Originally Posted by
aelward
I haven't posted in ages, but this topic is one that interests me.
Name: John Kang
Art(s): My primary Wing Chun lineage is from Sifu Lo Man Kam, but I have been heavily influenced by the approaches of Sifu Duncan Leung via Sifu Gorden Lu; by Sifu Francis Fong via Sifu Akko Nishimura; and by Sifu Ken Chung and his students via friendly exchanges. While I still follow my Sifu's core forms and approach to Chi Sao learning, he does not particularly approve of how I apply it.
I previously learned Northern Shaolin, Yang Taiji and Shorinji Kempo; and have also done some basic cross training in Western Boxing, Muay Thai and BJJ.
Other note: like some other posters in this topic, I am also a practitioner of Chinese Medicine.
In my humble opinion, the theory of power generation in Wing Chun comes from some of the Kuits:
"Power Comes from the Earth."
"Waist and Horse Together."
"Use Form to Complement Hands."
"Fist Comes from the Heart."
I think this is the meaning of Structure, and that structure embodies several concepts-- Alignment, Rooting, and Linkage.
Alignment, emodied by "Waist and Horse together" and "Use Form to Complement Hands" has to do with your own body's alignment, isolated from a partner or opponent. It is lining up your bones and joints-- the knuckles, wrist, elbow, shoulder, spine, pelvic girdle, knees, and ankles-- so that it can become relatively a passive conduit to the ground. Some key components are:
1. Sun-Character fist: The third knuckle lines up with the radius, the fifth nuckle with the ulna.
2. Elbow pointing downwards
3. Shoulders down
4. Hips tilted forward to straighten out the lumbar spine
5. Knees pointing inward
Rooting connects your Alignment to the ground. It is the concept of "Li Cong Di Qi" -- power comes from the earth. When you hit something, rooting combined with structure diverts the recoil (i.e., Newton's 3rd Law) downward instead of backward.
While Alignment looks inward at one's self, Linkage looks outward toward others. It is how you connect your center to your opponent's center. It is how the muscle and connective tissue surrounding the joints and bones support your passive, isolated structure. At the same time, you can "unlink" to strike hit with localized, relaxed muscle if you do not have optimal alignment or if you want to prevent your opponent from linking to your own center.
All these concepts integrate to form power. But power is only one aspect of training, because without a delivery system, it is meaningless (like all those Nuclear Warheads we have in silos that supposedly won't even get off the ground). The delivery system comes from other training methods-- Chi Sao partially as a tool of making your structure dynamic with regard to your partner's; conditioning to harden the bones, strengthen the bones and ligaments, hone reflexes and build endurance; sparring to make the skills applicable; tactics to guide your sparring, etc. Therefore, I personally think that Structure is something that does not have to be perfect from the begininng-- it is something that you will always improve at as you train.
Reply With Quote
