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Class Notes |
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Wing Chun Stance |
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Stances in martial arts are structures used to facilitate stability, and the opposite mobility. Lower stances are more stable but less mobile, higher stances are less stable but more mobile. The Wing Chun body structures optimize the mobility stability equation. Wing Chun doesn’t strive for the strongest possible stance nor the strongest possible bridge hands. Flexibility and change are more important factors when the attacks are entirely unpredictable. The SLT training stance serves the purpose of training the muscles of the leg with the end result that the body can absorb force (accepted during defense and also during attack) better. The brunt of the force seems to end up in the knee area so the muscles around the knee need to be strengthened to a degree. The other point is that one learns to align (using our sense of feeling – adjust position until pain is minimized) the body in such a way as to offer the best route of force into the ground and also the other direction of using the ground for support when issuing force. The YJKYM is a neutral position which is optimally balanced in all directions. It is neutral because it doesn’t favor any direction. The neutral position allows for easy left to right changes. It is a defensive neutral balanced position. The position itself can be used for attack or for defense. The opponent’s forces acting upon the YJKYM structure cause the balance to tip such that the body automatically aligns itself into a newly balanced position usually by means of a turn or a step. In Hung style long periods of time are spent in static stances. The end result is that the Hung style practitioner is very stable during attack and defense. The Choy Lee Fut people disagree with Hung style and feel dynamic mobile stance training is more productive because you have to move. However in actual practice neither side seems to be able to prove a definite advantage. Both develop the muscles of the leg. When one has the five elements of the YJKYM correct then the whole body is more integrated and acts as one unit. Every position has a weakness when acted upon by an external force. Once you move there is no more weakness until that force chases you and again you have to adjust if the force is stronger than some limit. If the force is weak you don’t need to move. A pyramid is a very stable structure. The YJKYM is pyramid shape. A good stance is one that is the same as a pyramid. The laws of physics determine what is good. In a pyramid on can calculate mathematically how much force is required to tip the pyramid. You just need to know the shape and the mass. If we stand in slightly different ways other than the optimal position, e.g lower, higher, leaning one way or another, then the amount of force required to push over our human pyramid will be reduced for some direction of force: a push or a pull (forwards, backwards or sideways). A pyramid cannot make itself heavier or more stable. A human can change the physics. The best a human can do is to be like the unintelligent (non thinking) pyramid. The best a human can do in defence is to be like a stupid laundry basket which moves in the best possible way when you push it with your foot. Too much thinking gets us into trouble and produces non optimal movements. Some rules of thumb are that the Bong sau can support a person who weighs the same as you. You can direct this amount of force into the ground and remain balanced. By calculation an exact figure can be determined based on a person’s weight and height. It’s just a pyramid calculation (assuming a rigid structure). If bending is allowed like in the third form then it’s a different thing altogether. |
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