| ANALYSIS Movement 4 and 5
introduces you to Wing Chun's basic stance. I can't stress enough the
importance of learning and developing correct stance. Although Wing
Chun's basic stance looks lame compared to other styles, it is
nevertheless strong, efficient and practical. Unlike other stances that
require you to estimate feet distance to shoulder-width, half
shoulder-width, shoulder-width and a half, double shoulder-width ... WC
uses only one size, based on your personal body proportion. The size of
your feet will determine the width of your stance. It makes good sense
because we walk on feet, and have developed a comfortable walking
step-width for ourselves according to the size of the feet we have.
Small feet will take small steps, and big feet will take big steps,
regardless of how wide your shoulders are. If you doubt my statement,
let's look at an exaggerated situation. Say you were born with very
large feet ... like a clown. Do you think your steps would be shoulder
width? You'd most likely trip over your feet every two steps if you
walked like an average built person. The solution: Big steps.
WC
stance is based on your natural walking width. This makes the stance
efficient because you are most comfortable with that width, and can move
quickly with it. More or less will require adjusting and thinking about
it. Having to think about your stance or footwork will slow your action
down.
Movement 4 and 5 thus uses your feet width to establish your
stance width. This is your beginner's basic and training stance. You
will unlikely use this stance to face your opponent, but use variations
of this stance that you will learn later, which you will find more
comfortable and less vulnerable). Having said this, let me point out to
you that this stance is not only a training stance for beginners, but
also for the very advance WC practitioner. It allows the practitioner to
attack from either or both sides of his body like the double-gunslingers
of the old West. You'd have to be a very proficient WC practitioner to
feel confident using this stance in a fight.   The stance shown by Sifu Chan in Figure
4 and 5 is a little high for beginners. Sifu Chan has
practiced WC for 35 years. He has developed a comfortable height for his
stance that he feels efficient with. It is based on his proportions. I
strongly recommend beginners to lower the torso and knees as low as
possible, as shown by the cyborg in Illustrations on the right side.
This stance is often referred to as the "squeeze-locking the goat's
head" stance. Get the picture? If you're not a shepherd, and can't
imagine what I'm talking about, you may remember squeeze-locking your
younger brother's head in one of your rumbles, or holding a grocery bag
between your thighs while looking for the house or car keys. Legend has
it that Lady Wing Chun could lock anything (like an opponent's leg)
between her knees and render it freeless and helpless.
In the
beginning, I would suggest you to put a football or hard pillow between
your knees or thighs, and hold this position through out the Siu Lim Tao
set. Even if you have strong thighs and legs from weight training, you
will find it difficult to hold this position long. This is because you
have not trained the muscles required for this position. Many of you
will find your legs and the whole body trembling when you do this for a
long while. It is a good sign, do not relieve the trembling by raising
your stance height. Qigong artists try to achieve natural trembling to
raise their level of training. When you tremble, it means that your
inner Qi is moving to break through the blocked channels. When we don't
regularly use certain parts of our muscles, nerves, and brain, the Qi
channels for that area get blocked. When you start using those parts,
the Qi begins to move through those channels. When it encounters
blockage, it tries to break through. Eventually, it does; and the Qi
begins to flow smoothly through.
I'm sure you have experienced
trembling before when you had vigorously tried to get back in shape
after a long rest from physical training. You may have even felt dizzy
and faint. You may argue that those symptoms are caused by increased
heart rate, lack of oxygen, poor blood circulation, poor balance of red
and white blood corpuscles and exhaustion. Correct. However, the
Chinese sees them as symptoms caused by poor Qi circulation. Good Qi
circulation provides oxygen and nutrients to your body; it regulates the
heart and blood circulation; it balances your blood corpuscles; it
provides you energy; and it maintains your immune system.
Our immune
system not only prevent and fight alien elements, but repair our bodies
as well. It will cure just about anything. You get cut, and the system
will repair. You could lose a limb, and the system will repair--short
of growing a new one. Keeping the Qi in good running order maintains the
immune system. Siu Lim Tao includes Qi training for the beginners and
the veterans.
