Wing Chun Technique

[mvbrown21]

Hey guys,

I thought it be interesting for all of us to share our basic technique with each other from the different lineages to see the subtle and not so subtle differences. Footwork is probably the biggest thing that I personally want to see. I don't want this to start a lineage war or anything of that sort, just an honest sharing that maybe all of us could learn from.

Thanks

Here's a video I threw together last night that has the 2nd and 3rd parts of Sil Lum Tao, some single man technique, and footwork. I'll try to get the other forms up some time if I can find a place where I can frame my shot wider.

This is the Ho Kam Ming/Augustine Fong line:

_

 

[Haris Lamboo Faisal]

how long have you been practicing?

 

[mvbrown21]

how long have you been practicing?

A little over 10 years

 

[geezer]

Hey guys,

I thought it be interesting for all of us to share our basic technique with each other from the different lineages to see the subtle and not so subtle differences. Footwork is probably the biggest thing that I personally want to see. I don't want this to start a lineage war or anything of that sort, just an honest sharing that maybe all of us could learn from. --Thanks[/url]

Sorry, I don't have a video of my footwork to post. That's just as well too, since with my screwed up ankles, my personal footwork is not a very typical representation of my lineage: Yip Man-Leung Ting-me (although now a member of a separate organization, the NVTO).

So I guess I'll just make some comments about your video. First, I really like the interior of your house. Lots of artwork on the walls and a piano in the corner. Nice. I live in the better part of Phoenix. That's to say, the older part, not the pricier part. But, as a native Arizonan, I'd move to Tucson in a flash if circumstances pemitted!

Now to the footwork. I notice you turn both feet simultaneously, pivoting on your heels. That's the first method I learned, but Leung Ting insisted that I re-learn turning, pivoting one foot at a time, on the center of the sole of the foot, using knee adduction to move the foot. The advantage is that you are very rooted with your center of gravity mid-way between toe and heel, and with one foot stationary and gripping the floor at any moment. The disadvantage is possible loss of speed. The Fong method is really fast.

As for advancing steps, you appear to have something like a 70-30 or 60-40 rear to front weighting ratio. Under LT I learned a full back weighted stance. It makes stepping hard work at first, but it really frees up your front leg. Another thing, when you have one leg forward in an advancing stance, you favor a slightly open alignment with your front toe on a line with your rear heel. We favor a linear alignment with the front foot directly in front of the rear, with both angled to the side 45 degrees. The open alignment may offer a bit more lateral stability and, perhaps, make it easier to kick through with your rear leg. The closed alignment offers a narrower target and better groin protection.

Finally, and I don't fully understand it, but you have a very bouncy way of moving and stepping... almost bobbing as you move. I don't know if this is a characteristic of your lineage or a personal thing. Maybe doing WC just makes you really happy? I know it can have that effect on me. Oh well. Either way, I was taught that there was a "right way and wrong way" to do all these steps. But I don't really believe that. I think that the different approaches we see by prominent masters represent their personal preferences, and that each probably trades some benefits for some risks. When we decide which way to go, we should make a careful benefit vs. cost analysis. It's kind of like what you were posting on that other forum about waking up one day with your eyes finally opened wide about the limitations inherent in this art that you love. I didn't respond to your thread, but I totally agree. I got to the same point in my early thirties after about 10 years in the art. But unlike you, I ended up dropping out completely for a very long time. Bad choice. Probably a better choice is to hang in there, cross-train, share ideas, and develop to whatever your personal potential is. Good luck.. and if I ever get down to Tucson, we should get together.

 

[Haris Lamboo Faisal]

A little over 10 years

Nice, i enjoyed the vid but why didnt you put the first part of SNT in the vid?
I just started so i don't think i can offer any advice though , bully did an awesome analysis though

 

[wtxs]

The open alignment may offer a bit more lateral stability and, perhaps, make it easier to kick through with your rear leg. The closed alignment offers a narrower target and better groin protection.

Finally, and I don't fully understand it, but you have a very bouncy way of moving and stepping... almost bobbing as you move.

mvbrown21, please take this as an constructive assessment, and it's ONLY MHO.

