Principles

Wing Chun Principles

Wing Chun’s principles guide how the system is applied and how a student should train, the principles, though straight forward, are not always very easy to understand.

Centreline

Wing Chun operates with the idea that the student should occupy the Centreline. The Centreline is the line running vertically through the body from head to the ground which then extends forwards away from the body. The body should remain at right angles to this line maintaining equal reach with both arms and keeping control of what happens, with arms and legs, on this line. The aim is for the student to maintain control and ruin their opponent’s control of the Centreline through breaking their structure.

Deflection

When using Wing Chun we try not to use the direct application of strength against the strength of our opponent. Doing this will make it easier for the stronger person to win. The way we deal with oncoming force, be it a punch, kick or a shove, etc., may best be summed up as follows: “force comes, deflect; force retreats, follow, if the opponent's force is gone rush in- attack; if the force stays the same, maintain good structure and forwards force”.

In the beginning students learn blocks that appear to use force against force, however, even in this, Wing Chun is designed to use good structure to disrupt weak structure in oncoming attacks thereby neutralising any imbalance of strength there might be between the people involved.

Relaxation

In order to do Wing Chun well one must learn to relax, however, at the same time, one must learn to develop great strength through training at the forms, particularly Siu Lim Tao. The two propositions might seem contradictory at first, and they certainly feel so while one is training, the key is to understand that as the student first learns to structure their body correctly (which provides a lot of strength training) they secondly, eventually, learn to relax as they learn what strength they don’t need to maintain good structure. The end result is that the student will have gained a great deal of strength, correct structure in their body to facilitate Wing Chun, and gained a much deeper level of relaxation than they would had they not trained correct structure.

Simultaneous Defence and Counter

As best as is applicable, in Wing Chun we seek to defend our self from an attack and attack back in the same instant. The way one might think of it is “as the attacker thinks he would be hitting you, you should be hitting him, if not slightly before”. It does not need to be stated that this requires the development of great speed and reaction time; it is the next principal that takes care of that.

Overtraining

The overtraining concept in Wing Chun is designed to push a student’s standard of training higher than what they should reasonably need in the event that they must defend themselves. A good example is Jun Ma, Turning Stance, which will be discussed below. When one practices Jun Ma they should turn a full 180 degrees for each turn, however if it is applied in a self-defence situation the turn should only be at most 90 degrees, and preferably even as low, or lower than, 45 degrees. The reason is that if a student trains to turn a full 180 degrees as fast as an average person can throw a punch, that student should be able to execute the technique, which requires a much smaller turn, even faster in a practical situation.