# Hook Kick to Wing Chun Side Kick



## mook jong man (Jun 17, 2009)

Normally in our lineage to stop someone advancing in on us we would attack the opponents knee or shin with a Low Heel Kick to which ever of his legs that come into range first.

But say for whatever reason , the attacker has managed to breach this defencive perimeter and he is now standing too close for you to comfortably do a Low Heel Kick .

 He might even be standing with one leg forward while he points his finger aggressively at you and calls you all sorts of dirty names. You could simply step in and Pak Sau and punch or you could do the technique that I will describe.

I know a lot of Wing Chun / Wing Tsun people on here have a one foot forward stance. Practice this both ways in your fighting stance and in YCKYM stance. But just assume that you haven't had time to get into your stance and this maniac has just come from nowhere and started abusing you as is often the case .

So you would probably be standing in a natural type of stance , sink down  and get your hands up in a non threatening way , just use your Wing Chun guard , hands on the centerline but with your hands up in a pleading or stop type of gesture.

Try to talk the person down , as you have your hands up in this non threatening manner, don't say anything to inflame the situation .
 There is a chance you still might be able to defuse the situation and to any witnesses or cctv cameras it will be clear that you weren't the aggressor.

 It also serves the function of having your hands up to protect without looking like a martial art guard which actually might force the neanderthal to fight you so that he can save face in front of his friends. Its called  " The Fence " created by a British man called Geoff Thompson , read his books as he can explain it a lot better than I can.

 Basically its used to form a barrier to keep an attacker at a distance so that we will have time to react if he tries anything . If you don't have a Fence up he can get in close , headbutt , knee ,elbow , sucker punch etc and there's not a damn thing you can do about it , even if you've been training for 20 years .

 We have to keep him outside the perimeter of the fence if we are going to have a chance at applying our skills.

I will just talk about the Wing Chun technique we will use in this situation , the attacker is right in front of you , we would prefer him to be slightly side on with one leg forward but the technique can still be done if he is square on with his legs slightly apart.


Pivot and swing one of your legs towards the centerline , your leg should be in the Bong Gerk position , but instead of using the heel to attack we are using the shin , it is still exactly the same motion.
Strike the attackers nearest leg at the inner thigh with your shin , keep the angle in your leg , don't straighten the leg like Muay Thai , just swing it from the hip and drive it through.

It is important that you still have your guard up , on the centerline and facing your attacker.
Pivot the supporting foot the instant you make contact with your shin , this will ensure your body mass goes into the kick.
This kick is called The Hook Kick

Dont go past the Bong Gerk position you don't want to end up too side on to the opponent.
Swing your shin through so that your foot ends up roughly 45 degrees and hip ,knee and foot are slanted and facing towards the opponent on centerline.

Although you could strike the outside of the thigh It is protected by the quadricep muscle and won't be as effective.
I prefer to strike the inner thigh where the soft white meat is.
It also tends to disrupt their balance a lot better as well

After you have struck his inner thigh with your Hook Kick , he will be off balance and maybe his leg will be broken , depending on how much power you can generate.

We should now be in the Bong Gerk position , from here we immediately go from the Hook Kick to breaking his rear leg at the knee joint with a side stamping kick , making contact with your heel.

So first kick use your shin on the inside of his thigh , then straight from there extend your leg through and stamp out his rear leg knee joint .

His rear leg should be perfectly in range due to the hooking effect of the first kick bringing the attacker in , but if its not just pivot some more on your support foot so you can reach his leg with your side stamping kick.

Done in a rapid fire fashion these two kicks even without breaking bones , at the very least will totally destroy a persons balance .
If attacker is still standing , step down from last kick , square up , readjust stance and follow up with chain punching.


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## blindsage (Jun 18, 2009)

This is the same as the Muay Thai round kick, google it and look at the pictures you will see that most of the time they do not straighten the knee.  I'm not saying you're taking this from Muay Thai, just that it is the same technique, except for the hips.  You probably arent' going to throw your hips into it like a Thai boxer would.


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## Jimi (Jun 18, 2009)

If you are doing this kick from your lead leg, I would say it is much more LIKE (similar to) an O'ou Tek from Jun Fan Gung Fu. Not saying WC doesn't have its own lead led (round) kick, just saying it would be more like the Jun Fan O'ou (hook) kick than a Muay Thai round kick. If thrown from the rear leg I can see it more like the MT round kick, but I am just splitting hairs.