Along the line of what Geezer pointed out, the "open alignment" of you stance is an open invitation for attack ... should be at least an half way "close the door" stance.

Most of your advancing steps are the "open alignment", ie like your are walking naturally, I did not see any "circle stepping" except towards the end where you changing from right side advancing to the left. Chance of getting tagged of the lower halve is extremely high ... of course you could defend it, but since your legs and feet are in motion, which mean you'll have to use your hand(s), and leaves your upper gates not fully protected, expose you to a whole other set of danger ...

Bobbing and weaving are extra movement your don't need ... they get in the way of your timing and afford your opponent a chance to read you and move in on the "half beat".

Over all ... I like it.

 

[mvbrown21]

Hey guys, thanks for the civil and constructive criticism. I appreciate it and I think it's healthy to not only learn the way another system does it, but to also hear vulnerabilities that others see.

The footwork that I presented was a fair representation of the Fong system and definitely, as Geezer pointed out, favors speed and timing over a "protectionist" structure so to speak. I think it comes from the idea that Wing Chun, if it's going to be effective in most situations, is meant as an offensive system where you don't give your opponent the opportunity to attack your vulnerabilities. The whole "the best defense is a better offense" saying. The majority of the footwork section in the video was just basic demonstration as well, with only the last couple combination examples being how it might be used in application. There is a large emphasis on controlling the opponent and using timing on the opponent within the Fong system that greatly reduces the chances of the opponent using those weaknesses on you. And while, myself and most others are not too good at "sticky legs", Fong himself is pretty amazing at it and will give you a run for your money if you try to get a leg attack in on him.

As far as the bouncing goes there's two things going on there. Part of it is my arms are really relaxed making them kind of move with my structure so to speak and the other part is that I have found, personally, that in flow with most people, it can be very effective to drop your center of gravity, whether in a deflection attempt of a strong incoming force or to use it as a sort of recoil action to generate an even more powerful explosion into the opponents structure. It works for Boxers and it works for me! The two together might make it look more bouncy than it really is and I understand that criticism. As far as someone catching my timing, I'm sure it's probably possible, but that's one thing that I am very thankful for from the Fong system. Timing is, hands down, the single biggest attribute you can gain from this system! Watch Fong anytime and even though they're just demos, hopefully you can see what I'm talking about. Also bouncing or dropping your center of gravity is acceptable within the Wing Chun system when avoiding attacks whether by deflection or just straight avoidance. It's called Chaam Geng. I just added on the Boxer application.

I didn't do the first part of Sil Lum Tao simply because it's really slow and I didn't want a long video.

I appreciate your guys responses and am looking forward to seeing others examples if possible. And Geezer, if you ever come down to the last frontier , let me know!

Matt

 

[bully]

Nice vid, and I agree nice house too!!

I am not really qualified to comment but I found that interesting, the footwork was way better then mine...not difficult tbh ;-)
Your stance looked wider than I am used too when you were moving at points and the side steps were new to me but I liked them. I saw the bobbing but but it didnt mean too much to me, by the time I had thought about it I imagine you would have punched me!!

Great to see some vids things up on here, I may think about it as the comments have been constructive and respectful.

 

[mook jong man]

Not a big fan of the bouncing movement I have to admit , it's extranneous movement not in keeping with principles of economy of movement and conservation of energy.

There are times when a dip in the stance is needed and I feel those times are when you have latched somebody behind the neck and are about to thrust a knee into their bladder , drop an elbow strike on someone or execute a close range stamp kick to the back of the knee , but other than those circumstances it is just not needed.

I feel that you would benefit more from just relaxing and maintaining your stance at the correct height , apart from those times that I already mentioned.

In my lineage we do not use a lead leg stance our fighting stance is the yjkym , what I noticed is that you have a tendency to let your feet stray from being toed in as you move , this means potential force from your whole body is being leaked out to the sides and you might not be generating the amount of force that you should be capable of .

