Siu Nim Tao - Correcting Symmetry?

[Marnetmar]

Even though I have been taking Wing Chun classes for nine months now, I'm still having trouble with SNT. When in goat stance, I tend to favor one side instead of remaining square, and my hands are not symmetrical at all in the arm-crossing introduction as my right hand is much higher than my left so that my arms look something like this instead of a proper "X".

I have been trying to correct this and nothing seems to be working, any suggestions?

 

[J W]

Tough issue to address without seeing you actually perform SNT. Of course, my first answer would be to ask your sihing or sifu about it, have them watch you play the form and hopefully they can advise.

To take a stab at it, though, I would suggest you pay more attention to the centerline. Notice that the lines in your example intersect way to the right of the vertical centerline; they should intersect on it. If your arms cross on the centerline, then they should be more symmetrical. SNT is all about centerline; pay attention to it while playing the form and if you feel asymmetrical, you may not be on the centerline.

 

[Marnetmar]

Thank you for the advice! I'll actually post a private youtube video later today to show MT what I'm talking about. The entire form overall just looks really wonky, actually. I do have short achilles tendons that partially contribute to some weirdness but I'm working on fixing that and I seem to be relatively successful.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

Even though I have been taking Wing Chun classes for nine months now, I'm still having trouble with SNT. When in goat stance, I tend to favor one side instead of remaining square, and my hands are not symmetrical at all in the arm-crossing introduction as my right hand is much higher than my left so that my arms look something like this instead of a proper "X".

I have been trying to correct this and nothing seems to be working, any suggestions?

When you make love to your girl, do you prefer to be on her right side or on her left side? We all have a prefer side. A Judo guy may be able to do a right side hip throw with 70% confidence but only with 40% confidence on his left side. Trying to make both sides equal is not only difficult, it's almost impossible IMO.

 

[VT_Vectis]

I usually practice snt in front of a 3/4 length mirror and slow each movement down to a crawl to try and get it as central as possible, also concentrating on position of elbows. If your elbows are parallel then the 'x' should also be so. In regards to the goat gripping stance; are you sat in your stance low enough, with **** clenched and pelvis extended forward? If so the weight equaity should resolve itself.

Hope this helps.

 

[Takai]

I have been trying to correct this and nothing seems to be working, any suggestions?

Time. At 9 months you should be just grasping the basic mechanics. "Equalizing" will come with a refinement that only comes from practice.

Like everyone else I recommend talking to you Sifu and Sihing and go slow (speed can hide flaws you wouldn't otherwise see). Also don't try to correct the whole form at once. Just work on one section at a time. When you get all the way through working on the sections go back again and again, etc. The pressure especially in the beginning is to get it perfect right away (nine months is still right away) most likely you won't. Don't stress about that instead enjoy the lessons that you are learning as you make corrections.

In other words, don't forget to enjoy the journey.

 

[geezer]

In spite of what Kung Fu Wang says, symmetry in SNT is important. If your arms are as asymmetrical as the lines are on the graph you provided, then you have something seriously out of whack with your structure. Unless you have some kind of injury that throws your entire body out of alignment, achieving symmetry when doing the crossed tan-sau and crossed gaun sau should be fairly natural and easy. In fact one reason we do those cross-arm movements is to help us locate our bridges along our centerline and define our vertical mid-line. At least it is so in the lineage I train. So symmetry is important. Talk to your sifu and he should be able to diagnose your structural error.

 

[Danny T]

Talk with your Sifu, he should be able to address your concern is some fashion.
Otherwise I suggest you take note as to where your wrists cross. The point of them crossing at the low point and again at the high point is to define your centerline, lower, mid, and upper gates and symmetry is extremely important. I also suggest you spend several sets of just performing the movement to these positions going slowly and correcting the final positions before moving to the next movement/position. Time spent making the movement to the position properly will provide many rewards later as you will return to these often within your training and applications.

