Bent-arm Beauty

While practicing punches last week, Si-Fu Shoellhammer mentioned that it was better to hit an opponent with the lower knuckles than with the upper. When I asked why that might be, he grinned his boyish, cockeyed grin and challenged me to figure it out for myself. (Is it just me, or are all Si-Fus required to have this cryptic, all-knowing grin?) I’ll be honest, I still haven’t come to a conclusion. I’m open to suggestions, if any of you know the answer to this one, Si-Hings!

However, there is one thing I’ve learned this week that doesn't require homework: how to be a Bent-arm Beauty.

In Wing Chun, punches are practiced with arms slightly bent. If you've been practicing another martial art for a while, this may look to you like it’s not “full-out” or it’s improper form. In some martial arts—karate, for example—the punch is fully extended when practicing. But, while it looks good and, yes, it could possibly hurt the other guy, the danger in real combat is that you may not hit your target.

The very first thing I ever learned about punching, I learned as a teenager. You don’t try to hit your target, you try to hit THROUGH it. Don’t aim for the other guy’s teeth—aim for the back of his throat. Through his teeth. When you practice a fully-extended punch, you don’t leave yourself any room to push through your target.

Have you ever had one of those nightmares where you’re trying to hit something and you just can’t connect? Practicing with straightened arms puts you in danger of hitting air when push comes to shove. What if your opponent pulls his chin back? Perhaps you do hit him, but it won’t be with much force, which means your fight is going to be a lot longer than you may have stamina for, especially if your opponent picks an inopportune moment to land you on cement (you have a bad cold, your kids are close at hand, you're carrying a backpack and an armload of books, etc.). One of my good buddy Si-Hings says, “If the fight lasts a full minute, you’re going to get hurt.” So it has to end as quickly as it starts.

Perhaps because your punch is just out of serious damage range, you lean forward to extend your reach. This, of course, throws you off balance. Remember, you’re going to have an adrenaline rush propelling you further than anything you did on the mat. It’s not going to be perfect--it's probably going to be ugly. Who cares, as long as you're winning? But if your balance is compromised, you could really be screwed.

It seems to me (neophyte that I am) that the whole basis upon which Wing Chun rests IS balance, the foundation upon which all other principles can be built. It’s hard enough to maintain proper balance when dealing with an opponent who is trying to jackhammer that foundation out from under you. You certainly don’t want to sabotage yourself in the first round.

In Wing Chun, then, punches are practiced with a slightly bent arm, allowing for an extension through the target, allowing for the possibility of a backward-moving target, and allowing you to maintain your balance. As an added bonus, you’re also less likely to painfully hyper-extend your arm during practice--like I did back when I was a sashless newb. There are so very many benefits.

Si-Fu tells me when I’ve done 10,000 punches, perhaps I’ll have the answer to my knuckle question. I’ll probably have an adequate amount of practical experience with those bent-arm punches, too. I’ll let you know what I discover when I’m through.

Yut, yee, sarm, say, ng...

I guess I do have homework afterall. Mm. Beauty has it's price, right?

Luk, chut, bart, gou, sub…

Wing Chun Training: What Are You Looking At?

What are you looking at? WHAT are you LOOKING at?

I’m not looking at your ugly face, that’s for sure.

But isn’t that where most people look in a fight? They get in the other guy’s space, they stare him down, they bounce around with fists at the ready, they look at shoulders, body, legs…everywhere but at what really matters. And that’s okay with me. You go ahead and stare at my gorgeous baby-browns, boys. I’m watching the part of you that interests me the most.

Your elbows.

The elbow has to move past the plane of the body in order for the hand to reach out, right? And the closest elbow will indicate the closest possible weapon my opponent can use on me. So that’s the one I’m going to watch. The shorter the distance between the weapon and the target, the faster it can arrive. In simple terms:

Distance = Time

Maybe your opponent decides to throw a punch with the rear arm. If you’re watching the forward elbow and a punch arrives from the rear, you will see it, peripherally. And you’ll have more time to react because the distance is greater between that far weapon and you. But you won’t know what your opponent will do until he or she commits to something, so you must be prepared for the closest weapon, first.

Actually, let me rephrase that:
You should be watching the closest elbow that you’re not touching.

