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 the upper arms (not the forearms as some students believe) together with a round of cane, or even a piece of cloth. Sticky-hands is then performed. As the elbow improves, a cane circle with a smaller diameter can be used. This advice is an illustration of the profound simplicity of Wing Chun: its best skills and training methods make one think, “Of course, why didn’t I think of that!” It is easy then to see why so much of Wing Chun kung-fu has been veiled in secrecy for so long.
STICKY-HAND FIGHTING SKILLS
1. BASIC HAND TRAP
The idea behind hand trapping is to use one of your hands to cut an opponent’s arm down upon his other arm, so that it is pressed upon his body and is momentarily dead. This situation occurs when one of your hands is on top of your opponent’s hand. At that instant, an opening for a strike to the head exists. Repeated hits can be performed while maintaining the trap by alternating the hands that respectively hold and punch.
Another form of trapping hands involves using the opponent’s own body to cut off his attack. This occurs when the attacker gets into an opponent’s side and, with one of his arms, locks up the opponent’s upper arm, forcing it onto the opponent’s chest. Once again, a clear shot at the face is possible, and again, repeated hits involve maintaining the trap and alternating the hands that respectively hold and punch.
The cut-and-punch trap can be countered by moving your bottom hand out of the cut and using the internal close-body taun sao, deflecting the punch and immediately counter-attacking. The side trap must be evaded by footwork, moving to release the pressure on the upper arm, parrying the pressing arm, and countering with a bil jee, back fist, or side hammer-punch.
2. ONE-STEP GUARD-CLEARING TECHNIQUES
There are a number of techniques in sticky-hand fighting that are called one-step guard-clearing techniques. Typically, these techniques involve one deflection or angle-altering hand move, with a follow-up attack. The taun sao and punch/palm-strike is the simplest of these.
From a taun sao with the inside hand, turn out the opponent’s outer hand, and strike through the opening. Or alternatively, perform this move, but fake a strike, and attack instead with the opposite hand. Another good technique is to alter the angles of the opponent’s defense, so that an opening materializes. For example, in the rolling hands, when you rotate from bong sao/fook sao to taun sao/punch, with your left hand in bong sao, try applying a slight circular force to the motion forming the taun sao so that your opponent’s hands both move to the left. At that split second, a free path opens up for an attack.
Apart from these techniques, there are many other one-step guard-clearing techniques. You may push a hand out of the way or lift it up; a hand may be cleared by the downward force of the jut sao, or a bil jee strike may be forced through using the piercing-hands technique from the Chum Kil form. The opponent’s hands may also be drawn downward, so that they come together (constituting a partial trap) and a strike made through the opening to the hand which is then created.
3. ROTATIONAL FORCE
The Wing Chun fighter’s hand must be flexible like a snake, one of the animals that is used to symbolically represent the system. Many sticky-hand skills are based upon rotation of the wrist or elbow to secure strikes. You may, for example, by haun sao or wrist twisting, get both of your hands on the superior inside position and force the opponent’s arms out of his center-line, attacking with a double palm strike. Again, if your hand is on the outside position, you may rotate your hand inside the opponent’s center-line and flick your fingers into his face. Another excellent skill from the Bil Jee form is to rotate an arm that is on the inside of an opponent’s upheld arm, cutting down with a palm strike or hammer punch into the opponent’s face.
4. GRAB-AND-CHOP TECHNIQUE
The grab-and-chop technique is an excellent skill that can be devastating in combat. The idea of this technique is to grab the opponent’s hand under the bridge (forearm) of your bong sao and launch a chop to the throat. This chop is usually blocked by the opponent with a taun sao. However, you can then grab the taun sao and pull and chop above it, pulling the opponent down at a 45-degree angle. This second chop will be successful because the opponent’s balance is destroyed as he is forced to trip over himself. This skill is used extensively in Wing Chun’s chin-na, which is discussed below.
5. PULLING AND PUSHING FORCES
Wing Chun’s sticky-hand fighting makes extensive use of pulling and pushing actions to clear away defenses and to render defenses ineffective. The simplest way in which this can be done is by lifting the opponent’s arms up and attacking under the bridge. Another technique involves parrying the opponent’s taun sao from your bong sao, and slipping an uppercut (lifting punch) under the bridge and through the guard to the head. A subtle use of pushing force is the tracing-the-shape palm, found in the Bil Jee form of some forms of Wing Chun, which I discussed previously in the Bil Jee chapter in volume one. This technique is used to control the upper arms of the opponent, clinging to them and forcing them onto the opponent’s own body so that his arms are momentarily trapped and you are free to strike his face.
Pushing force is a neglected aspect of contemporary martial-arts training, only being adequately developed by the Japanese in sumo wrestling and surprisingly enough by the Americans in American football, and by the Australians in “Aussie Rules” football. The push, however, is an excellent balance-destroying technique. In Wing Chun training, students train both shoulders and hips in pushing techniques that illustrate a broader principle, namely that students should aim to mold their entire bodies into weapons—not merely their hands and legs.
An example of the use of pulling force comes from the Bil Jee form (previously mentioned). Another method of clearing a guard is to pull at the opponent’s defensive hand, not to disrupt his balance, but to alter the angle of the defensive hand so that the way is cleared for a punch. For example, against your straight punch, the opponent defends with a bong sao. You grasp the opponent’s hand with your free hand, and pull so that the bong sao straightens out and your punch sails right over the top of the bong sao.
I have summarized here some of the fundamental sticky-hand techniques. While many of the more complex techniques have not been discussed or illustrated here, the above outline does, I believe, give the reader a useful guide to sticky-hand fighting. But that is not all there is to Wing Chun combat. As well as sticky-hand fighting, there is also sticky-leg fighting and chin-na. These skills must be added to the foundation that has already been constructed.
STICKY-HAND FIGHTING TECHNIQUES
1.