 

[Marnetmar]

Hello all, thanks a ton for the advice you've given so far. I have talked to my Sifu and he has explained a few useful things. However, I still would like to get more opinions (if we don't learn from each other, who will we learn from?) so I've finally gotten around to uploading that video of me doing SNT that you can see my symmetry problem in as well as a few other things:

Please note that I realize I shouldn't have had a jacket on and I apologize for the camera being out of focus as I was very short on time when I recorded this. Hope to receive some more advice!

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

I still would like to get more opinions ...

Form is for "teaching" and "learning" only. It's not for "training". After you have learned the form, record it on DVD and use it as a "book". You should train "drills" and you should not train form.

Trying to memorize Shakespeare's play from the 1st word to the last work won't make you a play writer. Knowing when and how to use "to be and not to be" is more important.

 

[geezer]

I see the asymmetry in the opening "crossed gaun-sau" movement. It's really tough to look at a blurry video and see what's going on in your structure to make that happen. Especially, as you noted, with that bulky jacket on. It's also hard to comment on the rest of the form since each lineage does it so differently. You really need to get your sifu to help you. I wouldn't attempt it, as the SNT I do is quite different ...even though both yours and mine appear to be Yip Man lineage.

Just for the record, I grabbed this off youtube. I don't know who this guy is, but he does SNT the way I learned it and teach it, although his movements seems a bit hurried and tense. That might just be because he's doing it in front of the camera, though.

 

[geezer]

Form is for "teaching" and "learning" only. It's not for "training". After you have learned the form, record it on DVD and use it as a "book". You should train "drills" and you should not train form.
Trying to memorize Shakespeare's play from the 1st word to the last work won't make you a play writer. Knowing when and how to use "to be and not to be" is more important.

I would not put a form an a DVD and just set it aside like a reference book! Repeating forms regularly has a beneficial effect, helping to instill correct positions and structures into your muscle memory and helping to weed out bad habits. This is old wisdom.


Form, drills, chi-sau, and free sparring are the four pillars of WT/VT training. Each plays an essential role. It has been said that SNT is like learning the alphabet of our system. You must recite the alphabet a many times to learn it well before you learn to read and write. But, like you said, beyond a certain point no amount of reciting the alphabet will produce great writing.

 

[Takai]

I would not put a form an a DVD and just set it aside like a reference book! Repeating forms regularly has a beneficial effect, helping to instill correct positions and structures into your muscle memory and helping to weed out bad habits. This is old wisdom.


Form, drills, chi-sau, and free sparring are the four pillars of WT/VT training. Each plays an essential role. It has been said that SNT is like learning the alphabet of our system. You must recite the alphabet a many times to learn it well before you learn to read and write. But, like you said, beyond a certain point no amount of reciting the alphabet will produce great writing.

I would have to agree with that. Neglecting forms (or any other aspect of training) is a really bad habit to get into. It will definitely have adverse effects on your training. Any time that you "get something" and then stop practicing it you end up losing it. Practice doe not make perfect only perfect practice makes perfect.

 

[Danny T]

Marnetmar,
Though out of focus it appears your upper body is just slightly leaning to the right and your head is tilted off center to the left also. Your left arm appears to be somewhat more straight vs the right thereby causing the arms to not be symmetrical. Try holding your arms in a Low Lan Sao position with your finger tips even with the elbow (make certain the finger tips Do Not extend past the elbows) maintaining your elbow exactly where they are in space move your hands to the Gaun Sao position (do not move the elbow from their positions in space) your arms should be symmetrical at that point. (stand in front of a mirror and being honest with yourself at your body alignment, head, neck, torso should all be in a straight alignment. You are aware your arms arms are not symmetrical stop after moving to position and correct the alignment. Repeat the movement and correct as needed before going to the next movement or position. Repeat as many times it takes to perform the movement to position 'correctly'.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

Repeating forms regularly has a beneficial effect,

Unless a form (assume it contains 50 moves) contains a long combo sequence that the

