Shifting the Stance vs Turning the Waist
- Thread starter futsaowingchun
- Start date
Better is always relative. I'm sure Mike Tyson would destroy almost anyone I know from a number of styles. That's because he's a born fighter, not because he learned a better striking system.
However, VT has more tactical striking methods than boxing and more intelligent defense and overall strategy for free fighting against any type of opponent, since it's not a game with rules, in my opinion. And of course, we use our feet.
Well, chi-sau is an indispensable training tool and stage of development which a lot of training time is devoted to, but I prefer not to get too attached to it. You must see the big picture. What makes VT great is the intelligent design of the system from SNT to free sparring. Not one stage is more important than another.
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This is where I see a lot of Wing Chun practitioners get into trouble when they try to use one stance for every situation.
No, you're wrong. One stance works great. The trick is to only fight one kind of fighter. ...like only the guys from your school!
OK, seriously, old time Wing Chun did have other stances, and they are still preserved in the long pole and bart cham dao sets. These stances occasionally appear in the empty hand system but not often. Perhaps, in part due to the fact that this material is kept under wraps and only taught to high-level students after many years, and then only if they can pay big bucks for the privilege.
Still, I'd say that it will take a lot more than some low stance work to solve the grappling deficiency in many TMAs.
That is true, especially since some TMAs appear to have abandon all of the grappling elements. The ones that still have the technique in their forms can always explore that form to figure out how it works. But those who don't have any references to grappling will need to take a technique from another fighting style to fill in their gaps.
wckf92
Master of Arts
True enough... most won't or don't stick around that long to learn the weapons. As such, some WC teaches the weapons movements (concepts, ideas, stances, footwork, etc) very early on... just not in the typical "form" fashion. Beginning students, naturally, have no idea they are learning (dare I say) "advanced" portions of WC... but nonetheless they are, and benefit from it without waiting years.
Vajramusti
Master Black Belt
Wing chun has lots of stances and lots of footwork and adjusting without sacrificing structure.
I don't know much about Wing Chun so I may sound stupid asking this question. Are all of the stances narrow like the one that is commonly seen and known as a Wing Chun stance? In my style we only have 4 basic stances. Horse, cross, cat, and bow.
wckf92
Master of Arts
'Narrow' is a relative term. So it may be difficult to answer your question. Not all WC has that weird "goat gripping stance" with knees practically touching. There are many stances. Horse of course (weighted differently across the lineages); and from there things branch out in various directions depending on lineage, level within the system itself, etc.
Thanks. This is what I was thinking but wasn't sure of because I usually only see one type of stance in competition. I always see WC demonstrated with that one stance and I was thinking that there had to be more.
Just to add a bit to the discussion, in my lineage, we have several 'primary' stances, as well as some transitional stances. Our primary stances are YJKYM, a forward stance, and one that some might call a side-neutral stance. All 3 have a wider base with the heels at least shoulder-width apart or more. The later 2 are typically derived from our buhn yut ma & leung yee ma footwork and also follow our gate theory and tin yan dei principles.
Transitional stances like T stance and ding ma/hanging cat stance also exist and are more narrow by nature, but also aren't used nearly as often.
As I see it, stances and footwork are also 2 different things and should both be considered to have a well rounded fighting system. For example, we have 5 major footwork & body methods we train in our Bai Jong Baat Bo Jin, which is a Chum Kiu-level training platform covering a full 360 degrees of motion in 8 basic directions. These cover moving fwd for engagement, backwards for receiving/recovery, side-to-side for matching facing and/or cutting off the angle to our opponent, and then 2 more for facing and refacing via turning. IMO, only sticking to one stance, say YGKYM, is limiting the ability of the WC fighter to counter the numerous types of MA's our there today.
Transitional stances like T stance and ding ma/hanging cat stance also exist and are more narrow by nature, but also aren't used nearly as often.
As I see it, stances and footwork are also 2 different things and should both be considered to have a well rounded fighting system. For example, we have 5 major footwork & body methods we train in our Bai Jong Baat Bo Jin, which is a Chum Kiu-level training platform covering a full 360 degrees of motion in 8 basic directions. These cover moving fwd for engagement, backwards for receiving/recovery, side-to-side for matching facing and/or cutting off the angle to our opponent, and then 2 more for facing and refacing via turning. IMO, only sticking to one stance, say YGKYM, is limiting the ability of the WC fighter to counter the numerous types of MA's our there today.
Or some of us which use both. Either frame in Tai Chi is still not compatible with WC. We have some similar hands in the two arts on occasion, but the body language, waist usage and legs are very different.
I believe one of the common criticisms of Fut Sao Wing Chun's origin is that it is derived from a combination of an internal art and some WC. Looking at this example, that explanation seems pretty plausible.
Ok, you guys use what my style would describe as an animal style Tien Yan Dei. It seems from the forms you guys would favor more of a primarily long, secondarily short boxing not unlike CLF. If indeed you specialize in this long range (chern kiu) a turning waist mechanic can be used pretty well, its when you compact into short bridge (dune kiu) that it can get you into trouble.
When we need to compact we ditch the big punches and use other techniques more suited for the task. As for generating power with the waist the more advanced students and sifu get really good at using their waist. Here's a person from a different Jow Ga lineage but you can see what I'm talking about with twisting the waist at 0:37 and again at 1:00
There are actions in each of the empty hand forms that correspond to weapon training. And since the pole training is very good for developing basic things like punching power and synchronicity of limbs, elements of it can be taught earlier for good reason. Nothing "advanced" about this. It's part of the basic training system. The knives are different because the fighting strategy differs. It's more biu-ji thinking, and so is generally taught later so as not to confuse students learning their primary VT strategy and tactics.
OP
OP
futsaowingchun
Black Belt
The origins of FSWC are not well known but IMO the footwork is based on some internal system and adopted to a WC framework. I trained in IP Man WC before I started in FSWC so my WC is a combination of both. FSWC IMO is more closely related to YKS WC then the other lineages of WC.
