Wing Chun Basics Seminar By Ed Torres
This weekend I had the privilege of attending a seminar given by my teacher Sifu.Grados. He gave an incredible, detailed and precise class on the importance of Structure and the various Wing Chun Punches.
Rather than trying to write an article, I would like to share my class notes and have you see the class as I perceived it.
Most importantly I would like you to walk away with the sense of preciseness that a true artist like Sifu Grados has and be able to apply it to your art whatever it may be because this goes beyond Wing Chun. My notes are as follows:
Yee Gee Kim Yeung Ma
The practicing stance
The head and back straight, shoulders relaxed, feet slightly pointed in.
Compromise on any of these points and the stances structure becomes weak.
Forward Stance
Both feet should line up in the center pointing about 1:00
Shoulders must be square, almost even weight distribution with slightly more on the back leg.
When you punch, the stance should remain intact.
- When you move forward, the stance should remain intact.
- When you turn, the feet must turn and lock and again the stance must remain intact.
Sifu had us test the stance by having a partner pull on our lead hand to see how we maintained the integrity of the structure.
The Sifu asked me to try to pull him off his stance and needless to say it was like trying to move a brick wall. None of us could move him!
Maintaining Structure During Sweeps
Structure is maintained even when an attempt is made to sweep the front foot.
The toes must grip the ground
Some options he gave against the sweeps are:
- As you feel the foot beginning to sweep your front foot, rotate your foot inside the opponents sweeping foot and scoop it outside and with the same foot deliver a low kick to the opponents back leg.
- As you feel the foot beginning to make contact with your front foot, adjust your stance slightly, moving into backward bracing with your foot behind his sweeping foot as you push his chest you will reverse his sweep and hell fall backward.
- As you feel the foot beginning to sweep your front foot, immediately lock down the stance and the locking motion of your front knee will crush the opponents knee.
Using Good Structure To Jam The Opponent
The correct stance can easily jam an opponent from moving forward.
Sifu demonstrated when I tried to step forward against him and he jammed my front arm with pak sao and added his other hand to send me flying way backward with perfect structural precision.
Maintaining Structure During A Pulling Attack
During an attack of a pull punch technique structure can be maintained by the use of an Inside Rolling Hand block while at the same time shifting the feet (turn) but very importantly, remembering to maintain a square upper body even though the feet have shifted in order to maintain your line.
The Wing Chun Punches
In both combat and Chi Sao, Sifu demonstrated various Wing Chun punches. Without a person actually seeing these Ill best describe some of them as follows:
- Similar to an uppercut but generated through small tight power
- Similar to a hook but much more linear
- Downward thrusting punch as demonstrated in application of the Chum Kiu form
- Outside Whip
- An Inside Whip that came down like a hammer to the chest (knuckles pointed up and striking with the pinky side of the hand
- Similar to an uppercut to the chest but it twists after making contact
- An inside punch with fist inverted upside down(thumb on bottom, elbow higher than wrist
Closing Remarks
Lastly, Sifu Grados discussed the importance of being precise with the deliverance of the punches. He demonstrated by intercepting a punch from a student by using an inside facing punch and explained how you must be precise to punch at the correct angle and make sure your line is correct or your opponents reach will cause him to strike first. He demonstrated this not only with a punch to the face but also with the student punching to the Sifus stomach area where he easily intercepted it with a similar type technique.
His final point was to reiterate the whole essential theme to todays seminar and that was that to be an effective Wing Chun practitioner or more importantly an effective fighter you must be sure that your structure is up to these high standards that he laid out for us and if any single one of these aspects are overlooked the stance crumbles, the punch misses, the fighter loses! Thank you Sifu for teaching me the finer points of your Wing Chun.
Your student,
Ed Torres
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