No root - No skill !

[Joakim Svensson]

Why do we practice the stance?
What use is it in a real situation?
It's only used during training ???
It's to protect the groin!
It makes the turning easier!

This is common questions and explanations to the
Wing Chun pigeon toed stance.

Many Wing Chun people doesn't really put
in much effort in developing the stance
and in not doing so misses out on the
importance of this training.

And even if you think you are putting in the
effort there might be no one there with
the knowledge to explain why it is important.
Or why it's such a fundamental Wing Chun skill.

In my experience what most so called Wing Chun
practitioners never develop is the concept of
rooting. If you practice the stance correctly
you will develop the ability to root.

Being able to root makes it possible to
* Use position instead of speed and brute force
* Generate close range power
* Neutralize
* Increase your sensitivity

"doa lo yut cheung hung" - "You are empty when you
get old because you were empty from the beginning"

There are five basic guidelines that is of great
importance to develop the stance.
-Kim sut, Hips and knees pressing together
-Lok ma, Lower the stance downward
-Ting yu, Back straight
-Dung tao, Head up, neck relaxing into the shoulders
-Mai jiang, Pressing the elbows inwards and forwards


If you do not practice this you will reach a time
when you do not increase your skill. Maybe you think
you are because you learn more and more advanced drills
but without the proper foundation and the ability to
root properly you will never reach your true potential.

Best regards
Joakim

www.wing-chun.nu
www.wingchun.com

[S.Teebas]

yes, nothing beats a good root.:D

[stonecrusher69]

Just woundering how time you spend on your hourse. Most sifu's say a at least 20 min. at a time or no results,but I feel what ever you put into it you will get back.

[yenhoi]

Both of my WC instructors have had me do the stance (not necessarily while doing slt) while burning an incense. Light it up. Switch arms at the half way point. DOnt stop until the last ash has fallen and the stem is no longer smoking.


Thats about an hour.

[Joakim Svensson]

stonecrusher69

It's not a thing to really be trained separately.
When you practice you are in the stance the
whole time. So for a 3 hour class that would
mean you will be 3 hours in the stance.

In practice this means that whenever you do
Wing Chun you should be in the stance.

Also do the first set for 15-20 minutes every
day.

Best regards
Joakim

[Mr Punch]

Yenhoi: out of interest... what are you doing with your arms?

Joakim: Position is good. Brute force is bad. Speed? Surely you need to get a balance between rooting and speed?

[byond]

hey joakim.....i agree with you completly....i see many wc students learning chum kiu when they cant sink in there stance. if your siu nim tao isnt good there is no structure that you need to move which is one of the points of chum kiu.......many sifu teach to fast....by fast i am refering to the time it takes the body to learn the correct structure...its not overnight....yip man said"dont you want to give your mind time to think?"...our muscles have memory to ...and the maximum way of helping them learn is through slow specific movements repeated over and over again......you will have no body unity wit out root

[stonecrusher69]

That's very good that you spend 15-20 min everyday in SLT. I myself like train SLT everyday but I don't have a set time I spend on it.It just depends on how much time Ihave or other things I need to do, but put alot in the SLT thought.

take care..

[Roy D. Anthony]

It is very important to have a good ROOT canal in order to have a good CAP!!!...very important. Hope this helps!!!

[Mr Punch]

I agree. Good post Joakim. It is very important to train your stance. It is very important to train slt carefully, and only after you have become well practised in your rooting, energy cultivation and centreline control and structure should you be allowed to progress to ck. Do it all slowly and carefully...

"Being able to root makes it possible to
* Use position instead of speed and brute force "

So, now: is using speed combined with positioning bad?:confused:

[Joakim Svensson]

Hi Mat,

"So, now: is using speed combined with positioning bad?"

No!

But what some people think is that they have to practice
speed in a certain way. Punch holes through paper and
do 20 punches/second.

In doing so it is very easy to rely on localized muscle
strength or upper body strength and to tense up.
And in doing so you will not get a full body connection
and you will reach a plateau in your progress.

In order of importance:
1: Position
2: Sensitivity
3: Timing
4: Speed
5: Power

So we have position and sensitivity before speed. That doesn't
mean you move slow, you move as fast as is needed to keep
a good position and you try to build up to a level of skill that
will allow your hands to react automatically. And to reach this
you need to practice position and sensitivity more than you
need to do "SPEED" training.

At least thats my experience.

Best regards
Joakim Svensson