Wing Chun Power Generation

[Faux Newbie]

Since the other thread got locked for never talking about it, I'll put this one here.

It seems to me that, at least for attacks where the attacker's hands stay in the center line (and don't focus on as substantial of shoulder extensions as other styles might), power generation would come from:

1) footwork,
2) timing into the attacker's motions, including body manipulations on them that act as power magnifiers, and,
3) at least for some lines, waist/spine manipulation.

Of those factors, in competing with styles who also have those traits, what do you see as the comparative advantage of wing chun?

Do you view it as a case of balancing power generation with defensive attributes?

Would this be accurate? Why or why not?

[Hendrik]

Since the other thread got locked for never talking about it, I'll put this one here.

It seems to me that, at least for attacks where the attacker's hands stay in the center line (and don't focus on as substantial of shoulder extensions as other styles might), power generation would come from:

1) footwork,
2) timing into the attacker's motions, including body manipulations on them that act as power magnifiers, and,
3) at least for some lines, waist/spine manipulation.

Of those factors, in competing with styles who also have those traits, what do you see as the comparative advantage of wing chun?

Do you view it as a case of balancing power generation with defensive attributes?

Would this be accurate? Why or why not?

IMHO,

One needs to get to the root of power generation before get into the above

Namely,

How to generate power
And
How to transport it .



Most people doesn't know these, so, it is default into muscular and instinctive , what ever the default in that person body is. So the weak always weak disregard what technics they study. The strong alway strong .....



Say, Chen taiji, how does one generate the basic force? How to transport the force? How to convert it into a force flow? All the basic. Unless one knows and precisely can handle these, doing a Chen taiji form and doing other form or set has not much different. Just mimic posture.


And every style has a different way of power generation to support the particular style combat strategy.


Attached is my brief summary on Wck 1848 data point

[Faux Newbie]

Interesting chart.

I understand the need to work the specific engines (or modes of power generation). Where I differ in view is that I view it as holistic. Until power generation is matched with footwork, one can't really understand the engine, imo, so that I view it as better to work the whole to understand the part. Obviously, when first learning, and to hone, one should routinely examine the part for deeper understanding, but if done too much separate from the whole, I think it is easy to entrain habits that don't translate well.

Application, for lack of a better term, is informed by form and informs it.

[Hendrik]

Interesting chart.

I understand the need to work the specific engines (or modes of power generation). Where I differ in view is that I view it as holistic. Until power generation is matched with footwork, one can't really understand the engine, imo, so that I view it as better to work the whole to understand the part. Obviously, when first learning, and to hone, one should routinely examine the part for deeper understanding, but if done too much separate from the whole, I think it is easy to entrain habits that don't translate well.

Application, for lack of a better term, is informed by form and informs it.

IMHO,

Ie

Foot work is adding atleast two more unknown in the basic power generation.
So, adding it in only will Create more confusion for beginner who running things by default.
This is Because momentum variation come into picture which beyond the basic power generation.



Unless one can have the engine or the seven bows handle . Jumping step into footwork is trouble.
For Wck
Thus, snt get the engine develop before other things.
That is the Kung part of Wck.

[Faux Newbie]

IMHO,

Ie

Foot work is adding atleast two more unknown in the basic power generation.
So, adding it in only will Create more confusion for beginner who running things by default.
This is Because momentum variation come to play which beyond the basic power generation.



Unless one can have the engine or the seven bows handle . Jumping step into footwork is trouble.
For Wck
Thus, snt get the engine develop before other things.
That is the Kung part of Wck.

My view is that, when people do get into the footwork, they will end up understanding things about the engine that they did not when training it alone.

So, I agree that preliminary training is important, but the linked engine and step are necessary to even understand those preliminary exercises.

Of course, too much too soon can bog down the student, but too little too late is just as bad.

If they cannot even step, then the engine and stepping is more important than anything else, since the rest is dependent on relative spacing created by footwork.

To be clear, I am not saying I entirely disagree with you. I'm more saying the engine, and the engine with moving, are essential to everything else. I just tend to find integrating in reasonable time makes a situation where errors in the engine become obvious with motion, and make certain the teacher can quickly correct them, instead of a student going a long time practicing an error.

[Paddington]

Hello Faux Newbie. I've never competed in a competition beyond a couple of katate tournaments in my youth so I find it hard to make a definitive comment in the context of competitive, full contact wing chun fighting. That said, this year I have really focused on short range power generation with respects to my wing chun, so I can perhaps comment on my experiences here.