The Chinese don't use the word "stance" in martial
arts. They call it the "horse." This is very significant. Martial art
was not developed by the common people for common brawls. It was
developed for warfare by the echelons of China. It is thus called
"martial" art, rather than "boxing, wrestling, etc." In the old days,
the horse was the armored fighting vehicle for the high ranking and
skilled officer. You had to be a skilled foot soldier before moving up
to the ranks of a cavalier. On a horse, you will not only use your
weapons to fight your opponents, but use the horse as well. You will
need to control the animal while fighting another cavalier or foot
soldier. A war horse is no ordinary horse. It must be strong, swift,
obedient, yet a little on the wild side. The battleground isn't a place
for the feeble. The horse is also trained to battle other horses on the
field. You, as a cavalier, will need to control your horse to do exactly
what you want; otherwise, you are dead meat.
There is a saying that
Chinese like to use when an emergency crops up, and what you need to
resolve the problem with, which you always have onhand, is not
available. The expression is, "Zhang Sigui's horse!" This express is
the short version of "Zhang Siqui's horse, during an emergency, went out
for a piss." The saying stems from a historical event, of General Zhan
Siqui, whose horse disappeared just when he needed it, which cost him
his life. The comparable English expression would be, "Getting caught
with your pants down."
In martial art, your stance is comparable to
the war horse. In order to use it as a fighting vehicle, you must train
it, and train yourself to control it. You must be able to fight with
both hands and control the horse with your lower torso. You must train
yourself to stay mounted. Once you fall off the horse, you are no
longer a cavalier. While you may be a skilled foot soldier, and fight
other foot soldiers off, you will have difficulty fighting a cavalier.
You are not only fighting a man on a horse, but fighting the horse as
well.
When learning martial art, you must think of your lower torso
as your horse. In Wing Chun, attacks to your lower torso is taken care
by your horse. You do not bend or drop your upper torso to block an
attack to the horse. The horse is trained to take care of itself. The
horse is not only trained to defend, but to attack as well. The horse
attacks other horses, not the rider. Does that make sense? Can you
imagine the cavalier hanging below the horse's stomach and fighting foot
soldiers; or the horse trying to strike down the rider with its legs? If
they did that, the rider and the horse would be confused with each
other's role during battle. When you are playing doubles in tennis, if
you cross over to your partner's court, there will be confusion as to
who will hit the shot. Wing Chun style takes care of the upper torso
with the upper limbs and the lower torso with the lower limbs. It does
not see sense in you using your legs to kick an opponent's head or using
your fists to punch the opponent's knee.
Those of you who have done
styles such as Taekwondo, will need to concentrate extra on grounding
yourselves when learning Wing Chun. Your habit of bouncing and
jump-kicking has trained your main Qi to reside in the upper torso area.
You will need to learn to store it in your lower torso, in the Dan Tien
area, which is about three fingers-width below your belly button. (See
Lecture on Qi Force and Qi Balance).
Staying
grounded is a strong aspect of the WC style and concept. Not only will
grounding maintain your balance, but strengthen your defense and attack.
Remember earlier on in this section, I mention about how our body works
like a car-jack. I mentioned about the indirect winding force of the
car-jack crank likened to the inner Qi force. Let me expand on this
now. Direct force, although the strongest, is not always the best to
apply in all situations to accomplish the optimum result. Here's one
example to prove my point. Suppose you've got your small car's bumper
pressed against a mid-size car's bumper, and you revved up the engine
to 5000rpm on 3rd gear, equivalent to 100km/hr on the road, and the
driver in the mid-size car revved his car to whatever it takes to run
his car at 100km/hr; what do you think will happen? Your guess is
probably the same as mine; that your small car will be pushed back even
though the two cars' output are the same. This is because the mid-size
car has one more force added onto the pushing force; i.e. gravity, or
weight as we may commonly call it. So, if your objective is to move the
mid-size car back, and not necessarily backward, you can put your car's
bumper at a point on the side of the mid-size car, in an acute angle,
and turn the mid-size car around with less force than the initial
output.
