# the pivot



## skinters (Sep 4, 2008)

do you pivot on the balls, or heels ?

i watched a seminar by WLS in wich he demonstrated that by turning on your heels your distance remains the same,in contrast to on your balls of the feet where you gain and inch .

having tried this countless times you do indeed gain by turning on the balls of the feet .

now if i am turning  on the balls of the feet, is that to instill correct form or am i missing something ?


----------



## geezer (Sep 4, 2008)

skinters said:


> do you pivot on the balls, or heels ?
> 
> i watched a seminar by WLS in wich he demonstrated that by turning on your heels your distance remains the same,in contrast to on your heels where you gain and inch .
> 
> ...


 
Whenever anyone mentions "pivoting on thier balls", I think, "Boy, that must hurt!"  But seriously, this is an excellent topic. When I first studied WC in the Yip Man-Ho Kam Ming-Augustine Fong lineage back in the late 70s, I was taught to pivot on my heels, moving both feet simultaneously. And, I was taught to shiift my body weight from 50-50 to about 1/3-2/3 when turned.

A little later, I became a student of Leung Ting, who insisted that we pivot on the center of the foot in a fluid motion in which one foot moves at a time and your weight shifts completely from one foot to the other. Although I had only trained about a year in the heel pivot method, it was hard to unlearn in favor of Leung Ting's "Wing Tsun" method. Just ask Brocklee, who had to make the same transition going the other way (that is from  the Leung Ting WT system to Fong's WC system). Habits can be hard to unlearn. I  have also practiced with members of several other groups that pivot on the balls of their feet, and have seen that method applied. 

So which method is best? First off, I am poorly qualified to advocate any of these methods, since I have a fused ankle from an old injury, and have to do the best that I can with my own "crippled up" adaptation. There are certain advantages to each (or nobody would keep doing them all three ways). And, in my opinion good practitioner in each system can make effective use of turning regardless of which form of pivoting he favors. 

If any of you strongly favor one particular version of the pivot over the other two, what do you feel are its advantages?


----------



## BFL (Sep 4, 2008)

well stated Geezer.  Just to ad my two cents, is there any reason someone can't use all three, in other words why does it have to be just one way or another.  Since there are so many variables in combat perhaps in one scenario, heel pivot would be called for, in another scenario central pivot and so on. Does it always have to just be one way?
Peace,
BFL


----------



## skinters (Sep 4, 2008)

well after a good deal of research i found this exclellent article on the very thing it talks about the k1 pivot wich is centered not favouring either way .it goes on to say that slight pressure on the balls of the feet adds to that feeling of forwards pressure .

to be honest i go slightly on balls of feet with heels skimming surface its very slight .

http://www.riograndewingchun.com/subpage1.html


----------



## geezer (Sep 4, 2008)

skinters said:


> well after a good deal of research i found this exclellent article on the very thing it talks about the k1 pivot wich is centered not favouring either way .it goes on to say that slight pressure on the balls of the feet adds to that feeling of forwards pressure .


 
Interesting article. I myself am constantly playing around with things like this just to see how it feels. My old WT sifu warned me that my this was where my disreputable study of FMAs would lead. LOL.

 I still prefer the WT approach of pivoting while staying centered on the feet (although I personally let my weight creep a bit forward for the some of the same reasons as described in the article). I find the one-foot-at-a-time center pivot method the most stable and least prone to overcommitment. But in WT we do a _total_ lateral weight shift. This has the advantage of swinging your torso out of the way of an opponent's hard attack, something like a bullfighter side-stepping the charge of the bull. If you don't shift your weight, your body may turn, but your mass is still in front of your opponent. This works OK if you can deflect or parry the attack, but if the attack is very forceful, you will have to counter it with force. The WT method _yields_ with the energy, _borowing the force_ to literally make your turn and weight shift happen. If there is a downside, I would have to say that it seems slower than turning without a weight shift. After all, it takes a moment to move your body weight from being centered between your feet to one side. However this is only a problem working solo, since when you actually use it, your opponent's force is pushing you to the side. You let him do the work! If he doesn't attack hard enough to turn you...you don't turn. You just hit him!


----------



## martyg (Sep 4, 2008)

skinters said:


> well after a good deal of research i found this exclellent article on the very thing it talks about the k1 pivot wich is centered not favouring either way .




Yes, that's what we center/pivot on.


----------



## qwksilver61 (Sep 4, 2008)

center of the foot for me,at no point during the transition is the body unstable...two cents....


----------



## martyg (Sep 4, 2008)

qwksilver61 said:


> center of the foot for me,at no point during the transition is the body unstable...two cents....



I think that's part of the equation as well.  Usually people are shifting with a certain part of the foot because they're carrying themselves a certain way as well that supports that.  Certain distribution of weight, way of transferring the weight (or not), way of interacting with the person while they're doing it, etc. etc.


----------



## mook jong man (Sep 5, 2008)

In the Tsui Seung Tin lineage we pivot through the center of the feet . The reason being that with your weight centered you will have equal resistance in any direction to any outside force.

 If your weight is over the balls of your feet you can easily be dragged in and if your weight is over the heels you can be easily pushed back. 

Imagine for a second that you are in your stance with your eyes closed and hands down by your side and some one is giving you shoves from random directions.

  You can't tell what direction the next push is going to come from , so naturally you will sink your weight down into the center so that you can resist in all directions front , side and back.


