Collapsable stance

Collapsable stance.

Something that we have been playing around with recently, we created a very simple drill designed to teach you the correct combat stance position (without spending so much time looking at your feet.)
Also a good introduction to releasing or getting away from unnecessary pressure.

So very simple, if your partner stands in front of you and you take on the basic stance or Kim yeung ma (as we talked about in the previous post).

Your partner pushes on your hands until you can feel that there is too much pressure to cope with, at which point you collapse into your combat stance and change your hands to a combination of "wu" and another hand directed to your partners centre, weather it be, a punch , Palm strike, set of keys...whatever.

The result should be that you find your most comfortable and natural combat stance that can actually stop your partners forward momentum. (if your kim yeung ma cannot)

Of course this drill can be modified in many ways, one simple idea is to practise changing to a different line if your partners momentum is really too strong, this can be a bridge to practising Toi ma idea.

Of course you can practise it from "Chi sau". This is just one more idea that might give you the same technique from a different situation.

Happy training.

Yee gee kim yung ma.

Just a few points i picked up working with Blair and in my own time about the correct position for kim yung ma.

When i learnt in the beginning i was told to keep the the feet touching, i have noticed that this is not so important, in fact, when i begin with my feet so close i find i have to adjust slightly when i have finished opening my stance. ( will come back to this point)

When you bend the knees at first, keep the back straight.

look straight ahead.

Breath!

After turning the toes and heels out having opened the stance, take a few seconds to check the position.
a good method we found out was to let the arms hang loose by your sides. If your arms are natural falling onto your thighs , then you probably have the right position (for you). Also check where the fingers point down, there should be an imaginary line from your fingertips to the inside of your big toe.
This method should give you an indication that you have made the correct stance, for you.

Coming back to the earlier point, that i have to adjust to find MY stance. The stance will vary slightly from person to person, depending on hight, weight, mass, length of legs, length of body, flexibility etc. So take some time to check and make sure you are using the stance as it works best for you.

You can usually tell if you are doing it correctly because you should naturally sink into the stance, once you have a comfortable fit, next you should test your position after you have turned into the combat stance. Take time to find out what adjustments (if any) need to be made to make the combat stance as stable as the training stance.

Hope this helps, happy training.

 Recently i tried a different approach to improving the chain punching speed, which you can see my first attempt in the video.

The idea was instead of trying to count the punches, to punch at full speed with as much force as possible non stop for 1 minute.

This may sound very easy, but your arms get tired very quickly, keeping them moving needs you to keep relaxed in the upper arm, and to keep the elbow down and drive the punch from the elbow.

If thats not clear, then think about this: The upper arm and the biceps are not needed in this punch they will slow you down so try to put all the energy into the elbow and drive from here, instead of the shoulder. This should give you the Tricep muscle strength instead and let you build on speed and power.

so here is the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFoufVTJebo

Wing chun punching.

So i read or heard a fair bit of negative feedback about the chain punching used in WC.

Mainly people don`t think that it has any power, or that it has less power than using boxing hands or other swinging punching methods.

This is NOT true, However what is true is that the type of power that comes from chain punching is not the same as the power created by a swinging blow.

The idea of a swinging blow is that the transifical force of the bodymovement x the impact of the largest part of the fist will equal the most damage. This is pretty much the case in terms of the Area that gets damaged by this type of punch.

When you use this type of punch the energy moves in various directions, at the impact point the energy will disperse on impact, spreading over a large surface area (when i say large i mean perhaps the size of your fist).
Although, some of the power does not make it to the impact point.( but this is really a different topic so i will keep my mouth shut on that until the next post.)

In WC the chain punch does not disperse energy on impact, instead the energy travels in one straight line, like a pole or a sun-ray or something of a straight nature.
On impact the area of damage is much smaller, the real difference is that the energy penetrates the target and continues right through and out the otherside. In This sense the punch is actually more deadly, because it has the potential to damage internal organs much easier than a swinging blow.

I have practised Kung fu for only 6 years, but i have been at the recieving end of both type of punch many times, personally i`d rather get hit by the swinging blow, it will hurt like hell and it will probably bruse and take a while to heal, but some chain punches i have felt for weeks afterward.

For more videos visit: http://youtu.be/dWGxYJlStj0