Here is another example. You've got a truck that needs to
make a turn in the warehouse, but is having trouble moving because it is
overloaded. Your small car isn't able to budge it when it is standing
there in neutral position, due to it's shear weight. However, if you
can get the truck powered up to move a little, you can help turn it
easily by pushing your car against its side.
The two examples above
are similar with a slight difference. The former one shows how you can
divert a powerful incoming force more easily by side-swiping it than
going head on. The latter example shows that it is easier to side-swipe
an object if it is moving than if it was stationary. The two examples
also show how you can use your opponent's force to your advantage in
martial art.
The results of the two examples above are based on one
crucial factor; that the two cars are on similar grounds. This is to say
that if one car was on oily surface, then it would be at a
disadvantage.
In martial art, staying grounded is crucial. Whatever
direction you apply your force, you need to be grounded. If your legs
are not grounded, they are like the spinning wheels of your car on oily
ground. Even if you were the driver of the mid-size car, and driving
against a smaller car head on, you will be pushed back.
Now, getting
back to the cranking force of the car-jack; we don't have any bodily
parts that we can continue cranking. However, there is something we can
crank; i.e. our Qi.
The universe exists on an invisible circular
force. All heavenly bodies are round, spins on its own axis, and around
other bodies. All martial arts work on the principle of circular force
one way or another. Some use large circles, like Taiji and Shaolin, and
some use small circles, like Wing Chun ... yes, Wing Chun also. (I will
explain how as I touch on different movements of WC.) Some styles that
look totally linear, still use the principle of circular force by
twisting their fists in a straight punch.
As I said, we cannot crank
our bodily parts like a car jack, but we can crank our Qi. We can
control our Qi to move vortically or linearly like water. We can make it
explode or implode like gas. Now, why am I talking about circular force
and Qi when I'm on the subject of WC horse? Here again, I'm trying to
stress the importance of a strong horse, and how you, as a small person,
can apply the principles of circular force and Qi to fight your opponent
to your advantage.
As mentioned before, your spine is like the
center shaft of the car-jack. The crank turns the shaft to move the
levers up or down. Now, imagine your spine as a big, heavy duty spring
(winding force). Imagine bolting the spring to the ground firmly. If
someone was to push down the spring; the more pressure he applies to the
push, the stronger the spring will rebound. The spring is only effective
if it is grounded well. If the bottom were to slip, there will be no
rebounding force.
So, if you do not learn to ground yourself firmly,
you will not be able to rebound your opponent's force; therefore, you
will not be able to optimize your force.
Note: Those of you who find
it difficult to imagine yourself as a giant spring, imagine yourself as
a dumb car-jack. Imagine your spine as a spring-loaded shaft, and your
limbs as the levers. Grounding will mean bolting the bottom of the shaft
and levers to the ground. Pressure applied down on the levers will
create counter force upward. How's that for analogy? Need more
explanation? Can't help anymore! ;-)
What makes the WC horse
look lame is the toes in position. You are reminded of the high school
nerd who was pigeon-toed, and walked silly; but how did he turn up to be
a sex machine and the corporate president of the company you work for?
Kidding aside, there is something to being pigeon-toed. Qigong
practitioners do meditation with their toes turned in. Many high-level
practitioners train themselves to walk pigeon-toed. Turning your toes
inward contains the Qi within and around you. When you learn to store
your Qi in the Dan Tian (lower abdomen and pubic) region, you will not
want to leak it out by spreading out your toes and knees. Once you have
grasped the concept of the Qi, you will feel the difference between
turning the toes in and turning them out. Turning the toes and knees
inward create invisible doors that will contain the Qi. Turning the
toes and knees out will open the doors. If you have been practicing
martial arts for some years, and wasn't aware of this, you may feel it
right away, now that you're exposed to this concept. Even if you
haven't given much thoughts to Qigong, you have been doing it
unknowingly. You have learned to build it and use it from the training
you got, which the early developers of the art had included in the
design. Being unaware of it, you have not learned to control it.