I will say from the outset that I am sad and embarrassed to report that I recently badly hurt someone when they asked me to demonstrate comparatively short range power generation, despite the large stack of books and pads I used to offer some measure of protection in addition to, I thought at the time, not putting much into the strike.

Anyone that is familiar with 'Newton's cradle' will perhaps appreciate, as I now do, how disingenuous some of the demonstrations of wing chun's penetrative strikes are. The gentleman I hurt ended up with a bruised lung and a suspected fractured rib, so I do caution against demonstrations of that type.

Anyway, I found that once I had practiced just standing still, much like Hendrik describes, so that I could feel gravity and the ground reaction force through my structure, I was then able to move onto the principles from chum kui, albeit with a through founding in what I think is a good elbow position. Where as in slt movement of the elbow is of a primary focus, in chum kui I've found that unifying waist or hip movement with elbow movement, is key to generating a good deal of power. When I did some training with Jim Halliwell his phrasing as 'bouncing off the hip', really helped me to cement it all together.

What is more I kept in mind the idea of the 6 or 7 major joints or bows which enabled me to look at this idea of kinetic linking and refine it in my chum kui practice, a lot more thoroughly. Of course, I am talking about alignment of the joints/bows across all x, y and z spatial planes.

I found one other important aspect of chum kui and also chain punching practice that, in a way, uncloaked a lot of short range power generation for me and is inline with what I have said above about alignment and moving the joints in unison. With regards to chain punching, I found a great deal of improvement by focusing on the hand being withdrawn. Once the elbow of the withdrawing hand comes back towards the hip/waist, that kinetic energy springs back into the arm moving outwards to strike. You can see the use of the withdrawing arm/hand in chum kui as operating in a similar fashion, much like as Moy Yat describes. You don't have to use the lead hand to withdraw whilst punching with the back hand to generate a lot of power, particularly if you are good at fa jing to the extent that the guard hand can be still be withdrawn back sharply, over a small distance to kick off the kinetic chain.

Of course, turning punches from a squared position benefit very well from keeping the above in mind and one other point I have found useful to generating short range power is knowing how to relax and remaining relaxed, particularly after striking the opponent.

It was through using all of the above that resulted in my injuring someone at a very short range even when I did not put much into the strike. In hindsight, in all of the incidents where I have unintentionally knocked my training partner out with one strike during my more exuberant chi sau sessions over the years, it has been through using the body movements and principles such as I describe above even though back then, I didn't know that that was how I was generating such short range knock out power. Back then it was not something that I could consciously do.

Needless to say, I see one of the biggest strengths of wing chun in terms of power generation as being comparatively short range power generation as I describe above.

[Faux Newbie]

Hello Faux Newbie. I've never competed in a competition beyond a couple of katate tournaments in my youth so I find it hard to make a definitive comment in the context of competitive, full contact wing chun fighting. That said, this year I have really focused on short range power generation with respects to my wing chun, so I can perhaps comment on my experiences here.

I will say from the outset that I am sad and embarrassed to report that I recently badly hurt someone when they asked me to demonstrate comparatively short range power generation, despite the large stack of books and pads I used to offer some measure of protection in addition to, I thought at the time, not putting much into the strike.

Anyone that is familiar with 'Newton's cradle' will perhaps appreciate, as I now do, how disingenuous some of the demonstrations of wing chun's penetrative strikes are. The gentleman I hurt ended up with a bruised lung and a suspected fractured rib, so I do caution against demonstrations of that type.

Anyway, I found that once I had practiced just standing still, much like Hendrik describes, so that I could feel gravity and the ground reaction force through my structure, I was then able to move onto the principles from chum kui, albeit with a through founding in what I think is a good elbow position. Where as in slt movement of the elbow is of a primary focus, in chum kui I've found that unifying waist or hip movement with elbow movement, is key to generating a good deal of power. When I did some training with Jim Halliwell his phrasing as 'bouncing off the hip', really helped me to cement it all together.

What is more I kept in mind the idea of the 6 or 7 major joints or bows which enabled me to look at this idea of kinetic linking and refine it in my chum kui practice, a lot more thoroughly. Of course, I am talking about alignment of the joints/bows across all x, y and z spatial planes.

