Anyone familiar with the Yut Chee Kuen or the yut chee Kuen Chak?

[Wing Woo Gar]

I’m wondering if anyone knows this form? It was the first one I learned 20 some years ago. It takes around 15-18 minutes depending on speed.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

Nobody huh?

 

[Darksoul]

Nobody huh?

Google suggested "Yat Chi Kuen". Related to Wing Chun from what I can see.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

Google suggested "Yat Chi Kuen". Related to Wing Chun from what I can see.

Definitely not Wing Chun in origin. More likely long fist or Southern Family.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

Google suggested "Yat Chi Kuen". Related to Wing Chun from what I can see.

Yeah definitely not that.

 

[Oily Dragon]

I’m wondering if anyone knows this form? It was the first one I learned 20 some years ago. It takes around 15-18 minutes depending on speed.

In which art did you learn it?

There are sun character fist sets/sequences in a couple different arts including Wing Chun but also Hung Ga, CLF, etc. Also Kung Mun I believe, and any other arts that use the Ming era "sun+moon" motifs in their symbolism, hand signals.

"Yut chee" is probably not the right pronunciation, since the sun character 日 (ri in Mandarin) is more like "yat" with a strong t. And "ji/gi" is character. So, "yat ji". Yut is more like the character 1 in Cantonese, which is funny because you will sometimes find "sun character fist" replaced with "1 character fist" etc.

If you Google "arrow fist" sets in the South styles you will see a lot of sun character strikes.

This guy starts throwing some around 2:25. Technically "yat ji faw jin choi", or Sun character shaped fire arrow fists (fire because it's a rising fist).

 

[Oily Dragon]

Definitely not Wing Chun in origin. More likely long fist or Southern Family.

I think this is probably one of those Northern Shaolin fist forms that also went south. Arrow fist sets are found all over different external styles. Not so much internal ones from what I can tell, have yet to find a sun character fist in Taiji, Xing Yi, or Bagua (someone might know).

Makes sense considering by the time of the Ching Dynasty, the sun character fists would become a secret symbol of many different Chinese sects, representing the restoration of the Ming Dynasty, even in the bows in styles like Hung Ga which also uses the vertical fist in techniques, and bridge training (yat ji Kuen is Jik Kiu, the "direct bridge"). I'll find a pic.

I also do think there may be an actual "yut ji" (1 pattern fist) out there, since there are other forms out there with similar patter shaped names (e.g. gung ji Kuen, the I (capital i) pattern fist).

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

No, but I do have questions.
1: Why do you ask? Is there something interesting about this form, or just a nostalgia thing?
2: 15-18 minutes seems like a very long time for a form. Most that I know can be performed under 5, regardless of the art. How long did it take you to learn it? Is it one where you intentionally slow your movement down? Do you know why they decided to make it one very long form rather than have multiple shorter forms (and is this normal for your first art)?

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

In which art did you learn it?

There are sun character fist sets/sequences in a couple different arts including Wing Chun but also Hung Ga, CLF, etc. Also Kung Mun I believe, and any other arts that use the Ming era "sun+moon" motifs in their symbolism, hand signals.

"Yut chee" is probably not the right pronunciation, since the sun character 日 (ri in Mandarin) is more like "yat" with a strong t. And "ji/gi" is character. So, "yat ji". Yut is more like the character 1 in Cantonese, which is funny because you will sometimes find "sun character fist" replaced with "1 character fist" etc.

If you Google "arrow fist" sets in the South styles you will see a lot of sun character strikes.

This guy starts throwing some around 2:25. Technically "yat ji faw jin choi", or Sun character shaped fire arrow fists (fire because it's a rising fist).

Not that either. I learned it in Wing Woo Gar. That guys footwork is trash btw.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

I think this is probably one of those Northern Shaolin fist forms that also went south. Arrow fist sets are found all over different external styles. Not so much internal ones from what I can tell, have yet to find a sun character fist in Taiji, Xing Yi, or Bagua (someone might know).

