Does your opponent make your defense?

[mook jong man]

Thanks for the corrections, Mook and Geezer.

I think I get your distinction now between #2 and #3 in the original post, when I first read it I didn't really understand the difference. But you're making a distinction between the type of energy applied, constant forward energy vs a more yielding type of energy (right?). So given that, then I believe we use the same concept that you are describing, since forward energy is stressed in our school.

I didn't realize there were "hard" styles of Wing Chun, we're always told that if you have to use strength, you're doing it wrong.

In my opinion if you are using strength with your Bong Sau , you are no longer doing a Bong Sau.
You are doing something , but it is not Wing Chun.

Even if you are initiating the Bong Sau as an aggressive and invasive movement , it should still remain relaxed.

There are many important reasons for this , the most obvious one of course being that your Bong Sau maybe countered by the opponent ripping your arm down with his Fook Sau.
If your relaxed it's not too hard to recover from this , but if your arm and shoulders all tensed up it is not going to end well for you.

 

[Eric_H]

I didn't realize there were "hard" styles of Wing Chun, we're always told that if you have to use strength, you're doing it wrong.

I tried to follow this maxim for a long time, IME it's dead wrong.

You should use strength that supports your structure, as well as "smart strength" of not fighting force with force, but applying force when you have superior leverage.

To use no strength means you must move your center more. To move your center makes you less efficient. As WC people we should always strive to be maximally efficient.

 

[mook jong man]

The problem is defining exactly what using strength in Wing Chun is.
I can extend my Tan Sau forwards and although my triceps , biceps and shoulder muscles are activated everything is quite relaxed.
In order to move the limb , muscles have to contract , there is no avoiding that.

What must be avoided though is the use of brute strength and excessive muscular tension , the type of force that locks up the muscle groups.
With this type of force the muscles are under so much tension that they can't react fast enough to the movements of the opponent.
To change direction and move the limb , the muscles have to first relax from their level of excessive tension before the opposing muscle groups can fire and move the limb in the other direction.

Staying relaxed avoids this delay , because the muscles stay in a type of neutral state that can quickly move the limb in any direction in order to adapt to the varied movements of the opponents limb.

 

[Nabakatsu]

This is a hard thing to talk about, I like the idea of a weak pak sau, if I can punch through someones weak attempt to pak sau me, than why not.. I'm not going to collapse under the weakest of pressures, but if he paks to the point where I can no longer punch through, than I will most likely be deforming reflexively to whatever pressure has overcome mine, in whatever way. Of course the other hand and my lower body will be picking up the attack and so on and so forth.

 

[mook jong man]

This is a hard thing to talk about, I like the idea of a weak pak sau, if I can punch through someones weak attempt to pak sau me, than why not.. I'm not going to collapse under the weakest of pressures, but if he paks to the point where I can no longer punch through, than I will most likely be deforming reflexively to whatever pressure has overcome mine, in whatever way. Of course the other hand and my lower body will be picking up the attack and so on and so forth.

Generally speaking , if their Pak Sau is weak it is usually due to their stance being weak and the elbow not being correctly aligned with the wrist.

On the other side of the coin , if you throw your punch in a relaxed manner , you will either strike through or your arm will be redirected by the pak sau.

If however you punch with a fair amount of muscular tension then you have provided a link between your arm and torso and instead of just your arm being redirected , your whole body will be.

This not only causes your stance to become destabilized but can also place you at a positional disadvantage as you are likely to end up with your blindside now facing the opponent.

 

[Nabakatsu]

The idea behind my statement was to state that: My goal is to hit the person attacking me, when they intercept a limb of mine doing this, they need to force me off my path. I am intent on hitting, but I'm not flexing and powering the blow through tension, loose punches generate more power to me anyways, they penetrate, they flow, keeping me from getting unbalanced, and into positions I'd rather not be in. If I can wedge through, or if there isn't enough force behind what they're doing to stop my attack, than I'm going to land it. I think that's the idea I am trying to stress. I think that's the proper mentality, you don't want to be, all yang, and you don't want to be all ying.. either should contain a part of each other for the most part.

 

[mook jong man]

The idea behind my statement was to state that: My goal is to hit the person attacking me, when they intercept a limb of mine doing this, they need to force me off my path. I am intent on hitting, but I'm not flexing and powering the blow through tension, loose punches generate more power to me anyways, they penetrate, they flow, keeping me from getting unbalanced, and into positions I'd rather not be in. If I can wedge through, or if there isn't enough force behind what they're doing to stop my attack, than I'm going to land it. I think that's the idea I am trying to stress. I think that's the proper mentality, you don't want to be, all yang, and you don't want to be all ying.. either should contain a part of each other for the most part.

Oh absolutely , it goes without saying , that if there is gap you will go through it , if their angle is weak you will collapse it.

The question is how are you generating this force , is it coming from your stance or is it coming from upper body strength?
I'm reminded of a story related to me about a very muscular young guy getting pushed around in chi sau by Tsui Seung Tin.
When the young guy questioned how this was happening , TST said " Your power comes from the muscles , mine comes from the brain".

 

[Nabakatsu]

The stance is where the power should be starting from, but there is power in every part of that connection, and I feel like you could utilize them individually to varying effects.

 

[geezer]

I tried to follow this maxim for a long time, IME it's dead wrong.

You should use strength that supports your structure, as well as "smart strength" of not fighting force with force, but applying force when you have superior leverage.