Not only do you want to watch that elbow, it’s the primary body part to get under control. Let’s suppose your opponent throws a lead-arm, straight right at your chin. You block his arm with a left-handed pak-sao and simultaneously punch over that pak-sao with your right. Now what? Assuming your opponent is still standing, you want to immediately follow up. Let’s say your first punch was effective, so you roll punch to his face. But what if he throws up his right elbow to block me? you suggest. Yes, potential problem. Solution? Don’t let him move that elbow.

As long as you’re touching it, you know exactly where that arm is. As you roll punch with one hand and then the other, you lay down “cover fire” with the opposite hand in a continuous pak-sao/lop-sao trade-off while your opponent’s head is being repeatedly rocked. If he steps away, you’re touching him. You know exactly where he’s going. Wherever he goes, he’s going to pull you along with him, punching his head while pounding down his arm, all the way. You should be able to close your eyes and always know where your opponent is, letting his movements drive where your center goes.

Okay, save the closed eyes for practice. Let’s get back to the real thing.

If you’re touching that right arm, maintaining constant contact, do you need to watch for that right arm to be hitting you? Of course not. You’ll know if it’s getting anywhere near you because you can feel it. And your reaction to touch is faster than your reaction to sight. So where should you be looking, if not at that closest weapon?

I repeat:
You should be watching the closest elbow that you’re not touching.

You’re hitting this fool on one side, but you’re always watching that other, free elbow, lest it attempt to rise to the occasion and swing around after you. (And when it does, you’ll be ready to take it on, right Si-Hings?)

What about my opponent’s feet? you ask. Or his head? Both are weapons of destruction in and of their own right. You’ll be watching them peripherally, of course. But from what I’ve learned so far, controlling the elbows is a key component in Wing Chun combat. No, not the be-all-and-end-all, but important, nonetheless.

So go ahead and laugh when I put my guard up and stare at the middle of your arms, oh enemies dear. I may look stupid, but it’ll only be for few seconds. After that, you won’t see me at all.

Patience, Grasshopper: On Being Offensive

I know it takes time and practice to learn anything new. As still as the green blades of a rice paddy appear, they are indeed growing and will one day yield a harvest that will sustain you. But unless I've got a book in my hand, I'm not always good with stillness and boring repetition, with identical green leaves repeated endlessly. If there's one thing Wing Chun is trying to force into my dull, adult brain, however, it's Patience.

For the first year of my training, I had to travel 365 miles to find the best Traditional Wing Chun. Needless to say, I wasn't at the Academy all that often. Is it any wonder there have been gaps in my understanding? This may sound ridculous to you, Si-Hings, but it wasn't until this week that I finally understood--and I mean really internalized--the merits of an offensive pak-sao.

This was not the fault of my instructors, per se. Looking back, I can see that all of the elements were there--the right words spoken, the correct forms demonstrated and practiced, the attempts by one particularly kind and patient Si-Hing to pound it into my brain. But the pressure of sash testing time and time again collapsed these barely-processed thoughts into the same wrong maneuvers every time.

After eleven years as a college instructor, I have a decent understanding of the millions of ways students come to connect with classroom material. It isn't simply differences in learning styles (auditory, kinesthetic, mathematic, spatial, etc.). The specific material is also being filtered through a lifetime of experiences, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Sometimes it takes throwing an entire toolbox full of strategies at a student to help a particular concept stick. I can explain the adiabatic process five different ways to Sunday (basically: what happens to a big chunk of air as it rises or sinks through the atmosphere) and get nothing back but crickets. Then someone in the back of the room says, "I get it! Rising, rainy. Sinking, sunny." And half the room sighs and nods. Fifty pairs of eyes refocus. The whole room gets brighter.

Sometimes that moment never comes. That's okay, too. But I'll do my darnedest to find the right wrench to unscrew that nut and let in something new.

When I began training with Si-Fu Tom Schoellhammer up here in the Bay Area, I was mildly frustrated to be starting again from scratch. How to hold my guard. How to stand in low-horse stance. How to punch. But my husband had agreed to take the class with me. He knew so little and needed to go slow and get over his fear of inexperience. (Okay, okay. I give. I needed the practice, too. Okay, shut up, already. I REALLY needed some back-to-basics.) By the time we'd finished the first session, I felt like it had been an important lesson in patience and simplicity. When the second session started, the class had grown. And so we started, once more, right back at Square One.

