An Aid to Proper Wrist Positioning.

[mook jong man]

In the Wing Chun system correct positioning of the wrist on the centre line is of extreme importance.

The difference between a technique being correct and incorrect or effective and ineffective can come down to what may seem to be very inconsequential measurements.

Accuracy of wrist position , angle of the arm , alignment of the elbow with the wrist are crucial factors if the art is to be performed properly with the least amount of muscular strength involved.

Assuming the stance is OK , then if everything is positioned and aligned properly then we can use our skeletal structure to tolerate great external forces , or effect greater attacking power.

If something in the chain is wrong and out of position then it means the practitioner will have to rely on a lot of muscular force and will feel that the effort is greater to make the technique work.

This is all part of learning the skill of Wing Chun and it takes a long time .
A lot of people think that their wrist is on the centreline , when in actual fact it is not. Just a slight deviation off the centreline either way is enough to give someone a weakness to exploit.

Where you wear your wrist watch is a pretty good guide to placement of your wrist on the centerline.
Once you have got your wrist on the centreline the trick is to be able to keep it on there while you are going through your various moves Tan /Bong /Fook and the others.

Experienced people just know whether their wrist is on centre from years of doing the form , it is instinctive and just feels wrong when it is not on centre.

But new people can have a hard time of it , they can keep it there in a static position but once they start moving their arm around or pivoting the wrist will wander off the centreline.

Here is a handy hint that I picked up a long time ago it helps you to keep your wrist positioned on the centreline at all times.
Say for example you are working on a particular movement , either just in the air , on a partner or in single Chi sau etc.

Its very simple to do it involves using the Wu sau or rear guarding hand.
Instead of having your hand in the normal Wu sau position , close your hand , face your fist forward , then extend your index finger out so it is pointing out to the centreline.

Mentally project a line out from your finger and make sure it passes through your wrist at all phases of any technique you are working on at the time.

For example rotating from Tan to Bong or vice versa whilst pivoting is one time when people tend to wander off the centreline and Fook Sau's tracking up and down can come off centre too.

Of course you have to make sure your rear guarding hand is on centre or the whole thing will be thrown out of wack.

Its only a training aid to help with correct positioning and after a certain amount of time you won't have to do it any more , you will be able to mentally project the line from your body out to the centreline.

 

[zepedawingchun]

In the Wing Chun system correct positioning of the wrist on the centre line is of extreme importance.

The difference between a technique being correct and incorrect or effective and ineffective can come down to what may seem to be very inconsequential measurements.

Accuracy of wrist position , angle of the arm , alignment of the elbow with the wrist are crucial factors if the art is to be performed properly with the least amount of muscular strength involved.

Assuming the stance is OK , then if everything is positioned and aligned properly then we can use our skeletal structure to tolerate great external forces , or effect greater attacking power.

If something in the chain is wrong and out of position then it means the practitioner will have to rely on a lot of muscular force and will feel that the effort is greater to make the technique work. . . . . .

. . . . .Its very simple to do it involves using the Wu sau or rear guarding hand.
Instead of having your hand in the normal Wu sau position , close your hand , face your fist forward , then extend your index finger out so it is pointing out to the centreline.

Mentally project a line out from your finger and make sure it passes through your wrist at all phases of any technique you are working on at the time.

For example rotating from Tan to Bong or vice versa whilst pivoting is one time when people tend to wander off the centreline and Fook Sau's tracking up and down can come off centre too.

Of course you have to make sure your rear guarding hand is on centre or the whole thing will be thrown out of wack.

Its only a training aid to help with correct positioning and after a certain amount of time you won't have to do it any more , you will be able to mentally project the line from your body out to the centreline.

The centerline (some WC people call it the motherline) traveling through the index finger is not true to all Wing Chun family lines. Our lineage believes the centerline should travel through the middle finger of the hand, through the center of the wrist and brushing the inside edge of the elbow joint. Also, the wrist should always be straight as I have seen some WC people put a slight bend in the wrist. Also, the bend of the elbow should be at about a 120 degree bend or slightly greater (depending on the height of your opponent) with the elbow a loose fist and a half distance from the chest. Of course, all this is true if only one hand is going forward to disperse (in our linege, tan sau means dispersing hand).

If 2 hands are moving forward together (1 to disperse and 1 to punch), the tan sau hand is on the quarterline and the attacking hand is on the centerline. The attacking hand always takes priority and if given the center.

 

[mook jong man]

I think you are misunderstanding me Zepeda , I probably should have made it a bit clearer.

When I say face your fist forward I mean as in like you are going to do a centre line punch with a vertical fist from the rear hand guard.

As long as your wrist is on the centre , it wouldn't matter what finger you are pointing with .

I just said the index finger because that is the finger most people naturally use to point with , but you could use any finger you want really , because the hand is in the vertical fist position all the fingers are in the same vertical plane.

I think you may be thinking that I meant to do it with the back of the hand horizontal and facing up with the index finger pointing , in that case the wrist would definitely be off the centreline and leave a hole that a truck could drive through.

 

[yak sao]

As long as your wrist is on the centre , it wouldn't matter what finger you are pointing with .



I don't know how things are down under, but in these parts if you point with the wrong finger, you may have a fight on your hands

 

[geezer]

I think you are misunderstanding me Zepeda...

