Mook Jong Man you are totally right about power. When I first started Wing Chun Punching in the air. I was always thinking how can I hurt someone with these punches. At first I lack power. But over time practicing thousands of punches, Sil Lim Tao, Stance work and plum flower Steps. Along with some Chi Kung Exercises and Strenght Exercises My hands and arms started to feel harder. My Chest started to feel like a rock. Everytime I practice my body would heat significantly and become as hard as rock. Going to sleep right after was not an option. I had to wait about an hour or so for my body to soften. But Over the years of endless Practice I beging to increase in power. Now I can totally feel the power being generating through my arms and out my fist. I can tell how much I am throwing out. But before when i first started. I could throw my all. I mean my full force. An felt like a feather. I mean No damage at all.
A friend of mines who I am training Was listening to my hand strokes doing chain punches and chain punches. One day he said Aww, It sounds just as it does in Kung Fu Movies. We Kinda of Laugh but I shared with him thats from many years of doing: Push Ups,Sit ups,Pull ups, Wrist rollers,rotatin bricks, rolling and pushing out the metal pipe, practicing thousand punches in Air,Sparring and doing sil lim tao.
Also we went to a mutal friends house from high school. This guy had a punching bag. It was light as feather. It weighed like 65lbs. Everytime I punched with real force that sucker went flying. If it wasn't for the wall The bag would probably had hit the roof. I told my Friend If he decides to get a punching bag please get atleast 100lbs. But a 200lbs to 400lb heavy bag is better. For one you want to throw kicks and punches. If you can send a 300lbs punching bag flying after a year of hitting it imagine what you would do someone on street. I also told him to invest in Wall Bag. Start with Sand then go up to gravel or rocks. After awhile of hitting rocks he should use steel shots. Everytime you hit that bag against a non-movable object you are training your Chi to cycle your force through your opponent. This is real good way to increase power generation!
Kamon Guy Excellent point about the power doesn't just come from your stance.
Actually In Wing Chun we train to use whole body power. That means more than just moving in your stance while punching.
Power is generating from much more than just your stance.
Power Generation comes from:
1.Your Waist
2.Breath
3.Shoulders-Elbow-Wrist Fist
4.Chest
5.Feet-ankle-knees-hips
If someone has you off the ground. Needless to say you can not generate power from your feet-ankles-knees-Hips. But lets say the bouncer has you by the hips. You can still generate power from his body using your hips and Waist as root, Travel the power generated from your foes body to your chest up to your shoulders, Elbows, Wrist, knuckles to his face. You learn how to generate power from just arm power by doing push ups,sit ups, pull ups and bench pressing. The stronger your arms are the more power you can generate with the addition of whole body power. But sometimes you can only use arm strenght.
Thats why sometimes I practice doing punches on back. Another exercise to do is to take some little silver balls you get from a chinese shop an practice punching on your knees,sitting in full lotus posistion and laying on your back.
You could also use free weights start off light like ten pounds. When you can throw hundred punches then move up to twenty pounds etc. Do a hundred punches on your back, kneeling and in a lotus or indian style.
This will increase just your arm power for when your in posistion but can not get full body power like someone is trying to mount you or wrestle you down. If you can build up tremedous power in punching from a ground posistion then just think how powerful your punches will be when your standing!
I don't know about the rest of you in the Wing Chun / Wing Tsun clan , but i get pretty sick of people who know nothing about it saying that we have no power in our strikes and we do " patty cake punches and slaps " .
Try as you might you cannot get it throught to these people that our power comes from our stance . This is a demo from my old school in the last bit you see Sigung standing on scales and a bloke is trying to push him over , they checked the scales when he first got on and he was 60 kg .
As the bloke is pushing , Sigung's weight is increasing because he is transferring the blokes weight down into his stance thus making his own structure stronger . As an aside i once asked Sifu Jim to do a double palm strike on me with no pad at very close range so i could see what it felt like , well it felt like i got hit by a truck and i asked him how much power did he just use on me and he said about 5 percent .
The point is we can generate a lot of power in Wing Chun / Wing Tsun it just takes longer to develop and because our force is not dependent on muscular strength we can keep on increasing our power well into very old age . ( Sigung is in his mid 70s now i believe )
