mook jong man
Senior Master
Was with a student the other day and thought we might do a bit of revision and practice 'running palms'.
Just to explain for any non Wing Chun people it is an exercise used in chi sau where one partner pushes down or outwards on the other persons arms.
The other person sensing this force then lets their wrist hinge open like a gate and lets the resistance go past as the palm runs back on the inside and strikes the oppponent , who's arms are now out of position to adequately defend , hence the name 'running palms.
Basically it teaches the practitioner not to fight force when the opponent is trying to take the wrists away from the centreline.
We are really only concerned with force that is coming directly at us.
Anyway, I had not done the exercise for quite a long time , but I told the student to use a lot of force in randomly pressing outwards or down.
As we got started I found that I didn't have to use 'running palms' much at all , certainly not like I would have had to use it years ago.
It seemed to take him a lot of effort to try and get my wrist off the centreline and even when he did it did not seem to take much effort from me to get my wrist back on centre again.
I can only think that over the years my force has become heavier and more focused and whereas before my instinct would have been to 'run palms' , it is now to just keep focusing and drag their wrists back on centre.
Does anybody else find this?
That they have to rely less on 'running palms' as time goes on because it is very hard for the opponent to move your wrists away from the centreline in the first place.
There is no doubt that I would still have to 'run palms' if the force was strong enough say for example if doing chi sau with my seniors because they would be too powerful.
But it seems to me that it is a relative thing and the higher the skill level the less reliance there is on running palms , because the 'forward force ' is very focused and less able to be disturbed by outside force.
What do you lot think?
Just to explain for any non Wing Chun people it is an exercise used in chi sau where one partner pushes down or outwards on the other persons arms.
The other person sensing this force then lets their wrist hinge open like a gate and lets the resistance go past as the palm runs back on the inside and strikes the oppponent , who's arms are now out of position to adequately defend , hence the name 'running palms.
Basically it teaches the practitioner not to fight force when the opponent is trying to take the wrists away from the centreline.
We are really only concerned with force that is coming directly at us.
Anyway, I had not done the exercise for quite a long time , but I told the student to use a lot of force in randomly pressing outwards or down.
As we got started I found that I didn't have to use 'running palms' much at all , certainly not like I would have had to use it years ago.
It seemed to take him a lot of effort to try and get my wrist off the centreline and even when he did it did not seem to take much effort from me to get my wrist back on centre again.
I can only think that over the years my force has become heavier and more focused and whereas before my instinct would have been to 'run palms' , it is now to just keep focusing and drag their wrists back on centre.
Does anybody else find this?
That they have to rely less on 'running palms' as time goes on because it is very hard for the opponent to move your wrists away from the centreline in the first place.
There is no doubt that I would still have to 'run palms' if the force was strong enough say for example if doing chi sau with my seniors because they would be too powerful.
But it seems to me that it is a relative thing and the higher the skill level the less reliance there is on running palms , because the 'forward force ' is very focused and less able to be disturbed by outside force.
What do you lot think?