I
believe Tyson used it unknowingly; therefore was so powerful during his
prime years. However, not being aware of it, and not knowing how to
control it, he lost it in the later years.
Try this experiment: Stand
with your toes and knees turned in for awhile. Imagine an invisible wall
encircling around you, from waist level to floor. After three minutes or
more, suddenly open up your knees and toes. If you will feel a burst of
energy escape from your lower region, great ... you're already feeling
the Qi; if not, work on it.
Here's a free tip worth millions of
dollars. If you are having trouble getting your wife pregnant, and you
walk with your toes wide open; start walking pigeon-toed. It's worth a
try, especially after dishing out tons of money to your doctor with zero
results. Walking wide-toed disburses the energy in the pubic area. Your
sperm production is low and weak. Drop me a note of thanks if it works.
Don't hassle me if it doesn't!
WC has only one horse. It appears to
have more only because it switches sides and looks different from the
opponent's perspective. When the horse turns to one side, the foot of
the turning side pivots on the heel, and the toes move to the maximum
point of parallel alignment to the stationary foot. It is important to
understand that parallel-feet position is the maximum your feet should
spread apart. It is still best to keep your toes turned-in, even if
slightly from the parallel position.
The toes are turned in for the
WC horse for a few other good reasons (besides getting your wife
pregnant). Turning your toes in turns in your knees. This position
protects your pubic area, or allows quick reaction of your leg to lift
to a protective position. It protects a very important and
life-threatening Qi meridian located at the bottom of your pubic region,
called Huiyin, which is located between the anus and the testicles in a
man, and between the anus and the posterior vulva in a female. That
point should be highly secured. Getting the Huiyin kicked is deadlier
than getting the testicles kicked. Not saying that getting kicked in the
testicles will have little or no effect, but that it will not kill him.
Damaging the Huiyin can kill him. As for the testicles, only a male
struck in the testicles knows what it's like. Ask your cross-eyed buddy
how this eyes became that way. If he can't tell you, ask the guy who's
crunched over, with golf balls in his mouth. Joking aside, the pain is
crucial. You get a momentary trip to the stars or the black hole.
Regardless whether the target is the Huiyin or the testicles, one should
prevent a strike to either places.
When a male turns his knees
inward, the testicles are pushed behind the inner thighs--a good place
for the twins to hide (especially if you want to get your wife
pregnant).
Now, you may not see any sense in what I'm saying when
you see yourself in the WC horse position in front of a mirror. You feel
vulnerable facing your opponent in this position. This is so because
you are new to this horse. Only the very advance WC practitioner will
feel comfortable on this horse. However, if you were to step one foot
forward towards the invisible line drawn (perpendicular to your body's
centerline) on the floor, you will see how the front leg (especially
your thigh and knee) protects your pubic region. Now, you feel like Fort
Knox, don't you?
Here's another reason why the toes are turned in.
Try this experiment: Stand with your feet positioned parallel to each
other. Gradually spread your toes out. Continue spreading as far as they
will go. If you were standing at the edge of a pool, with your back
facing the water, you'd have done a back splash, and would be swimming
in it now. Reverse the experiment by standing with your feet parallel to
each other, and slowly turn the toes in as far as they will go. If you
were standing at the edge of a building looking down at the traffic,
you'd be swing your arms desperately backward to prevent from falling
forward. What's the point?
