To spark some serious wing chun discussion, I wanted to see what everyone's thoughts are on how we 'engage' with our opponent within the Wing Chun system. To keep it simple, for now I'll only define 'Engage' as going from no contact to contact with an attacking opponent.

Listing techniques alone won't cut it IMO. As WC practitioners, I would think we all should also be able to provide supporting concepts/principles/theories that back the techniques as it is commonly accepted that wing chun is a principle based system.

Also, if you don't like my simple definition of 'engage', feel free to include how you would define it along with your answer.