A Missing Ingredient?
Terence Niehoff, October 21st, 2007
Wing chun kuen is not known for its power. If you ask most non-wing chun kuen practitioners (and even a great many wing chun kuen practitioners) what stereotypes they have about wing chun kuen you’ll hear about its trapping, fast hands, etc. but not about it being known for its tremendous power. And that’s because the overwhelming majority of its practitioners simply rely on the localized muscles of their arms and shoulders to power their techniques. These practitioners often will make the excuse that their sifu has great power but that just they haven’t learned it yet! As such, these practitioners have from necessity developed the strategies in applying their wing chun kuen of “overwhelming their opponent with technique” or using the “straight blast” of numerous, quick lien wan chuie’s — hoping speed will overcome their lack of power. And this might be fine if the practitioner is larger or stronger than his opponent, but if he is smaller and weaker relying on localized muscle is simply a recipe for defeat. Yet if we look at how wing chun kuen has been historically applied, we find that our ancestors talked about “ending the encounter with one or two moves.” That can’t be achieved without having a great deal of power to both control the opponent from the outset and to end the encounter with a decisive strike. So how did our ancestors, and how can we, develop the power necessary to realize this approach?
Some wing chun kuen practitioners recognize that their wing chun kuen training does not develop significant power and so look outside wing chun kuen, either to other arts or to more modern training methods, to “tweak” their power development. However, everything that we need to develop tremendous power is already present in our system and there is no need to look outside it for guidance. In fact, looking outside the system, either to other martial art systems, to “science” (like physics), or to other training methods, will most likely lead us away from wing chun kuen’s approach. That’s because much of what we do in wing chun kuen is different in kind (i.e., of a different category altogether) than what we ordinarily do; so wing chun kuen is not just a matter of doing our ordinary things better. When we look at wing chun kuen with a typical, ordinary mindset, we’ll miss what is really going on. We must look at it from a wing chun kuen perspective.
In wing chun kuen we can only say that we genuinely know something when we can actually do it — actually make it work. We can’t, for example, say that we understand wing chun kuen power if we can’t express tremendous power. And if we don’t have it or understand it, we certainly can’t explain from personal experience how it works (with physics or anything else). The only way to learn an aspect of wing chun kuen that we’re lacking is to find someone that does have it and try and learn it from them. Worth considering too is that since wing chun kuen is an organic whole (i.e., all the ‘pieces’ fit and work together for the full effect), if someone is missing one aspect of the system, then they are most likely missing some parts of all aspects of the art, and their ‘pieces’ won’t fit together for wing chun kuen’s full effect.
It is easy to determine whether someone truly has developed wing chun kuen’s power. The opening movement, the jik chung chuie while in yee jee kim yeung ma , of our first form, the siu nim tao (non-Yip Man lineages use the older terminology, siu lien tao), is perhaps the simplest yet most subtle and profound expression of wing chun kuen — and introduces the mechanism for generating power. It’s right there from the start. One easy way to gauge a practitioner’s level is to see how much power they can generate with this stationary punch. And although it involves a strike, since every bridge is in its essence (and potentially) a strike, this power can be transferred to or extrapolated to everything else. The yee jee kim yeung ma and its body structure is the foundation of every other horse in wing chun kuen, including the moving horses.
When we punch from the stationary yee jee kim yeung ma, we can either power our punch with localized arm and shoulder muscles or with our entire body. Obviously, the entire body is much more powerful than the shoulder and arm (since the entire body necessarily includes the arm and shoulder). There are times when it is appropriate to use just localized muscle and there are times when we need to use the entire body. Regardless of the situation, however, we need a solid base from which to launch our weapons or bridges.
Most people will tell you that a parallel stance or horse stance like yee jee kim yeung ma is very strong from the side but weak from the front and back. They can demonstrate this by pushing on someone in that stance: when pushed from the side (shoulder) they are solid but when pushed directly from the front or back they fall over. This is how things ordinarily work. And some wing chun kuen practitioners that don’t know better adopt this ordinary view and say that the yee jee kim yeung ma is only a training stance. Some others say that yee jee kim yeung ma is not supposed to be stable - that its supposed to continuously break and reform at angles. Both of these are examples of finding a means of avoiding what they can not make work and instead finding some method of compensating with those things that they can make work. Obviously developing a stable yee jee kim yeung ma will allow it to function as a training horse or to be used to break and reform at angles; simply the reverse isn’t true.