Mook Jong Man, you may appreciate this. I have a free standing WC/JKD dummy from the Great Lion Company. It has four (4) steel legs. I like to do a cross stomp kick to the nearest leg to crack the knee or shin, then shoot out a solid low side kick to the next nearest leg while keeping the upper arms in check (ie - Tan Sau or Pak Sau etc..) I love this multple low line kicking. Be it JF/JKD or WC, I love this kinda skill work. Thanks for posting.


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## mook jong man (Jun 19, 2009)

blindsage said:


> This is the same as the Muay Thai round kick, google it and look at the pictures you will see that most of the time they do not straighten the knee. I'm not saying you're taking this from Muay Thai, just that it is the same technique, except for the hips. You probably arent' going to throw your hips into it like a Thai boxer would.


 
It is a Wing Chun kick , it is exactly the same as the kick from the wooden dummy form , except the striking surface is the shin. I am from Tsui Seung Tin lineage , one of the four closed door students of Yip Man and he has always taught this kick.

From conversing with other Wing Chun/Wing Tsun people on here it doesn't seem to be part of their lineages but it is part of ours. 
It makes perfect sense to me that you have to have a tool that can both deflect incoming kicks and can be used to strike when the attacker is too close for you to use the heel and too far away to knee or punch .

Not only that its in the wooden dummy form , only impacting with the heel and not the shin , but its execution is exactly the same , so some where along the line its been ommitted or hasn't been taught in some lineages.


While on the surface it may look similar to a Muay Thai round kick I can assure you it is a Wing Chun kick . I have seen some Muay Thai people at the point of impact when they kick their leg is almost straight or straight. 

This is probably due to the fact that they usually bounce around and are up on their toes , so they are quite high up to begin with . Just different delivery systems.

In our lineage of Wing Chun just as we have the optimum angle with our arms we also have the optimum angle with our legs , this angle is maintained right up until impact with thrusting kicks and in the case of the hook kick it is maintained right through. 

There is no bouncing around like a Muay Thai practitioner , we are sunk down in our stance and that is where we stay thus our legs are already in the proper angle for kicking thus there is no need to chamber our kicks they are ready to be launched straight from the stance with no preparation.

Another couple of reasons is that if we were straightening our leg out we would be using muscular force instead of powering the kick from our stance .

Probably the most important reason that the angle of the leg must be maintained is that the Wing Chun Hook Kick is a very sophisticated tool that is not only used for striking but is also used to deflect the incoming kicks of the opponent or in jamming their attacks without this crucial angle that is analoguous to the Bong Sau of the arm it would not be able to fulfill these functions .

Another difference in function is that it is also mostly used in conjunction with wrist latching so as to enhance the impact of the kick , so in effect the Wing Chun man will be using up to three limbs at once . One leg kicking , one arm controlling the attackers arm , and the other arm striking.

It is a very short range kick usually used at the end of a chain of techniques in conjunction with trapping. We normally would not start with this kick as it is a finishing kick , but I advised its use in my original post because the person is already close and inside our Low Heel Kick range and it is crucial to take care of the opponents leg that maybe in close range for a snap kick or knee to our groin.

It is hard to explain how the power is generated unless you have an understanding of the Chum Kiu form , but I will try . In Wing Chun the upper and lower halves of the body are locked together so that when we pivot the whole body moves as one unit . 

In the Muay Thai kick from what I have seen , one arm is dropped down , the shoulders are going one way and the hips are going another. In the Wing Chun Hook Kick the body is sunk down , the kick is initiated and the upper and lower body stay locked in at the waist , and at the instant of impact the support foot is pivoted on the middle of the foot. 

The whole of the body mass is used in the kick all force vectors heading in the same direction , there is also a slight hip projection to increase force . The kick can be done two ways , both are correct , we can direct our force in a more circular fashion so that the shin cuts straight through the thigh or we can direct it in a more forward direction to go straight through the body mass of the opponent.