I just like the way that sounds. Sorta like a line from some old "spaghetti western" movie.

Oh, and doesn't it really illustrate why it's such a pain to try and communicate this stuff with the limitations of written words. If we could all just cross bridges and feel what you were talking about, it would be clear in an instant.

Another thing that bugs me. Good practitioners from different, legitimate branches of WC and WT often do things a bit differently... and still make them work. Now my old sifu used to insist that his way was the correct way, and everybody else had it wrong.

Well, some folks do have it wrong, because it doesn't work for them, and that's just bad WC/WT. But others learn to make their stuff work, so it can't be "wrong" per se. Just different. They've made whatever series of adjustments is necessary to the parts so that the whole machine still works. Like two similar cars made by different companies, a part from one WC machine might not fit into another WC or WT machine. But using the right parts together, they seem to run fine. So, I'm not one to argue about an inch here of a couple of degrees there until I see how you use it.

Hey you know what's really funny. You ever see somebody try to correct another practitioner for doing something wrong, and then the person who was "wrong" would use his "incorrect" technique to repeatedly beat the person who tried to correct him? And the know-it-all gets up, dusts himself off and goes on trying to correct the guy that just whupped him! You know, there was a time when I was like that know-it all idiot.

 

[wushuguy]

As long as your wrist is on the centre , it wouldn't matter what finger you are pointing with .



I don't know how things are down under, but in these parts if you point with the wrong finger, you may have a fight on your hands

lol, that was funny. but seriously now, we study wing chun and know our body structure all differs. so some general principles in positioning will work for most, but as we all learned from our sifus, gotta use what works for us, what feels right for our body, try out different positions and focus on the one we can use now, but keep in mind we might still come back to try the other thing later, in case we just didn't completely grasp the principle at that time.

but for the original post, that is a good idea for beginners to try especially if there's no mirror available to see oneself in. When we share tips like this, maybe some people don't understand or don't like the idea, but there will be some silent ones out there who will appreciate it.

 

[mook jong man]

Probably single sticking hands would illustrate the point better.
If we are doing single sticking hands and I am in Fook Sau and my partner is in Tan Sau .

If my wrist is not properly on the centreline it is my experience that you will have a snowballs chance in hell of stopping a really fast , relaxed palm strike to the chest from his Tan Sau position.

You can get away with having your elbow out slightly , but not the wrist.
If the wrist is off centre by the time you have started to react by sinking the elbow the Tan Sau has already started to wedge its way through ,you have lost leverage because you have lost wrist to wrist contact and WHAM you get a big palm strike thudding into your chest.

But if your wrist is on centre properly you can "Head him off at the pass" so to speak ( sneaky western movie reference) your wrist on centre closes the gap and doesn't allow the Tan Sau to wedge through , you maintain wrist to wrist contact , and his strike cannot gain any momentum.

Believe you me one of the most irritating things to me in Wing Chun was getting repeatedly wacked in the chest by palm strikes from seniors and I worked , and worked on my Fook Sau until it was able to stop most of them .

How I mostly trained it was by just isolating the Fook Sau and the redirect by getting a partner to repeatedly and randomly fire off fast palm strikes to my chest .

Start off with your Fook on your partners Tan and tell him to go for it trying to hit you in the chest as hard and as fast as he can with his palm strike from Tan Sau , do it moving around as well , not stationary like normal sticking hands , the partner needn't go into Bong Sau he just keeps randomly firing off palm strikes from Tan sau.

I assure you if your Fook Sau is off centre this training will expose it .
Wushu , the problem with a mirror is that it can be a distraction , that is why I rarely practice SLT in front of a mirror.

When you are looking at a mirror , you cannot project force mentally very well because you are distracted by your own reflection.

Also when pivoting and doing the various hand structures , you would need several mirrors at various angles to see that your alignment is correct through the whole phase of pivoting and that woud be a distraction in itself.

With the simple pointing of a finger and the visualisation of a line projecting straight outwards from the finger , the line moves with you as you pivot , and can provide a handy reference point for beginners up until they can develop a kinesthetic sense of the centreline and their alignment.

 

[zepedawingchun]

I think you are misunderstanding me Zepeda , I probably should have made it a bit clearer.

When I say face your fist forward I mean as in like you are going to do a centre line punch with a vertical fist from the rear hand guard.

As long as your wrist is on the centre , it wouldn't matter what finger you are pointing with .

I just said the index finger because that is the finger most people naturally use to point with , but you could use any finger you want really , because the hand is in the vertical fist position all the fingers are in the same vertical plane.

I think you may be thinking that I meant to do it with the back of the hand horizontal and facing up with the index finger pointing , in that case the wrist would definitely be off the centreline and leave a hole that a truck could drive through.

Mook Jong Man, my mistake. I went back and re-read what you wrote. For some reason, I thought you were talking about formation of the tan sau position. But I understand what you were trying to say now.

 

[zepedawingchun]

As long as your wrist is on the centre , it wouldn't matter what finger you are pointing with .



I don't know how things are down under, but in these parts if you point with the wrong finger, you may have a fight on your hands

That would be a good way to pressure test your Wing Chun, right?