With your mobility training might I suggest taking a more fluid and flowing approach , constantly moving in all directions (forward ,back , side ,diagonal ) whilst maintaining the stance .

Concentrate mainly on moving explosively forward with half steps and large full steps and also work on what we call "planing" that is where you are still moving forward but your body is orientated on a angle , also practice side stepping out on a diagonal with your body orientated 45 degrees.

These should cover most of the situations you might find yourself in .

 

[wtxs]

And while, myself and most others are not too good at "sticky legs", Fong himself is pretty amazing at it and will give you a run for your money if you try to get a leg attack in on him.

Circle stepping movement is an important part of the WC tool set, we place heavy emphasis on the circle stepping when training our foot work.

Give credit where it's due, but I'm too lazy to look at the back post ,,, the one about why you have your lower leg against that of your opponent's. Visualize that to be the first half of the circle step, your are setting up an leg trap to break his structure (or his knee) or setup an trip/throw. If he start to pull back (unstable structure), you move in and finish with the second half of the step, making contact with his leg/ankle on the other side, affecting another leg trap, this can be applied to the inside or outside of the leg, which again can turn into an tripping/throwing action.

Chi Gerk/sticky leg is an product of the inside and outside "circle" action, be it applied while in motion/advancing (circle stepping) or not.

 

[wtxs]

Great to see some vids things up on here, I may think about it as the comments have been constructive and respectful.

:asian::asian::asian:

 

[billc]

I do not study wing chun but I have always been interested in it. If you do more videos, it would be nice to see how you work against a partner. Just a suggestion.

 

[Punchy]

My old sifu

My sound isn't working so it may not be in English, but still a fair representation of the WT side of things

 

[wtxs]

My old sifu

My sound isn't working so it may not be in English, but still a fair representation of the WT side of things

Excellent videos demo the circling step and the concepts of chi gerk with its many applications.

 

[Haris Lamboo Faisal]

My old sifu

My sound isn't working so it may not be in English, but still a fair representation of the WT side of things

i've read about emin boztepe.

 

[tenzen]

I would post a video but my camera went to **** a few months back.

I would like to say that I don't really get the bouncing part. I mean I read why your doing it, but its wasted movement in my opinion. So again I agree with mook.
Also I think your bouncing may be fine in practice but in actuall application might throw off your timing.

 

[mvbrown21]

Just go to my YouTube page and watch the "wing chun flow" videos if you haven't already seen them. You can see when I use it there. Part 1 we start off pretty slow so be patient and part 2 is against my Sifu. The "bouncing" is how I'll practice my footwork personally and is meant for when fighting a non-wc guy and like I said proves effective for me. I don't use it that much in Chi Sao. www.youtube.com/mvbrown25

 

[tenzen]

I wasn't refering to chi sao at all. What I meant was the bounce causes a constant change in level and structure, in real combat on the street this can throw off your timing and take away from power generation because you won't have a good full body linkage. I think it would be best to learn to relax a bit and stay stable. And I'm not speaking from a purely wc point of view, I practice and teach a lot of different martial arts from different cultures around the world, and I see where the flaws of this are. There's a lot to be exploited there. Another thing is in the street you have no way of knowing what the person in front of you knows or doesn't know, so to say that's not the way you would fight a wc guy doesn't fit.
I would like to make it clear that I'm not putting you or what your doing down, I'm just saying that if it was me I would exploit that as I see it to be a weakness in your game. This may work great for you, just not the type of thing I would recomend

 

[mvbrown21]

I wasn't refering to chi sao at all. What I meant was the bounce causes a constant change in level and structure, in real combat on the street this can throw off your timing and take away from power generation because you won't have a good full body linkage. I think it would be best to learn to relax a bit and stay stable. And I'm not speaking from a purely wc point of view, I practice and teach a lot of different martial arts from different cultures around the world, and I see where the flaws of this are. There's a lot to be exploited there. Another thing is in the street you have no way of knowing what the person in front of you knows or doesn't know, so to say that's not the way you would fight a wc guy doesn't fit.
I would like to make it clear that I'm not putting you or what your doing down, I'm just saying that if it was me I would exploit that as I see it to be a weakness in your game. This may work great for you, just not the type of thing I would recomend

I see what you're trying to say but I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with you. WC is possibly the only art that promotes the rigid stance i.e. body linkage with all movements. And I'm not bashing it, it just has its pros and cons like everything else. One of the biggest cons being mobility. Another big con is the choreographed movements of a linked body structure. Many a good fighters will tell you that you can see a WC advance a mile away. And they're right, we're not distance fighters by nature. We're in our prime when beneath the field of vision of the opponent.