Essentially the better you are at pivoting and staying unified in Chum Kiu the more powerful your Hook Kick will be as the power generated comes from the speed of rotation of your body and being relaxed at the hip joint so that the leg hits like a dead weight . If you hold the kick shield for somebody that does it well you will actually feel their force transmitted down into the floor.

Probably another difference is that the kick is not committed , unlike some Muay Thai people who if the kick misses they will spin right around , where as the Wing Chun guy will not rotate past the Bong Gerk position and can convert the kick into another type of kick , or simply step down and start punching .

Exactly the same as the arms there are no committed techniques in Wing Chun , nothing that can't be interrupted and changed into something else once launched.


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## mook jong man (Jun 19, 2009)

Jimi said:


> If you are doing this kick from your lead leg, I would say it is much more LIKE (similar to) an O'ou Tek from Jun Fan Gung Fu. Not saying WC doesn't have its own lead led (round) kick, just saying it would be more like the Jun Fan O'ou (hook) kick than a Muay Thai round kick. If thrown from the rear leg I can see it more like the MT round kick, but I am just splitting hairs.
> 
> Mook Jong Man, you may appreciate this. I have a free standing WC/JKD dummy from the Great Lion Company. It has four (4) steel legs. I like to do a cross stomp kick to the nearest leg to crack the knee or shin, then shoot out a solid low side kick to the next nearest leg while keeping the upper arms in check (ie - Tan Sau or Pak Sau etc..) I love this multple low line kicking. Be it JF/JKD or WC, I love this kinda skill work. Thanks for posting.


 
In my lineage there is no lead leg , both legs are equal distance from the opponent so as all limbs have equal opportunity to be utilised.

I just put both methods because I realise a lot of people in North America and Britain do Wing Chun / Wing Tsun lineages where their fighting stance is to have one leg forward. I try to cater all the clans.

That training you do is something similar to what I do on a home made apparatus , doing various kicks with out dropping the foot to the ground .
Great stuff for the stance , precision kicks and local muscle endurance.


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## zepedawingchun (Jun 19, 2009)

mook jong man said:


> It is a Wing Chun kick , it is exactly the same as the kick from the wooden dummy form , except the striking surface is the shin. I am from Tsui Seung Tin lineage , one of the four closed door students of Yip Man and he has always taught this kick.
> 
> From conversing with other Wing Chun/Wing Tsun people on here it doesn't seem to be part of their lineages but it is part of ours.
> It makes perfect sense to me that you have to have a tool that can both deflect incoming kicks and can be used to strike when the attacker is too close for you to use the heel and too far away to knee or punch .
> ...


 
Sounds like you are using a bong gerk as a kick instead of waiting for your opponent to low kick, you respond with a bong gerk then execute what we call a chan tek (side kick) or chai tek (scraping kick).  Not really deflecting with the bong, just using it to initiate an attack instead.


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## mook jong man (Jun 19, 2009)

zepedawingchun said:


> Sounds like you are using a bong gerk as a kick instead of waiting for your opponent to low kick, you respond with a bong gerk then execute what we call a chan tek (side kick) or chai tek (scraping kick). Not really deflecting with the bong, just using it to initiate an attack instead.


 
You are exactly right , in this case I am initiating the attack by striking his inner thigh with my shin and then kicking the second leg with my heel.

But if the situation was that he initiated the attack with a heel kick to my knee or a kick to my groin then the technique is still exactly the same except that I am jamming the kick before it barely starts or deflecting it away from my centerline by under kicking his thigh. 

In the case of jamming when his legs are positioned for it you will strike his thigh with your shin and heel kick his rear leg pretty much simultaneously.

All Wing Chun kicking serves the double purpose of guarding and attacking at the same time which is the reason we kick on the centerline.


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## zepedawingchun (Jun 19, 2009)

mook jong man said:


> You are exactly right , in this case I am initiating the attack by striking his inner thigh with my shin and then kicking the second leg with my heel.
> 
> But if the situation was that he initiated the attack with a heel kick to my knee or a kick to my groin then the technique is still exactly the same except that I am jamming the kick before it barely starts or deflecting it away from my centerline by under kicking his thigh.
> 
> ...


 
We do the same thing from time to time.  This idea follows the WC theory of (from an opponent) weak attack, attack, strong attack, deflect then attack.


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