Wing Chun, although seemingly gentle, is
a very aggressive style. No, not in the sense of big and strained moves,
but in a silent assertive way. WC trains you to always exert energy
forward. Trains you to be the aggressor. You become the strong and
steady bulldozer. You hardly retreat from incoming force; you utilize
it to divert against itself. The toes-in position facilitates you in
forward charges, as demonstrated in the experiment you just did. The
toes-out position facilitates you in retreat. The next time you watch a
boxing match on TV, watch the boxers' footwork. The one who has his
back foot turned out (pointing back) will be the retreater; i.e., he
will be backing up most of the time. The one who has his back foot
pointing forward will be the aggressor. Although they were not trained
to point their toes in either direction to fight aggressively or
defensively, their brains automatically adjust their feet according to
their psychological makeup.
Here's yet another reason for turning
your toes inward for the WC stance. First try this experiment: Stand
with your feet parallel to each other. Pivot one foot outward on its
heel. If you are flexible enough, you could probably turn the foot 180
degrees. Try this next: Bring the foot back to the parallel position.
Now pivot the foot on the heel slowly, turning your toes inward. The
most you could probably pivot is 45 degrees. Try holding the foot there
for awhile. You will notice that your foot wants to spin back to the
original position.
By creation or evolution, our feet point forward
to facilitate us in walking or running forward. Our leg muscles allow us
freer rotation outward than inward, because we have more use of outer
rotation than inner rotation. By turning the toes inward in the WC
horse, you are grounded stronger than if you turned your toes outward.
(You are scratching your head, and asking, "How's that?")
In the
last experiment, you noticed that your turned-in foot wants to swing
out. This creates friction (your foot against the ground). It's like
those guys you see carrying a large sheet of glass. When they apply the
whatchamukolit suckers on the glass, they do it with a twist to ensure a
tight grip. Your feet, when twisted in, grips the ground. Your leg
muscles in this position are twisted in, wanting to rewind. Your feet
and weight stops them from rewinding. Your feet's outward pressure
against the ground creates a tight grip. Not only that, but you become
more aware of your feet on the ground; in other words, you are grounded.
Elementary, Dr. Watson!
Feeling your feet is an important factor of
grounding. The higher you keep your Qi, the less you will feel the
ground, and the less you will be grounded. Not being aware of your feet
on the ground is the same as not being grounded. It's like riding a
horse without stirrup, or a bike without pedals. As soon as you press
your foot against the stirrup, (or the pedals in the case of a bike) you
will feel connected to the ground. As you know, we have electricity
running through our bodies, carrying messages to our brain. When your
feet are not in contact with the horse, or a conductor connected to the
horse, the electrical current will not flow. When your feet contacts the
stirrup (conductor), and are pushed down, the current is allowed to flow
freely through the horse to the ground.
When you are on the WC
horse, you will notice that the more you turn your toes outward, i.e.,
releasing the tension, the less you will feel attached to the ground.
When you have released the twist to the point of parallel feet, you have
reached the neutral point. For a moment, imagine your feet as the two
reels of a cassette tape, and the tape ends are tied to your toes, and
the tape is wrapped along the outside of the feet and behind the heels.
The parallel (neutral) position represents the tape with no taut or
slack. Turning the toes in tightens the tape tautly. Turning the toes
out past the parallel position slackens the tape. So, the tighter your
feet are twisted to the ground, the tighter you are gripped to the
ground; inversely, the less you are twisted to the ground, the less you
are grounded.
If you are still not convince about the strength and
benefits of the pigeon-toed horse (strange looking beast), here's one
more scientific fact: If you take a bird's-eye view of a person standing
with his feet positioned parallel, you will see that his body structure
is standing on top of a rectangular area formed by his feet. Think of
the rectangular area as a box, and raise the box one meter high. If you
were the person standing on the box, you probably won't feel so secure,
because you are standing on a pretty narrow area. If the box was to be
moved sideways, you will have little trouble maintaining your balance,
because your base is wide in that perspective. However, if the box is
moved forward or backward, your balance becomes critical due to the
narrow base in perspective. Now, take a look at a person standing with
his toes turned in from a bird's-eye view. He has formed a triangular
area with his feet. His heels have formed the base of the triangle. His
toes have formed the third point of the triangle. In this position, he
has mounted his body structure on a tripod. If you know a little about
photography and the concept of the tripod, you will understand how firm
a tripod can ground itself. You will know to secure the tripod by
aligning two legs parallel to the back of the camera, and one leg
stretched forward to where the lens is pointing. The camera is sitting
in the center shaft of the tripod. Any weight applied on top is
distributed to the legs. The center of gravity remains on the center
shaft.
