retreating footwork can be incorporated in with the hand techniques already learned on wooden dummy, this will assist in all aspects of your Wing Chun training.

Like the wooden dummy the Wing Chun rattan ring allows the student to maintain correct hand positioning, whilst using constant fluid movements. However when moving on to free sparring, students quite often find themselves caught out as their structure and posture breaks down when trying to keep moving. Practice with the ring will help this problem, keeping the guard hand in a good position for a start. It also stops the student crossing their centerline or opening it up whilst changing movements. Just through the simple design of the ring, it will not allow you to deviate from the correct position. However as stated before, it is important that the student has a reasonably good understanding of the system. This will allow the ring to work for them instead of them fighting it when trying to learn new techniques. The ring acts as a correcting tool, adjusting positioning and structure as they work through the form. Here are a few techniques with the ring and applications on an opponent.


Using the rattan ring will help you to improve your overall performance, giving you more flexibility of movement. However, make sure as you start to apply your techniques in free sparring take your time. It is important to gain a fuller understanding of techniques and applications. If you spend all your time working at full speed you will only improve your reaction awareness. To acquire skill you must fully immerse yourself into the technique that you are working on. Make sure that you can see what is going on so that the technique can be executed cleanly, then you can start to increase the surge of accelerated movement. If you find gaps in your defense, go back to the ring and work through them.

So basically all that gong sau said is true, but it's a great training piece to use at home, or for many people at once if you have limited dummies etc :D.

JKDChick The rattan ring is aprox. 12 inches in diametre. Its about an inch thick or so. All I know is that chi sao and some other exercises are done with it. I think its suppose to also add strength to your blocks and possibly condition your forearms as well.

Its a great tool to keep your techniques "small".
As far as conditioning the forearms, the dummy is better , but you can get some with the ring.