I found one other important aspect of chum kui and also chain punching practice that, in a way, uncloaked a lot of short range power generation for me and is inline with what I have said above about alignment and moving the joints in unison. With regards to chain punching, I found a great deal of improvement by focusing on the hand being withdrawn. Once the elbow of the withdrawing hand comes back towards the hip/waist, that kinetic energy springs back into the arm moving outwards to strike. You can see the use of the withdrawing arm/hand in chum kui as operating in a similar fashion, much like as Moy Yat describes. You don't have to use the lead hand to withdraw whilst punching with the back hand to generate a lot of power, particularly if you are good at fa jing to the extent that the guard hand can be still be withdrawn back sharply, over a small distance to kick off the kinetic chain.

Of course, turning punches from a squared position benefit very well from keeping the above in mind and one other point I have found useful to generating short range power is knowing how to relax and remaining relaxed, particularly after striking the opponent.

It was through using all of the above that resulted in my injuring someone at a very short range even when I did not put much into the strike. In hindsight, in all of the incidents where I have unintentionally knocked my training partner out with one strike during my more exuberant chi sau sessions over the years, it has been through using the body movements and principles such as I describe above even though back then, I didn't know that that was how I was generating such short range knock out power. Back then it was not something that I could consciously do.

Needless to say, I see one of the biggest strengths of wing chun in terms of power generation as being comparatively short range power generation as I describe above.

Thanks for the response, Paddington.

I agree that stationary contributes to the process in many styles. In what I do, there are stationary versions that are very helpful, but as soon as possible, moving ones also are added, and as soon as they are added, both should always be practiced, because they inform each other. The engine drives the step, and knowing how is one step closer to really understanding the engine.

This does not seem to be a big point of contention, merely when to add stepping, imo.

[Paddington]

Thanks for the response, Paddington.

I agree that stationary contributes to the process in many styles. In what I do, there are stationary versions that are very helpful, but as soon as possible, moving ones also are added, and as soon as they are added, both should always be practiced, because they inform each other. The engine drives the step, and knowing how is one step closer to really understanding the engine.

This does not seem to be a big point of contention, merely when to add stepping, imo.

I think stepping is important and I must ask that when you question when to add a step, are you referring to when being in 'combat' or when to teach someone new to the wing chun system how to step?

Just a point of note on stepping. I've found that moving the lead leg first (very slightly) so that my centre of mass shifts and encourages the body to tilt or, and I hate to phrase it like this, fall forwards, really adds to stepping power over just relying on the musculature of the back leg to initiate the step. In terms of developing a good 'po pi' I found that insight, on stepping, invaluable; think cantilevers.

[Faux Newbie]

I think stepping is important and I must ask that when you question when to add a step, are you referring to when being in 'combat' or when to teach someone new to the wing chun system how to step?

Well, ultimately you want to use it in combat, but I'm saying training someone, so not trying to get new students to implement this right away in context of sparring, no. I'm pretty sure ugliness would ensue!

Just a point of note on stepping. I've found that moving the lead leg first (very slightly) so that my centre of mass shifts and encourages the body to tilt or, and I hate to phrase it like this, fall forwards, really adds to stepping power over just relying on the musculature of the back leg to initiate the step. In terms of developing a good 'po pi' I found that insight, on stepping, invaluable; think cantilevers.

I follow what you are saying, a number of people who use my system use a similar approach, so I've done that and can relate to what you are saying.

Again, thanks for the replies!

[sanjuro_ronin]

Since the other thread got locked for never talking about it, I'll put this one here.

It seems to me that, at least for attacks where the attacker's hands stay in the center line (and don't focus on as substantial of shoulder extensions as other styles might), power generation would come from:

1) footwork,
2) timing into the attacker's motions, including body manipulations on them that act as power magnifiers, and,
3) at least for some lines, waist/spine manipulation.

Of those factors, in competing with styles who also have those traits, what do you see as the comparative advantage of wing chun?

Do you view it as a case of balancing power generation with defensive attributes?

Would this be accurate? Why or why not?

Lets hope, HOPE, that this thread stays on topic.

[Paddington]

Lets hope, HOPE, that this thread stays on topic.

Well if it doesn't then perhaps you could do your job and just remove the offending posts rather than delete the entire thread? Yeah, it is more time consuming but I and others have already offered to help out with respects to moderating these boards. Ironically, your post above is off topic and has solicited my equally off topic reply to you.

