Saturday, August 12, 2006

What is Wing Chun About?

For those of you who haven't heard of it, Wing Chun is a type of Kung Fu which was developed by a nun in China, a couple of hundred years ago. It focuses on technique rather than strength and, as such, is designed so that a smaller person can successfully fight a much larger person, and not get too tired out in the process. There's no messing around in Wing Chun, it's not like the movies where fights go on for ages. The aim is to take out your opponent rapidly and effectively.

Here are the principles of Wing Chun, according to the masters:
  • Economy of movement
  • Directness
  • Practicality

As a Wing Chun student of about 3 years (ie, by no means an expert), I think this means:
  • Carefully angling legs and arms (the ultimate angle) at which point they are very strong and take very little energy to resist force applied by an adversary.
  • Applying full body weight in every movement (eg, force going from shoulder, to elbow, to wrist in each movement).
  • Relaxation of muscles to increase speed, decrease energy use and make it very difficult for your adversary to grab you.
  • Redirection of strikes rather than blocking.
  • Increasing force of your strikes through pivoting and stepping forward.
  • Simplicity. Movements are simple with no adornments.
  • Ruthlessness. Nowhere is off bounds to a strike when you're fighting for your life.
  • Keeping your pelvic floor muscles lightly tensed so that your body works as a single unit.
  • Every defence is also an attack.
  • Stance is very important. From a strong stance, your blows have much more force as you do not move backwards when you strike. All your force goes into your opponent, rather than rocking you backwards.
  • Upsetting the stance and breaking the guard of your opponent is a major goal. Once that's done, they are at your mercy, you can keep them off balance by constantly moving forward.
I really enjoy Wing Chun. Also, it keeps me fit, and I think I'm much better equipped to deal with any sort of physical aggression as a result of my training. I haven't tried any other school, but I'm happy with my current one, the International Wing Chun Academy.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wing Chun was invented by a nun name "Ng Mui" in mainland China instead of Hong Kong.

It was Grand Master Yip Man who brought Wing Chun to Hong Kong. With Bruce Lee and Wong Shun Leung spread to the whole world.

James Crisp said...

Thanks, I'll update my article. Coincidentally, I was corrected by my instructor on the origin of Wing Chun on the weekend too.

Wooden Dummy Central said...

Hi James I read your wing chun comments and by the detail you have included I bet you study with a Jim Fung school.
I am just starting my blogg here looking at classical / non classical uses of the wing chun dummy. Maybe you will have somthing to add ?!

Wooden Dummy Central said...

hi thanks for th ekind comment. becuase I am new I had set a parameter that ment your comment to me got emailed, rather than put on the blog straight-away. (I think).
I changed this hopefully people can post and if there is anything bad posted I can edit it out (right ?.
regads, Eric

James Crisp said...

Hey Eric, that's right, you can delete comments from your blog if you want to. There's a little trash can icon you can click next to a comment that will remove it.

Btw, interesting post on 'Randy Willams work on the dummy', but recommend a brighter text colour. Bit hard to read the dark blue on black background.

Cheers,
James

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