If it were the case that the yee jee kim yeung ma lacked frontal stability, a punch from yee jee kim yeung ma would be ineffective — the force from a thrusting punch rebounding into our yee jee kim yeung ma would knock us backward. yee jee kim yeung ma, however, does not function like a normal, ordinary horse; it is a dynamic horse different in kind from what most people consider the normal, typical horse stance. When someone in a *functional* (and I define ‘functional’ as fully working within its design parameters) yee jee kim yeung ma receives force directly from the front (or rear) as in executing a punch they make instantaneous, dynamic internal adjustments to direct the resulting, incoming force through their body-structure and into the ground. The received force actually makes their yee jee kim yeung ma stronger and more rooted. (By the way, this illustrates one of wing chun kuen’s fundamental guidelines: everything we do should make us relatively stronger and the opponent relatively weaker).
My sifu, Robert Chu, has previously written an article on “The Root of Wing Chun kuen Power” that describes in good detail a fully functional yee jee kim yeung ma. Basically, functional alignment begins with aligning one’s three dan tien points — the yin tang point (between the eyebrows), the tan zhong/ren 17 point (between the nipples) and the pelvis at dan tien/ren 6 (slightly below the navel) — on a vertical plane perpendicular to the ground. By aligning these points, our center becomes naturally aligned, including the apex of the head, the perineum, and the kidney 1 point (directly behind the ball of the foot). Body weight will fall naturally on the K1 point when this body structure is assumed. Without this alignment, we cannot use the body as a conduit to shunt received force into the ground. Chu sifu’s structure test #1 where the testee stands in yee jee kim yeung ma with this alignment and a partner presses against the testee’s sternum (as if trying to push him over backward) with very strong pressure is a basic method of checking one’s ability to receive and, as explained later, to generate force with body structure. A variation of this test is for the testee to stand in yee jee kim yeung ma and hold out an extended punch (as though hitting someone) and have a partner (the testor) push with his palm directly into the striking area of the testee’s fist as if trying to push him over backwards. The testor should be able to push with all his might and the testee should be able to remain completely aligned and balanced in yee jee kim yeung ma, have the feeling of no exertion or strain in his arm or anywhere else, and feel as if the testor is actually pushing the testee’s horse into the floor (as though from above) and making the root stronger.
Clearly, if someone doesn’t know about this mechanism or can’t actually do this with their yee jee kim yeung ma, they won’t be able to explain how it is done with physics or anything else — they just won’t understand the mechanism of what is going on. Moreover, lifting weights or other ‘outside’ training methods won’t help one bit since it is not a matter of resisting with muscular strength or exertion. The yee jee kim yeung ma is simply not a matter of muscular strength. Sum Nung will, for example, demonstrate enormous power in application and then duplicate it while allowing onlookers to actually feel his arms as he does so to underscore that it is not localized muscle that he is using. Instead it is a matter of dynamic alignment, root, body-connection, focus, etc. all working in concert to achieve a certain, specific function. All this demonstrates that form does not lead to function but it is that function leads to form. So when we learn a “form”, be it the yee jee kim yeung ma itself or an entire linked set like the siu nim tao, the movements, shapes, etc. by themselves are meaningless unless informed by function.
Using this body structure encapsulated in the yee jee kim yeung ma as a basis, we are able to then generate and develop great power to either strike or control an opponent by using the same “path” as when we receive force (the “force path”) and the four body methods (float, sink, spit, swallow), either singly or in combination. This power is developed by the body and is not dependent on the arm; both my sifu and Sum Nung use the hammer and nail analogy (the body is the hammer, the arm is the nail) to describe wing chun kuen’s power. One way to test our ability to generate power with our body structure is to isolate the arm’s musculature by punching with a ‘locked’ elbow (so that the arm cannot use its muscles to extend). Try striking a focus mitt placed against a partners chest with a fully extended jik chung chuie (already in contact with the focus mitt) while in yee jee kim yeung ma and be certain to keep your elbow locked out during the strike. This will give you an indication of just how much ‘body’, if any, is behind your blow.