I don't mean to come across like you haven't been in a real fight but, to this guy, I'll take the little extra mobility any day over a little extra power. I can generate enough power linked or not linked as it is and am smart enough to know that as powerful as I "think" my attack will be, in a real fight, I'm either not going to make solid contact or I'll miss or be deflected. And that happens 9 out of 10 times. You know what, since us WC guys are pretty good with the straight shots, I'll say 8 out of 10 times instead.

Another thing you have to remember too is that a protectionist structure means next to nothing in a real fight the majority of the time, at least against a skilled opponent. You'll get an attack in here and there, and a deflection, whether by a Biu or maybe a Jaam Sau, every now and then, and you'll probably get hit a bunch of times too. Timing and your footwork will bring you the most success in a real fight. And that's true regardless of any style of martial art you train.

I think you might be misjudging the timing of the 'shadow boxing' I'm doing in that footwork example. Just because there is a beat timing that you can count doesn't mean that I'm going to use a consistent beat in a real fight. There's regular timing, break timing, double timing, etc.. Like I said before, the Fong system teaches timing like the back of your hand and timing is available to any practitioner more than just with their hands once they understand the concept of it. You're allowed to do whatever you want with your WC once you have the foundation/skill and to me, that's half the beauty of WC. Ip Man is quoted as saying that he had to relearn a lot of the movements in order to teach because he was trying to forget them intentionally so as to be a more natural fighter. It was very much like the concept Bruce Lee had and it's important that we only become slaves to tradition when passing the art down and not to our own personal expression.

Anyway, look at boxers, they're one of the hardest opponents for WC guys to fight because of their timing in both hand timing and dip/slide/bob/weaving timing. And anyone who says otherwise are not being honest with themselves about WC vs. Boxing. And all I'm doing is borrowing from that concept.

Long story short, I understand what you're talking about and how it "can" violate a principle that we all learned, and in that respect I agree with you, but in real application I'm going to do what gives me the best odds for survival and I believe that tactic to be very effective if applied properly.

Thanks and I hope I didn't come across the wrong way

 

[mook jong man]

If you are seeing a Wing Chun man advance it is because the guy is an idiot that launches attacks from out of range.

It is quite simple , all you have to do is wait until the person is within your kicking range , or within the range of your step , then you launch a sudden explosive movement forward.

Very much like a cat waiting to pounce on a mouse , the cat doesn't make a move until it is sure that the prey is within a distance that it will not be able to react in time to get away.

The stance is not at all rigid , maybe that is the way it is taught in North America , I do feel that the lead leg stance that seems to be favoured in North America has less options in terms of mobility.
The yjkym stance that we use is very natural , you should be able to run in your stance and move in any direction , all the time whilst keeping your centre of gravity low , it is very fluid and relaxed and gives equal opportunity for use of either leg in stepping or kicking.

The bouncing thing I believe is an affectation , it's a bit like people who give there hands a bit of shake before they put their guard up , it's just not neccessary.
Or people who try to add feints etc to their Wing Chun , again it is just not needed .
The longer a person does Wing Chun , theoretically his movements should become increasingly more minimalist in nature.

In close contact especially against another Wing Chun guy that bounce will be detected , and will be an opportune moment for you to be uprooted out of your stance and be propelled off balance.
If a foot can be detected being lifted off the ground through the arms then a gross movement like bouncing up and down should be picked up even more so.

Timing is also irrelevant , the only timing you need is to know the right time when the opponent is close enough for you to launch yourself forward and start your attack