Makes sense considering by the time of the Ching Dynasty, the sun character fists would become a secret symbol of many different Chinese sects, representing the restoration of the Ming Dynasty, even in the bows in styles like Hung Ga which also uses the vertical fist in techniques, and bridge training (yat ji Kuen is Jik Kiu, the "direct bridge"). I'll find a pic.

I also do think there may be an actual "yut ji" (1 pattern fist) out there, since there are other forms out there with similar patter shaped names (e.g. gung ji Kuen, the I (capital i) pattern fist).

Ah I think you are onto it here! Yut Ji makes more sense. Sifu Woo trained at the Jing Wu school in Canton as a youngster. It may have been one of the twelve forms taught there. It seems to be a bridge work form. No kicks, And the caps at the end of each section are what form the the two man Chak part of the form where you never lose contact with each other during the whole form.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

No, but I do have questions.
1: Why do you ask? Is there something interesting about this form, or just a nostalgia thing?
2: 15-18 minutes seems like a very long time for a form. Most that I know can be performed under 5, regardless of the art. How long did it take you to learn it? Is it one where you intentionally slow your movement down? Do you know why they decided to make it one very long form rather than have multiple shorter forms (and is this normal for your first art)?

I learned it 23 years ago. It is unusual (no one here seems to know it) for its length, no kicks, and the Chak form is broken into pieces throughout it. Once the form is learned, the Chak form can be extracted and used separately with a partner. When we do the Chak, it can be done slow to get accurate motion, but once you know it we go full speed and full contact. Mostly, the arm contact and sticking throughout the form are great conditioning. The main form has six sections. Singles, doubles, triples, returning punches, elbows, open hands, as I said earlier, the Chak is broken up to be book ends for each section and is performed in its entirety at the end (7th section). The two man Chak can be completed in under a minute at full speed.

 

[Oily Dragon]

Ah I think you are onto it here! Yut Ji makes more sense. Sifu Woo trained at the Jing Wu school in Canton as a youngster. It may have been one of the twelve forms taught there. It seems to be a bridge work form. No kicks, And the caps at the end of each section are what form the the two man Chak part of the form where you never lose contact with each other during the whole form.

I'll have to dig a bit maybe I can find it. I know I've seen at least one "character 1" set in hanzi somewhere, maybe it was part of that lineage.

It might be easier to find the right form if it really is ji/gi (shape) and not "chee", assuming it's supposed to be the word for "shape" and not some other thing.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

No, but I do have questions.
1: Why do you ask? Is there something interesting about this form, or just a nostalgia thing?
2: 15-18 minutes seems like a very long time for a form. Most that I know can be performed under 5, regardless of the art. How long did it take you to learn it? Is it one where you intentionally slow your movement down? Do you know why they decided to make it one very long form rather than have multiple shorter forms (and is this normal for your first art)?

I neglected to answer your last question. It is the only form of its kind in our art. We have forms from various CMA. We have Hung Gar, CLF, Ying jow pai, Tong long Pai, Tam Tui, Chan Kuen…Sifu Woo trained with a number of notables and knew over 90 forms, I have never seen them all. One of his first students Gus Hoefling, and Another, Rich Montgomery will be sending us a dvd of several forums we never learned. They are both pushing 90 years old now. Thankfully, they made films of themselves doing the forms to preserve the specifics as they were taught. I may be able to get more info from them shortly.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

I'll have to dig a bit maybe I can find it. I know I've seen at least one "character 1" set in hanzi somewhere, maybe it was part of that lineage.

It might be easier to find the right form if it really is ji/gi (shape) and not "chee", assuming it's supposed to be the word for "shape" and not some other thing.

I apologize. I just tried to write it phonetically. If I get more clues I will update. Thank you so much for your reply!

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

I'll have to dig a bit maybe I can find it. I know I've seen at least one "character 1" set in hanzi somewhere, maybe it was part of that lineage.

It might be easier to find the right form if it really is ji/gi (shape) and not "chee", assuming it's supposed to be the word for "shape" and not some other thing.

Man, thanks again, really.