Originally Posted by
Wayfaring
My perspective is a lot more simple than all of the more scholarly replies with Chinese articles and evaluations of terminology. I'd have defer to Robert, Hendrik and some others on those.
When we were transitioning in training between Moy Yat and HFY for a few years, the Moy Yat Yip Man chi sau platform progression we learned was dan chi sau - single and double hand, poon sau, luk sau, jeung sau, gor sau. In HFY the approach was completely different - we started with kiu sau training, which was always 6 gate stances, structured inner and outer hands. Fau Kiu kiu sau, Faat Sau kiu sau, Deui Yeng kiu sau, Bong Lap kiu sau, Kwan Sau kiu sau. These kiu sau were highlighted in the SNT form. Then the chi kiu platform and exercises were introduced, and finally chi sau.
To me, after training those 2 approaches, my conclusion is those two chi sau platforms are not even similar. After examining chi sau concepts with other Yip Man students, they don't get any closer. To me in some ways HFY's chi sau with kiu sau is more similar to other CMA's who also have kiu sau than it is to Yip Man chi sau, like hung gar or mantis.
But hey, what do I know? I just trained it for a few years. I didn't sit at a seminar or visit once and immediately perceive all the "signature" things that supposedly are the same between HFY and Yip Man thus becoming an expert.