[Faux Newbie]

Well if it doesn't then perhaps you could do your job and just remove the offending posts rather than delete the entire thread? Yeah, it is more time consuming but I and others have already offered to help out with respects to moderating these boards. Ironically, your post above is off topic and has solicited my equally off topic reply to you.

In fairness, most forum mods are volunteer and cannot be more than part time, so members have to do their part to reduce the amount of moderation that is needed.

I think if people stay on topic even half the time, the people who don't will stick out like sore thumbs. Give the mods easy targets and they can quickly take care of business.

[Faux Newbie]

Just a point of note on stepping. I've found that moving the lead leg first (very slightly) so that my centre of mass shifts and encourages the body to tilt or, and I hate to phrase it like this, fall forwards, really adds to stepping power over just relying on the musculature of the back leg to initiate the step. In terms of developing a good 'po pi' I found that insight, on stepping, invaluable; think cantilevers.

The reason my earlier answer to this probably read oddly is because in the style I do, there are some similarities in shape to wing chun, but also similarities to Chen style in power generation, and, in some lines, things like chu gar. Some people in my style do the step as you describe, in the more chen style approach, such weight use is often more related to a pivot, a forward step often seeks to, for lack of a better description, sink and rise as opposed to rise and sink on a forward step.

I have done both, but I tend to do the latter.

[Wayfaring]

Since the other thread got locked for never talking about it, I'll put this one here.

It seems to me that, at least for attacks where the attacker's hands stay in the center line (and don't focus on as substantial of shoulder extensions as other styles might), power generation would come from:

1) footwork,
2) timing into the attacker's motions, including body manipulations on them that act as power magnifiers, and,
3) at least for some lines, waist/spine manipulation.

Of those factors, in competing with styles who also have those traits, what do you see as the comparative advantage of wing chun?

Do you view it as a case of balancing power generation with defensive attributes?

Would this be accurate? Why or why not?

All right, so here is my problem with discussing this topic with our faux man. These questions sound like they are genuine and logical. But then after this he comes right back with:

To be clear, I am not saying I entirely disagree with you. I'm more saying the engine, and the engine with moving, are essential to everything else. I just tend to find integrating in reasonable time makes a situation where errors in the engine become obvious with motion, and make certain the teacher can quickly correct them, instead of a student going a long time practicing an error.

So here he has a very opinionated and detailed view of the topic he is trying to bring up talking about, like he is a WCK sifu. But there are many very basic topics he hasn't even heard about in WCK. Like forward intent. So in actuality, faux newbie is a good screen name. He is a WCK newbie, but it's fake because he's studied some other arts? Just trying to figure out how to post on this thread.

Anyway besides all the static, WCK generates power with more of what I call a wave motion, not rotation. So the advantage is you can generate power without bigger rotational movements. Without bigger movements = a little faster. Maybe you don't generate 100% of the power you could with a full turn, but a % of that say 80% where you don't lose facing and centerline can be plenty effective against bigger rotational movements.

[Faux Newbie]

Anyway besides all the static, WCK generates power with more of what I call a wave motion, not rotation. So the advantage is you can generate power without bigger rotational movements. Without bigger movements = a little faster. Maybe you don't generate 100% of the power you could with a full turn, but a % of that say 80% where you don't lose facing and centerline can be plenty effective against bigger rotational movements.

Wave type force is useful, and is not unique to wing chun. It also tends to allow more distinct transition of weight, so that footwork and, by extension, technique can be faster. However, in pretty much all kung fu styles, it is also matched with rotational energy at times as well, though often rotation around an axis versus on. It is in wing chun as well, and like most styles, sometimes there is rotation, sometimes there isn't. Techniques that occur on pivoting steps would be the most obvious example. That pivot also can impart speed, but without the wave type power generation, it is hard to capitalize on this, as weightedness on all techniques turns into an issue due to the limits of rotational force on ability to fluidly alter direction except in exactly the direction the pivot requires.

This is exactly why training power generation too long without linking it to footwork is not wise, imo. Power generation and footwork are not separate and discrete entities, and the longer they are treated as such, the more the practitioner will focus on one in detriment to the other. You cannot know the first in isolation from the second. It is not "don't practice isolation gongs" but "as soon as able to begin, practice the isolated gong and the gong related to footwork it works with."