----------



## skinters (Sep 5, 2008)

> If your weight is over the balls of your feet you can easily be dragged in and if your weight is over the heels you can be easily pushed back.



the other side to that mook is maybe taking advantage of that forwardness that being slightly on the balls of the feet in that you can attack with it when being pulled in.

i mean it in the way of adding to that forward pressure.


----------



## matsu (Sep 5, 2008)

we are taught to pivot as beginners from the balls of our feet for stability and speed and the fact that if you turn on your toes your body shifts.so as you turn and land a strike your body could be moving away from the tgt.i think as you progress we find our own comfort zone in the turns and would naturally progress to centre of foot, but at the moment i am heavily concentrating on balls of feet.

similarly with sircle step going back we are taught to actually circle even tho i know we dont do that in real drills. but if i can move fast enough whislt doing a very basic movement i can only get quicker as i refine it for economy of motion.

matsu


----------



## skinters (Sep 5, 2008)

ive noticed aswell that with the turn on the balls of the feet you gain quite alot.

now i maybe reading into it wrong as its said that by turning on the balls of the feet you are moving away,so im not understanding that right,as in if your turning with the punch your moving inwards .

i know i making it sound confusing im only just beggining to study the affects of  either heels or balls of the feet and the way it alters reach and shape.

so im a bit confused when its said you stay where you are when pivot on the heels but move away when pivot on the balls of the feet ..

is it a referal to it being a disavantage when turning on the balls of the feet ?

just edited to add.

if found this from WSL 




he said if you use the balls of the feet ,you will find tht when you finish your turn ,you will be further from your apponent,but when you use centre and turn you dont lose any ground .you stay in contact with the apponent

so still plenty to work on there .


----------



## matsu (Sep 5, 2008)

from what i saw in the cute lil bubbles he said if you pivot on your heels the distance stays the same....
who knows.
i,m sure all the experienced guys on here will vouch for their system and its pivot point.
we are taught that heels gives you stability and power running thru heels hips lats and shoulder as you turn into the punch and my sifu has made a believer out of me.:angel:

matsu


----------



## Kwanjang (Sep 5, 2008)

geezer said:


> Whenever anyone mentions "pivoting on thier balls", I think, "Boy, that must hurt!" But seriously, this is an excellent topic.
> 
> :lfao: Oh, Thats funny!!!
> 
> I think, as long as you pivot, its all good. #1. safety for the knee, plus adding bodyweight. Since your pivot foot also become the "base" for the kick, I would submit the supporting foot is important to the kicks overall power.


----------



## mook jong man (Sep 5, 2008)

skinters said:


> the other side to that mook is maybe taking advantage of that forwardness that being slightly on the balls of the feet in that you can attack with it when being pulled in.
> 
> i mean it in the way of adding to that forward pressure.


 
To clarify , what i should of said is that you could be pulled forward and down by a latch ( think of their fook sau suddenly dropping down on your bong sau and your face going straight into a punch ) it is a lot easier to resist if your back is straight and weight centered.

 But you are correct in saying that if you are pulled in you can take advantage of that . The classic example being someone has you in a cross arm grab and trys to pull you in , you resist for a moment so they pull even harder and you explode into them collapsing your arm into an elbow strike .

 But that is just a pull , there is only one force vector and that is easy to deal with , but with a highly skilled Wing Chun guy doing a latch he is using two force vectors at once both forward and down .
 I am starting to get into the two way force vectors of Chum Kiu now so i will shut up .


----------



## qwksilver61 (Sep 8, 2008)

ask yourself.... how fast can you turn,advance and still maintain adduction?


----------



## martyg (Sep 9, 2008)

qwksilver61 said:


> ask yourself.... how fast can you turn,advance and still maintain adduction?



No idea, I don't do adduction.


----------



## brocklee (Sep 9, 2008)

Heels for my lineage.  It took forever to break the ol' LT style of pivoting.  Having experienced both types of pivots, I can see where each plays it role.  In the LT style, pivoting through the center of the foot came in handy when reacting like a turn style and pivoting off the center line because ultimately you ended up with a little more weight on the back foot and it just felt more natural.  

Pivoting on the heels took a little getting used to but now that I do it it seems to make more sense.  It's what starts the torquing process and comes in handy when pivoting and maintaining a balanced center line.  

Pivoting on your heels shouldn't effect whether or not you can get pushed back or not.  Structure takes care of that.  The slight bend at the knee is what makes it possible for you to remain center.


----------



## geezer (Sep 9, 2008)

brocklee said:


> Pivoting on your heels shouldn't effect whether or not you can get pushed back or not. Structure takes care of that...


 
The classic argument for staying on the center of the foot and turning one foot at a time is that you are not overcommitting forward or backward and should be more stable.

In practice I've found that keeping a good straight spine and _not resisting_ a push or pull is far more important to maintaining stability. When someone yanks you into them, it won't matter if you are on your heels, the centers, or the balls of your feet, if you _follow their energy_ into them and attack. On the other hand, if you are rigid and resist, you will topple forward. The really important thing is that your stance be integrated into your structure so that you can advance, retreat, and turn effortlessly with your opponent's energy. ...Now if I could just do that all the time...


----------



## qwksilver61 (Sep 9, 2008)

for anyone that does'nt know; That "linking" effect between the knees


----------



## naneek (Sep 21, 2008)

we pivot on our heels hard to get used to at first but it soon becomes natural.


----------

