Moving Quickly

Moving quickly is attained from moving smoothly, moving smoothly is attained by moving slowly!

In Wing Chun many Students just simply fail to connect the dots when it comes to how we generate our Hand speed in punching or our foot speed in kicking, they just try to move their Hands or Feet as quick as they can.

If you have been doing Wing Chun for more than 25 minutes then you already know that we define "Power" as being the result of "Mass times Velocity", and that the Mass we are referring to is our Body.

In easy terms weight moving in an accelerating way {not necessarily at high speed for instance 100 Kph. high speeds tend to reach their own maximum velocity and as such have no acceleration, just at a steady increase in acceleration for instance steadily moving from 1 Kph through to 6 Kph}, and we do this by connecting a series of separate movements that run simultaneously.

If we take "Stepping Punch", the movement of the Leg pushes the Hip {or Centre of Mass} this in turn moves the Shoulder area at the same speed, we then add the rotation of the Shoulder joint that moves the upper Arm and extends the elbow forward, we then add the rotation of the Elbow Joint that that extends the Wrist forward and then we add the rotation of the Wrist that extends the Fist forward.

Leg pushes {Hip} Shoulder, Shoulder pushes Elbow, Elbow pushes Wrist, Wrist pushes Fist.

If the Leg is moving at say  4 units of speed, Shoulder at 3 units, Elbow at 2 units, Wrist at 1 unit then the fist at the end is moving with the combined total of 10 units {it would actually be more due to the accelerating velocity but this is not a Maths blog} 2.5 times the speed of our Body movement.    

There is a Hierarchy in place here that must be strictly adhered to, the events in the Chain must flow from the previous to the next, and all events must be operating at the same time, so when the final rotation of the Wrist happens the first push from the Leg is still happening, and so are all the other movements, it should be obvious that for this to happen the speeds of each link in this chain must never surpass the link behind them or the Chain gets broken and simply no longer exists. If you move your Arm quicker than your Body then there is no way that your Body's weight can can flow into that Arm.

Imagine a Relay Race, you cannot pass on the Baton if the next Guy in the Relay is running faster than you!!

At one time or another all of us have pushed a shopping Trolley, our Body becomes the source of Power that moves the Trolley, we are the accelerator, suddenly we come to the ramp that leads to the Car Park and the Trolley begins to get away from us, at this point our body becomes the Brake, this is what happens when you just throw out your Arm, not only do you loose the possibility for your Body weight to increase the power of your strike, your Brake / Body actually causes the strike to decelerate.

So if you wish to improve your contact power, slow down that Arm, slow down that Leg and work on smoothing out the co-ordination of your Body connections, after all that is one of the primary objectives of all of our forms.

Elbow "PUSH" Wrist

ELBOW PUSH WRIST?

My Sifu used to describe the extending Arm movements of Wing Chun to me as “Shoulder Push Elbow, Elbow push Wrist”, and of course I pass it down to my Students in the same manner, but recently it has become very obvious that some Students find this simple statement somewhat confusing, even Students with many, many Years training and teaching behind them.

So lets break it down’

1. Does the Elbow really “Push” the Wrist?
2. How does the Elbow push the Wrist?
3. What does the Elbow use to push the Wrist?

As is often the case in Wing Chun the English translation can be a bit ambiguous if not misleading, so the use of the word “Push” can be problematic, we should not think of Push as in “Push a Car” or “Push a Wheelbarrow” that implies the use of strength but more as in an idea of extension like “Push your Boundaries”, even “Push off out of here”! 

If there is a physical push then it is done with the least amount of Force that can be used. 

It’s Wing Chun after all. 

1. Does the Elbow really “Push” the Wrist?  The Elbow is a Joint, so it is not really possible for the Elbow to exert Force of its own accord, so the Elbow cannot physically push the wrist, it is a concept.
2. How does the Elbow push the Wrist?  The concept of the Elbow pushing the wrist is really about alignment, if I align the Elbow in a straight line with the Wrist then any energy passed into and through the Elbow will be transmitted into the Wrist.
3. What does the Elbow use to push the Wrist? The Elbow is connected to the Wrist by the Ulna Bone, so it could be seen that the  Elbow “Pushes” the Ulna into the Wrist, just as when you shoot an Arrow, the back of the Arrow “Pushes” the front of the Arrow into the Target.

Once we understand that it is more about alignment than power production we begin to see that it is about energy traveling along a Vector, not only does the Elbow “Push” the Wrist but it also follows the Wrist, if it does not it cannot continue “Pushing” through out the entirety of the movement.