To use no strength means you must move your center more. To move your center makes you less efficient. As WC people we should always strive to be maximally efficient.

I would agree that when you have a superior angle or superior leverage supported by sound structure, then you can apply superior force.

Now as to the second part, when your opponent has superior force, our approach is to let his force move our arm, body, and if need be, our stance and "center" as well. Just as the opponent's energy can make our arm roll into bong-sau, his force can make our stance roll aside into turning stance. The goal is to yield and sort of ride the oncoming force, typically turning aside and slipping out of the way. As we are aalways rear weighted in our stances, when we turn our centerline slips aside and out of the line of the attack.

I believe this may be a major difference in approach between my lineage and Hung Fa Yi. I played a bit with our mutual acquaintance Jake after he trained some with you, and found that after starting HFY he began favoring a wider, more rooted and less yielding structure than what I normally use. But then again, I'm kind of an anomaly due to old ankle and leg injuries that make my stances "idiosynchratic" to say the least.

 

[Eric_H]

I would agree that when you have a superior angle or superior leverage supported by sound structure, then you can apply superior force.

Now as to the second part, when your opponent has superior force, our approach is to let his force move our arm, body, and if need be, our stance and "center" as well. Just as the opponent's energy can make our arm roll into bong-sau, his force can make our stance roll aside into turning stance. The goal is to yield and sort of ride the oncoming force, typically turning aside and slipping out of the way. As we are aalways rear weighted in our stances, when we turn our centerline slips aside and out of the line of the attack.

I believe this may be a major difference in approach between my lineage and Hung Fa Yi. I played a bit with our mutual acquaintance Jake after he trained some with you, and found that after starting HFY he began favoring a wider, more rooted and less yielding structure than what I normally use. But then again, I'm kind of an anomaly due to old ankle and leg injuries that make my stances "idiosynchratic" to say the least.

I think mook hit the nail on the head a few posts up wherein the term "strength" means different things to different people.

My WC used to be very "loosey goosey" in that I could shift and get to a 2 handed laap/saat combo pretty easily (probably my best move cause of my long reach). Basically I was operating under "if there's any resistance at all to what you are doing, change and flow around it."

What I'm discovering now through constantly being moved (frustration!) the last 9 months or so by my SF sihingdai is that the attitude for HFY folks should be more "Hold on to what matters stubbornly, only change if you have to, but be smart enough to know when you have to." Resistance is ok if you're doing it through superior angle and leverage and not with "tension" or "dead" force.

HFY's dip gwat training for joint power is pretty unique, the only similar I've seen is in Chu Ga Tonglong, and that's where our strength to back up structure comes from. We try to build a "grinding power" as opposed to tension. After that, we add in the chi kung aspects (compressing the energy like steam to create density) and you end up with alignment of structure, muscle and mind to back you up. We take a different roads to get there but I'm pretty sure thats what TST was referring to as nim lik.

For stances, our attitude is also different, we don't slip our centerline via rearweighting (at least not that I've seen yet), but our Leung Yi Ma accomplishes a similar goal, just with original centerline/center of gravity maintenance. Its interesting to think of the body yielding the same way as the bong sao though, we didn't discuss things in those terms in Moy Yat WC, but that system was also more focused on the 50/50 vs the 90/10.

I miss that crazy dude, he still keeping up with the DTE stuff?

 

[geezer]

...Basically I was operating under "if there's any resistance at all to what you are doing, change and flow around it."

"Hold on to what matters stubbornly, only change if you have to, but be smart enough to know when you have to." Resistance is ok if you're doing it through superior angle and leverage and not with "tension" or "dead" force.

The NVTO Ving Tsun I'm training now is more aligned with the first statement quoted above. The highest goal would be to flow around or through any resistance without crossing force.

The attitude of the DTE Eskrima I train is closer to that of the second quote. Assume a better angle, structure and position, and issue strong, yet flexible force. Jack up the other guy's structure and you won't have to shift your own.

Sometimes one approach works best for me, sometimes the other. If I were fighting for my life, I'd probably favor the second approach. Besides it's hard to maintain that "loosey goosey" relaxed approach you mentioned when facing great stress and the adrenaline rush hits.

Oh, and I'm sorry to say that I haven't seen Jake since late last winter. I don't know what's become of him.

 

[WTchap]

As I train in Leung Ting's WT system, I am (as always), liking what I hear from Geezer. His approach to training and learning is pretty much on the same tracks as my own. Well, mine is the same as his (as he started way earlier than I have).

My training outside of the WT lineage was with Kamon Wing Chun in London, and they had a very different approach (esp. regarding Bong Sau). When I was at Kamon, Bong Sau was almost always used actively, rather than passively. In the WT it is the other way round - with an active Bong Sau being the exception rather than the rule.

As a side note, the big difficulty for me in learning WT is developing the 'springy force' that Geezer is talking about. It is almost second nature to try and create this springy force towards the opponent by using the point of contact (your wrist/part of the forearm, depending), instead of from 'the elbow'. Also, when you're doing it wrong and trying to create this force from the point of contact, it also becomes second nature to direct it towards the point of contact, instead of towards the opponent's 'center'.

But when you get it right.... oh the awesomeness! Everything slots into place - as you automatically strike/eat up space/take control of the opponent's center when they have bad structure or they themselves move away from the line of attack (away from your own center). I should add that for this to really operate properly you need to make sure the rest of you is following your arms - so for me various push and pull drills have helped make sure my footwork keeps in time with my arms