I thought I'd lose my mind.

When do we go over the bil-sau? Or practice a proper tan-sau? How many weeks before we even get to the gosh-darn front stance, again?!? (click here for a glossary of terms*)

I didn't dare ask. You know what happens when you ask one of those pushy questions of your Si-Fu, right? Exactly. Because the other students were new and timid, Si-Fu was being extra kind, but I wasn't ever going to assume he was above making me do endless push-ups or spending the rest of class crouched in low-horse stance. As my senior Si-Fu, Eric Oram, said once as he bowed to a student, "Never take your eyes off of your opponent." As he reflexively bowed in return, the student looked down. "Never," repeated Si-Fu. And he attacked the oblivious student. With a smile. Of course.

Eventually, we DID learn some new techniques. And because we were going excruciatingly slow, I was able to process maneuvers like the gan-sau from beginning to end: my forward guarding hand sweeping the opposite shoulder in its arcing trajectory, the pinky-side blade of my hand facing outward as the hand comes back down, protecting my belly button from an attack with room to spare. No, not perfect, but sinking in.

What grabbed my attention most, however, came on the last night of the eight-week session. Offensive footwork. Yee-haw.

Defensive footwork makes perfect sense, to me. A fist coming at you? Side-step. "Get out of the way of the bus," says Si-Fu Schoellhammer. It seems perfectly intuitive, doesn't it? If someone tries to hit you, isn't the most common human instinct to tuck your chin in and pull backward? Of course it is. (Okay, Si-Hings, maybe you have the reflexes of a superhero and would be around the attacker's back in 1/50 of a second. Work with me, here. I'm still a hero-in-training.)

But offensive footwork requires that you actually step TOWARD your opponent. And you step using a leading foot that starts out facing 90 degrees away from the direction in which you're about to move. What gives?

My biggest problem is remembering to crank my hips around. If I'm starting in a left side neutral stance, my hips, shoulders and toes all point to the right oblique and the left hand of my guard is out in front. I watch my opponent, who is standing in right front stance, until the lead elbow indicates to me that a straight punch has committed to coming my way. I swivel my hips to face 90 degrees to my left, so that they end facing the left oblique, as I'm also stepping forward on my left foot toward that left oblique. My opponent's punch has just passed over my right shoulder. But, for a beginner, it feels counter-intuitive to step in the same direction the punch is coming from.

This was my initial stumbling block. Why would I step INTO my opponent's guard? But I'm not, actually. I'm stepping past it on the outside. (There are times when I might step inside my opponent's guard, but I still don't feel comfortable doing that, yet. Just my own lack of experience, at this point. I'll be writing a post explaining this, called "The Box Of Doom", soon. Stay tuned.)

The trick is the change of direction. One minute I'm in a left side-neutral stance, the next I'm charging forward with my left foot driving past my opponent's leading right foot, my left hand barely moving in the pak-sau to send the offending fist just enough off course that the straight punch passes me by. By the time my right foot steps in to catch up, my opponent's fist is past and I'm in a great spot to control his/her right elbow. I am now completely out of the way of both arms, on my opponent's side or rear quarter.

I think I like it here!

I don't know why, exactly, it took me so long to understand this. I've been executing the offensive pak-sau maneuver since Day One at the L.A. Academy. I guess it was one of those "doing it without understanding it" things. (Heck, that's how 99% of us live 99% of our lives anyway, isn't it?) For some reason, Si-Fu Tom Schoellhammer's inexorably slow training progression did the trick. That wrench applied just enough torque on this nut to loosen her up and make her understand.

Now...how about that offensive lop-sau? Maybe in the next. Slow. Session.

*Sigh.* Patience, Grasshopper. Patience. There is an entire field stretching out before you, waiting. One blade at a time.

When she's not being offensive, Angela can also be found on Twitter and at her other blogs: A World of Words, Sundance...Or Bust!, and the Silicon Valley Mom's Blog (for which she is a contributing writer). This is an original post to the Basic Training to Black Sash blog.

*Please Note: The sounds of the Chinese words used in Wing Chun have variant spellings when translated. The glossary linked to here is not exhaustive in showing the many spellings possible.