- 1st move is used to set up the 2nd move,
- 2nd move is use to set up the 3rd move,
- ...
- 49th move is used to set up the 50th move.

which I don't think such single combo sequence form exists on this planet. All MA form contains a set of combos. Since the 1st combo may not have any logical connection to the next combo, if you repeat the

- 1st combo 100 times,
- 2nd combo 100 times,
- ...,

the end result is no different from training your form from the 1st move to the last move 100 times. Those combo sequence is what I would call "drill". Why should we train "drill' and not "form"? Because a combo drill is a logical sequence and the form is not.

If you don't know how to break your form into combos, you may not understand your form well enough. Until the day that you know how to break your form into combos, that form is still belong to your teacher and you haven't owned it yet.

Here is a simple example. Assume your form has 2 sentence,

- This is a book.
- What do I do with a book?

Should a beginner repeat "this is a book" 100 times followed by repeating "What do I do with a book?" 100 times? Or should he repeat "This is a book. What do I do with a book" 100 times? Which learning method is better?

Should a beginner also repeat (now he truly own these sentences):

- This is my book.
- This is not a book.
- This is a pen.
- ...
- What do I do with my book?
- what do I do with your book?
- What do I do with my pen?
- ...

Is this more logical way of learning than just repeating "This is a book. What do I do with a book" when you are 6 years old. One day when you are 80 years old, you still repeat, "This is a book. What do I do with a book?"?

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

Repeating forms regularly has a beneficial effect, ...

If "This is a book" is my form, After I have learned it, I will expand it to

- This is a pen.
- This is not my book.
- That is a book.
- That is not my pen.
- This was a pillow.
- ...

Now I have truly owned the form "This is a book" and I can tell others that I understand my form. "This is a book" is just the starting point. What, where, and how I can expand it will be what I'm truly looking for.

 

[mograph]

Marnetmar, have you tried practicing in front of a full-length mirror with a (plumb) strip of narrow tape down the center?

 

[mograph]

Repeating forms regularly has a beneficial effect ...

I see nothing wrong with this statement. I assume that Geezer does not mean "repeating forms exclusively."

If I recall, the quote goes "The river I step in is not the river I stand in." Any practice of any art is like this: if we practice with intention, attention and sensitivity, each repetition is slightly different from the last, and we can learn from this. No?

 

[J W]

All MA form contains a set of combos.

I disagree with this assessment of Siu Nim Tao. I don't believe it is simply a set of techniques or combos. It's the basic method of training centerline, structure, relaxation, energy, stance, rooting, etc etc.

It should be trained often, in addition to drills and other training methods.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

I disagree with this assessment of Siu Nim Tao. I don't believe it is simply a set of techniques or combos. It's the basic method of training centerline, structure, relaxation, energy, stance, rooting, etc etc.

It should be trained often, in addition to drills and other training methods.

The following 3 sequences (drills) in the Siu Nim Tao from all start from the same posture and end with the same posture with both hand next to the chest. In the form, the order is A, B, C.

Drill A:

Drill B:

Drill C:

If you train

- drill A 4 time (as repeated in those clips),
- drill B 4 time,
- drill C 4 time,

or if you train your Siu Nim Tao from 4 times (of course the form contains more than 3 drills), or instead of following the A,B,C order, if you train your form in the order of

- ACB,
- BAC,
- BCA,
- CAB,
- CBA,

or in each drills, instead of moving your right hand first, if you move your left hand first,

- Will you get exactly the same training result for your centerline, structure, relaxation, energy, stance, rooting, etc etc?
- Is there any reason that you have to follow the original order?
- If you break your Siu Nim Tao form apart, re-arrange the sequences, do you think you will understand the Siu Nim Tao form better afterward?

IMO, the original form creator doesn't care whether you break it apart, or re-arrange the sequences. After you have learned it, it's your form and you should have freedom to do whatever that you want to.