After developing good body structure, we must then learn to link and unlink our bridges to this body structure: to be able to turn on and off at will the power connection from our body structure to our bridges. The entire siu nim tao is, in effect, an exercise in using proper body structure, the four body methods singly or in combination, and various gings (a specific, refined force for most efficiently and effectively performing a specific action) for the various bridges, and linking and unlinking these bridges to the body. If one practices the siu nim tao with a locked horse (what is typically called “sitting in yee jee kim yeung ma”), they are not using their body but relying solely on the localized muscles of the arm and shoulder — i.e., actually reinforcing a “bad habit.” So when we do jik chung chuie in the first section of siu nim tao, for example, not just our arm moves, but our whole body moves, including the arm, torso, kua, legs, etc. Our whole body is the punch. All of this is in line with the Yip Man kuen kuit which tells us that “the siu nim tao trains the horse, waist, and torso.” If our siu nim tao locks the horse, the waist, and the torso then what is being trained?
Our solo drills, like punching the wallbag, are means to practice, develop, and refine all these things - body structure, the body methods, and linking and unlinking. We link our arm to our body and punch with our entire body into the bag and into the wall - like we are trying to punch a hole through the wall: our strike continues after impact with the bag to drive into the wall. This causes the force to reverberate back into our body from the strike. You’ll see some wing chun kuen practitioners hit the wallbag and their shoulders and upper torso will be pushed back from the strike (which unbalances them and misaligns their body structure). Done with proper body structure, however, the force is directed instantaneously into the ground via our body structure (yee jee kim yeung ma) and we remain in perfect alignment and balance. (This is actually just a variation of Chu sifu’s structure test #1). Done properly, there will be no exertion in the arm or shoulder muscles (they won’t get tired or feel strain from numerous repetitions, for example) but one will feel the larger muscles of the legs, waist, and torso engaged. We then unlink the bridge from our body structure and retract it while linking our other arm to our body and striking with it. Some will hit the wallbag with the localized muscle of their arms and not will penetrate their force into the wall (relaxing the arm on contact); such practice is simply a waste of time.
All of this will, as I indicated above, apply to our other bridges as well. When we receive an opponent’s force (his punch) with a tan sao or pak sao, for example, we’ll use the same force path and let our body structure receive the opponent’s force which will actually make both our tan sao or pak sao and body structure stronger (an example of ‘letting the opponent align us’). The mok yan jong is in one way a more complex power developing exercise in that we practice the various bridges with their various gings against the jong, which like the wall in the wallbag exercise, causes our force to reverberate back into our structure. If done properly, each movement on the jong will make us stronger and better rooted; if done improperly, our reverberating force will unbalance us or, in the case of those not applying any significant force to the dummy in the first place, will have no effect. Practitioners of this latter method do not develop good body structure or power and they need to rely exclusively on avoiding receiving force — by ‘running’ from an opponent’s force or by moving their body away from an opponent.
Wing chun kuen’s partner drills, like lop sao and chi sao, also deal with - among other things - learning how to and when to link and unlink one’s bridges from the body. A bridge linked to the body while powerful also affords an opponent an opportunity to use that connection to control us. By unlinking (relaxing the connection) we can forestall any such attempt. In the lop sao drill, for example, when punching and when receiving the punch with our bong sao we link the bridge to our body for power and when we are lopped we unlink our bridge from our body to prevent our opponent from being able to use the connection to break our body structure.
After becoming proficient with using proper body structure and linking/unlinking it to our bridges, wing chun kuen provides a sort of graduate course in power development, the weapon training, to teach us to extend our body structure into and transmit our power through inanimate bridges (the knives and pole).
Of course, this is not to say that just good body structure by itself will give us power. It is only one - but arguably the most important - of the prerequisites for achieving power; if we don’t have good body structure, we can only use our localized arm and shoulder muscles to power our techniques. With good body structure, we can use it in combination with proper breathing, focus (intention), timing, “energy” flow, movement, feeling, ging, and mind — all interrelated and interdependent components that must also be properly developed in accordance with wing chun kuen’s approach — to generate a surprising level of power. Body structure is the first step.
There is an old, widely-used saying in the traditional Chinese martial arts which describes the formula for success in fighting: courage first, power second, and gung fu (technique) third. It tells us that the best technique and greatest power won’t help us if we are afraid to use it. And the courage of a lion combined with the most sublime technique won’t do us any good if there is nothing driving them. Body power is the engine of wing chun kuen ; it is what drives us, it is what makes our techniques effective. Knowing this, we must all honestly ask ourselves: is it a missing ingredient in our wing chun kuen?
Add Your Reply!