When a Student is trying to extend their Tarn Sau against resistance, or even more obviously when they are trying to Punch out from their Sternum against resistance the most common mistake is to try to send the Elbow toward the intended target destination, instead of sending the Elbow in the direction of the Wrist, and using the Shoulder rotation to direct the Whole Arm, as a result the Elbow tries to move forwards on a separate Vector while the Fist is held motionless,  to succeed the Elbow must follow on the same path as the Wrist in order to be continually “Pushing” the Wrist forward.

Most of us drive Cars, and at one time or another would of lost the rear end due to too much speed or just a poor road surface, we understand that to drive a Car correctly the back end {Boot / Elbow} must stay on the same path / vector as the front end {Bonnet / Wrist}. 

We could use this analogy with the Space Shuttle, but then it would make Wing Chun sound like Rocket Science.

Notes from Training.

These are the notes I used for the class on Monday 9 / 10 & Tuesday 10 / 10, they may not make total sense if you were not there to work on the idea's but if you were they will help you remember what we did and hopefully understand it a bit better.

Woo Sau and the Third Rotation.

The three rotations of our Arm structures in Wing Chun can be seen for ease of explanation as ;

1. The Shoulder rotates the upper Arm.
2. The Elbow rotates the Fore Arm.
3. The Wrist rotates the Hand.

The above explanations are not actual, they are just Ball Park descriptions for ease of explanation. We should all know what they are in reality from our analysis of Tarn Sau. If for some reason this does not make sense talk to me.

When posing Woo Sau {the Guarding Hand} we need to take advantage of the fact that the Wrist can actually extend as it rolls inward, rolls outward or even rolls sideways so that it can activate the whole Arm.

Despite the fact that most People view the Wrist as being similar to the Elbow or Knee in the fact that it functions as a Hinge, it is in fact a very complex joint that is made up of 13 bones {15 if we count in the ends of the Radius and Ulna}, multiple muscles and ligaments and is in all probability the most variedly mobile of all the joints in the Body.

As we present the Palm in Woo Sau we should be extending the underpart of the Wrist and not just folding the Hand backwards and compressing the rear of the Wrist, this will bring about the feeling that you are actually pressing something or emitting energy from your Palm.  One way to observe this is to do an exercise were the tip of the Index Finger stays in the same place in Space so that the movement causes the Wrist to move forwards to stop beneath the Finger tips that have not moved, and not that the Fingers move backwards to sit above the Wrist that has not moved. Words are complicated, movement is not.

Woo Sau should illicit the feeling that there is a Ball on our Wrist that the side of the Ball touches the back of the Hand, it should feel circular and not like a Right Angle. If we imagine the Ball to be a powerful source of Energy or Radiation it would emit the Energy / Radiation forwards through the back of the Hand and out of the Palm.

Fook Sau should illicit the feeling that there is a Ball on the inside of our Wrist that the front of the Ball touches the Palm of the Hand. it should also feel circular and not like a Right Angle. If again we imagine that Ball is a powerful source of Energy or Radiation it would emit the Energy / Radiation forwards through the Palm and out of the back of the Hand.

This is the beginning of Nim Lik.

 {Thought Force. The Force of Intention. Pick a Word that makes sense to you}.

In Dan Chi Sau as we change from Fook Sau to Woo Sau in response to the attempted Palm Strike the action should be formed by bringing the base of the Hand forward and rotating the Shoulder and not by tilting the fingers backwards and dropping the Arm. The incoming Strike tends to raise our Fook Sau  and compress our Angle, as we become aware of this we extend the base of our Palm forwards into Woo Sau {a bye product of this will be that we regain our Angle} and not use Force by extending the Elbow, something very strange occurs now, the feeling is that our our Hand is rotating upwards and forwards in relation to our forearm but at the same time the Hand is rotating forwards {and of course sideways as I regain the Centre} and downwards in relation to the my partner / opponents body.  This of course is the essence of how we intercept and redirect everything, and that is why Dan Chi Sau is so important and also so misunderstood.

Because Dan Chi Sau appears to be a Cycle where student “A” does this and then student “B” replies with this Ego tends to overcome intelligence and the whole idea behind Dan Chi Sau is lost.  Just like all of our Forms the apparent pattern to is simply to aid memory, there is no reason why Students cannot just work the Fook Sau / Woo Sau transition in isolation without needing to take it to the next phase of the exercise, and in fact it is only when this very thing happens that progress becomes possible.

As I tried to point out in Class, all Chi Sau movements are in essence the one move, It is a much more powerful learning aid when Students are asked to discover why all the moves in the Dan Chi Sau Cycle are exactly the same.  

Perhaps they are not, even that will teach you something.

But of course I would not suggest it if it was not the case.

Both the replying Punch and the passive Bong Sau are products of the 3rd Rotation.

Hearing it is one thing, seeing it is a totally different Fish.