Wing Chun Kung Fu

To someone who doesn’t study martial arts, Wing Chun Kung Fu looks (and sounds) like a bit of a cop-out.  Wing Chun Kung Fu is mostly defence, for a start, which raises the question:  if two proponents of Wing Chun Kung Fu meet, will they fight?  Presumably not.  Also, Wing Chun Kung Fu lacks the spectacular kicks of disciplines like karate or Thai boxing, both of which have been popularised through the glut of martial arts flicks pounded out of low-rent American movie studios in the late 1980s and early ‘90s.  In comparison to these whirlwind styles, Wing Chun Kung Fu seems positively pedestrian.

It isn’t.

An idea of what Wing Chun Kung Fu is really like:  it’s the discipline that contains the propensity for Bruce Lee’s famous “one inch punch”.  The one inch punch, for those who’ve never seen a Bruce Lee film, is a disabling blow with a travelling distance of a single inch.  The Dragon himself, who frequently demonstrated the breaking power of the one-inch punch on impossibly hard-looking pieces of wood, described Wing Chun Kung Fu as like fighting with a wrecking ball.  Not bad kudos from the master of all silver-screen martial arts practitioners.

So what is Wing Chun Kung Fu?  Wing Chun Kung Fu was developed by a Buddhist nun according to principles similar to those used in Aikido (a fully defensive technique):  in Wing Chun Kung Fu you use your assailant’s energy against themselves, translating attacking power on the part of your opponent into defensive force.  As a result, Wing Chun Kung Fu allows its practitioner to conserve energy – either for striking retaliatory blows (like “wrecking balls”) or fleeing the attack. 

Another way of saying the above:  Wing Chun Kung Fu is smart.  What’s the point in wasting energy that could be used in effective strikes?  Wing Chun Kung Fu teaches its student to adopt stances that allow the maximum range of movement with the minimum of effort; to use blocking techniques that appear soft but really reverse attacking energy back against the attacker; and to hit, when hitting is necessary, with limp limbs – only tensing for the strike at the last moment.  Like a wrecking ball on a rope.  A strike in Wing Chun Kung Fu is much quicker than a normal strike because a relaxed limb moves through the air faster than a tense one:  allowing all the conserved energy to be translated in that last stiffened second before the blow connects.  This is the same reason why Wing Chun Kung Fu lacks the spectacular head-high kicks of karate or Thai:  high kicking is pointless and energy-wasting. 

The Wing Chun Kung Fu student will kick below the knee, where a leg is a more efficient striking tool:  above the waist, she’ll use her arms.  The energy she’s saved in not tensing her whole body in a vulnerable high-kick position, she’ll deliver behind the ear, arm tensed at the last possible moment, like an axe to the base of a tree.

Doesn’t sound quite so silly, does it.  Wing Chun Kung Fu was invented by a woman, after all, which means it ought to be a lot less showy and a lot more effective than man-style fighting.  It doesn’t disappoint.