When doing the toes turned-in stance, your center of gravity
remains in your centerline, which is driven down to the ground
perpendicularly. The human structure is built in such a way that the
heels support 60% of one's weight; 30% goes to the balls of the feet,
and 10% to the toes. It makes sense to form the base of the triangle
with the heels.
If the triangular block was raised one meter, with
you standing on it, you should feel pretty secure when the block is
moved sideways and forward because you have a wide base for these
directions. You might be confused to why your balance would be secured
when the block is moved forward when the area between the toes are
rather narrow. Let me explain. If the block was pushed forward, the
momentum will tilt you backwards. This means that the back base will
resist the force. It will be strong because of your wide heel base.
However, if the block was pulled back, the reaction force will push you
forward. You will fall forward more easily because of the smaller area
your feet occupy in the front. WC sees that as an advantage, and uses it
to charge forward swiftly. If your opponent pulls you, you go with the
pull, and use the momentum to strike him. WC practitioners would be more
than happy when the opponent bridges the gap for him. All said, the
toes-in stance is not as susceptible to falling forward as you may
think. With the toes turned in, any force, pushing or pulling you
forward will be resisted by the triangular point (like the third tripod
leg) formed by your toes. When necessary, you can use the pinnacle point
as brakes to control the fall. Believe me, you can resist a forward
fall more with your toes turned in than if the feet were parallel. Don't
believe me? Go push a rectangular table (especially one with a narrow
depth. When you've got it tilted more than 45 degrees, it will go
crashing down. (Should have told you not to do this experiment with a
glass table!) If by any freaking chance you've got a triangular table
the same width and depth of the rectangular table, try flipping it over.
First of all, it will resist the flip by moving the third leg. When you
get it to 45 degrees, it will want to turn down to one of the other
legs. You will get it flipped eventually, but not without extra
effort.
Hope you are not confused with so much explanation. The
bottom line is that the wide base will give your the most stable
balance, and the narrow one the least. Although pointing the toes in
will give you the least amount of resistance in a forward move, it will
resist more than if your toes were parallel or pointing outward.
Some of you may argue that pointing your toes outward will also form
a triangle, therefore, would give you just as stable a stance as you
would with toes turned in. Let's look at the man from the bird's-eye
view standing with his toes spread out. Yes, he has formed a triangle,
but an inverted one. The problem here is that the wide base is formed by
the toes. As I have said earlier, your toes only hold 10% of your
weight. Not only that, but looking from the top, you will see that the
wide base line (formed by the toes) is outside of the body structure.
Your line of gravity, which runs straight down from the top of your head
to the ground, is close to the pinnacle point of the triangle, where
there is little room for the gravity line to move about before dropping
off. Your heels, which support 60% of your weight is also located on the
lines near the pinnacle point. You are surely not well balanced here.
Raise the block with you standing there. Every time the block is moved
forward or backward, you will be easily toppled because your heels,
holding 60% of your weight, and the strongest support of your weight,
are on the narrowest part of the base; and your toes, holding 10% of
your weight, and the weakest support of your weight, are on widest part
of the base. So, this type of stance is kind of upside down (like the
triangle it forms) in principle. It's like stacking boxes in a crate,
and putting the lightest and smallest box at the bottom, and the
heaviest and biggest on top.
Actually, I still have a lot to say
about the horse in general, and particularly about the WC horse, but I
won't talk your ears off now; I will get to it later.
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