Attention is then given to the chin-na of Wing Chun. Chin-na means to seize (chin) and control (na). Wing Chun’s chin-na, then, is a system of techniques for grasping, clawing, and tearing the flesh, skin, and muscles; spraining or breaking joints; attacking vital points of the human anatomy; and choking, strangling, and killing by breaking the neck in life-or-death situations. A discussion and illustration of clawing techniques, locking and throwing techniques, grappling and disabling throws, and vital strikes to the weak points of human anatomy are given. This is a vast area to cover, and no attempt is made to illustrate all such techniques. Rather, the emphasis here is upon basic techniques that you will be able to depend upon in a realistic self-defense situation, and the general principles of combat.
Finally, a critical analysis is given of the weakness of the Wing Chun system. The principal weakness of Wing Chun kung-fu lies next to its strengths: it is preoccupied with linear attacks and combat in a straight line as well as with close-range combat. Opponents would be likely to deal with the Wing Chun fighter by using either circular attacks or linear attacks delivered at a longer range, keeping the Wing Chun fighter at bay. Moreover, because of Wing Chun’s preoccupation with both maintaining balance and close-range fighting, there is not enough emphasis placed upon fast footwork, relative to say Thai kick-boxing. The Wing Chun system is in need of enrichment. My proposal for Wing Chun’s enrichment is as follows:
First, long-arm circular attacks, such as those found in White Crane kung-fu (Pak Hok Kuen) and many systems of karate, need to be added.
Second, Wing Chun needs to be practiced as a form of boxing without gloves, incorporating not only all the punches of Western boxing, but also all the kicks, knee attacks, and elbow attacks of Thai kick-boxing (Muay Thai).
Third, Wing Chun proponents have never shown much interest in weight training. Contrary to the traditionalists, the author is a proponent of weight training in the martial arts, in particular, power training with heavy weights to maxime one’s strength potential.
This approach to the martial arts is called Sun Tzu Kuen, after the great Chinese military thinker Sun Tzu. It offers the reader an advanced form of Wing Chun that deals with all of the objections critics from other styles have made about the art.
The knowledge contained in this volume will present the Wing Chun student, as well as the interested student of the martial arts in general, with a comprehensive and unified theory of combat.
Sticky-Hand Fighting (chi sao)
INTRODUCTION
Sticky-hand fighting (chi sao) is the foundation of the Wing Chun system. So important is this skill that the merits of a Wing Chun practitioner can be judged by his skill at sticky-hands alone. Yet many students of Wing Chun are confused about the meaning of chi sao; it is seen as no more than a training exercise, like shadow boxing, for developing, in this case, contact reflexes—the ability to spontaneously respond to an attack upon contact of the arms. This is true, but sticky-hands is much more than this—it is a way of fighting.
In this chapter, I shall explain how to fight using the sticky-hand techniques. I cannot in this guidebook show you every technique from the theory of sticky-hands, as that would take an entire book in itself. I can, however, discuss and illustrate the most basic and useful techniques, which I believe will give the reader an understanding of the fundamental principles behind chi sao, and this I feel is a more important task.
WHAT IS CHI SAO?
In fighting with the hands, an attack may be either evaded or else it is blocked or deflected. If it is blocked or deflected, then the attacker and the opponent’s arm (typically, the forearms, or what is called the bridge) come into contact. Chi sao is a martial-art theory concerned with fighting at this instant. Instead of withdrawing and then counterattacking, as is usually done in Western boxing, in sticky-hands one clings or sticks to the opponent’s forearms and attempts to penetrate his guard and thus secure a strike. There are many individual techniques designed for penetrating an opponent’s guard once the forearms come into contact. In general, however, these moves may be classified into fundamental categories such as: trapping the arms; pushing the hands up or down, left or right; pulling the guard hand(s) down or clearing an entrance by the jut sao; forcing or grinding through the guard; twisting around or flicking a bil jee strike around the guard; and attacking under or over the bridge (e.g., using a lap sao technique—a bong sao with a rotating back fist).
Sticky-hand training has two parts. First, one finely tunes one’s reflexes by two training drills known as single and double rolling hands. Both of these exercises are practiced in the parallel stance in order to train both hands equally. Second, one adds fighting techniques to the single and double sticky-hands techniques so that hand-free fighting can occur. At a more advanced level, sticky-leg techniques are added so that ultimately the student works up to performing sticky-hand and sticky-leg free sparring. In this section, I shall discuss the formal exercise of rolling hands; and in the next section, combat techniques.
Single chi sao is performed by two practitioners who face each other in the parallel stance. Person A forms a left or right taun sao, which person B locks up with a right or left fook sao. There is forward force (not downward force) on both of these hand moves, but not an exaggerated amount. In other words, you aim your weapon at your opponent, but do not push it through unless he is obviously open. This is so that you do not commit yourself to any particular direction and consequently create an opening for your opponent, who could then side-pivot, redirect your force, and strike.
From the taun sao/fook sao position, the person forming the taun sao performs a low palm-strike, careful not to draw his elbow into his own body. The other person destroys the force of the palm-strike with the wrist force of a jut sao; this person must be even more careful to maintain the fist-and-a-half distance between the elbow and the center-line, to lose it would be to simply draw the opponent’s strike into his own body. The person who has done jut sao now punches toward his opponent’s head. The opponent’s arm sticks and rises into a defensive bong sao. Then both hands go back to the starting point of taun sao/fook sao and the sequence begins again. The practitioners swap hand moves on the jut sao/palm-strike position, the person doing the low palm-strike performs haun sao to get on the outside and punches up. The punch rises with a defensive bong sao and the sequence begins again. To change hands, one person punches with the previously stationary hand, which is met by a bong sao and the sequence continues. Single sticky-hands practice performed in this way, is a continuous flow of attack and defense.
Double chi sao is not the performance of single sticky-hands with both hands (although that would be a worthwhile exercise). Rather, the simple rolling exercise is as follows. Person A has either a bong sao or a fook sao with either his left or right hand, while person B has a punch or taun sao with the opposite hand. The rule is that at any time you have either: a) a bong sao and a fook sao, or b) a punch or a taun sao, then the bong sao always goes with the punch and the taun sao and fook sao go together. If person A is in the bong sao/fook sao position, then he rotates to taun sao/punch and person B does the corresponding move. To change hands, one performs haun sao and punches from the inner hand (the hand inside the opponent’s guard), which is met with bong sao, and the opponent does the same. Then simply drop down into taun sao/fook sao on the opposite side and start rotating again.
The most important aspect of either of these exercises is to develop a good defense of the center-line (median axis of the body) by getting the elbow in the center-line. A sticky-hands performance with the elbow out of the center-line, particularly one in which the hands sway from side to side like palm trees in a storm is extremely poor because this sort of rotation is wide open to a strike from either the taun sao (the inner hand) or the fook sao (the other hand). To develop a good center-line defense, or a so-called good elbow, some hard training is necessary. First, one must stretch the chest muscles and shoulder muscles (especially the lateral deltoids). Second, sticky-hands must be performed using the cane-circle hand. The idea here is to force