I thought I'd throw this one out for some discussion as well. Things like this come up within other threads and people not following those thread never get to see them. So I thought I'd start a new one.
When we talk about a Bong Sao or Taan Sao or any other Wing Chun hand form/technique, what are we really talking about? Is it a shape/form? Or is it an action/movement?
I say it is both! We get caught up in the idea that it is a shape...a thing. That's because it is most convenient to talk about it in this way. We see pictures with things labeled as a "Bong" or a "Taan" and think that this is it! But really that is only an ending position. As beginners we were told to do a "Bong" or a "Taan" and then our positioning was corrected to make it right. We were taught how to do these things "right" in the forms. All of this reinforces in our mind that the Bong or Taan are static positions. But really, what we are thinking about is only the end point of a dynamic motion. Its more than a position, though positioning is still important.
So it is also an action. Probably more importantly an action! A "Bong" or "Taan" or any other named technique is a movement, not a static position. That movement is in reference to what the opponent is sending at us, so our Bong or Taan must adapt to that. They are not static "blocks" that we throw up in the air to guard ourselves with. They are dynamic motions that intercept and redirect an opponent's energy. So the real "essence" of a Bong, Taan or any other technique is the energy behind the movement, not the resulting static position. We sometimes forget that.
But position is important! After all, a movement or action is simply many moments in time strung together concurrently. At each moment, there is a position. So we can talk about there being a "wrong" or "right" position. We do that all the time when teaching the techniques. There is a "wrong" and "right" position to end up in when doing all of the techniques in the forms. During a dynamic exchange a student may be getting hit frequently because he is not positioning his Bong Sao high enough to deflect properly. The action can be stopped, the student's Bong Sao positioned correctly so he gets the right idea, and the action commenced.
So it truly is both. Therefore IMHO, it is just as wrong to say that "Bong Sao is not a position" as it is to say "Bong Sao is a technique that has to look exactly like this..." Bong Sao is a dynamic action that at any moment in time has a position that may be optimal....or not. The same applies to all techniques in WCK.
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Originally Posted by PalmStriker
