I was taught the same thing... although we do turn aside or yield ground with short steps if pressed back. Generally when the opponent gives us an opening or withdraws, we step forward, if he presses back forcefully, we ride the force back, withdrawing our front foot and flowing back into "character two" stance (aka "yee gee kim yeung ma" or "IRAS") and turning to dissolve the force. Sometimes we also use a bit of a "crab-step' or lateral step with the turn. With a very forceful opponent, the cumulative effect of this is that you do yield ground, but you never stop exerting your forward pressure. I think this relentless forward pressure, even when giving ground, is what the "no retreat" motto is referring to.
Otherwise I'm with Jake on this. Common sense is good to have!
I reckon you are spot on there , it has to be about the forward pressure even when physically moving back , I don't really think it could refer to anything else
Because in a lot of circumstances it just makes damn good sense tactically to shift back a few inches.
We have a technique called shift and advance that used to be taught to juniors to deflect a side kick to the gut with a cut down from the guard .
In ordinary circumstances cutting down on the back of somebodies calf muscle with your forearm might result in a bit of a clash , but when used in conjunction with a shift back a few inches (just enough to make them miss) the result is a rather efficient deflection , and of course after he has extended his kicking leg and hit air you charge straight back in.
You could also use it against a knife slash to the mid section , shift back , make him miss , and charge straight back in before he has a chance to recover.
Its only a slight momentary shuffle back but you have full control of your balance and are able to explode straight back in again.
There's also about two traps in chi sau that I can think of that use a half step back , usually used against somebody who is bullishly pushing forward .
What these have in common is that the opponent is over committing and wants to go forward so we just let him go forward but add an off balancing technique such as sinking our bridge on his arms as we move back , the result is he gets pulled straight down into a strike .
I think its just another tactic to employ when you encounter resistance , rather like using pivoting , it just adds another force vector into the mix that the opponent has to deal with .
For example if I'm trying to latch the guys arm down to hit him but he is tensing his arm up and resisting then I can pivot and pull his arm down that way .
Or I can take half a step back and do it that way , he is only prepared to deal with the one force vector of my arm pressing down on his , but when I pivot , his arm and body is now getting pulled slightly out to the side and his body off balance from the pivot as well as his arm being pulled down.
Same with stepping back , his arm is getting pulled down , but he is also getting pulled forward and off balance at the same time , makes it very hard to resist when two force vectors are acting at once.
So in my opinion shifting back is related to the use of multiple force vectors in Chum Kiu same as pivoting .
