I’m trying to steer away from my way versus your way, or more superior, less superior etc…and simply get down to techniques in your system and ..missing from your system. I have been shown jum sao as a strike utilizing the inner arm on the centerline as the arm strikes forwards in one flowing action, not one , two. I know some use it as a block for tan…
I can start by saying the system I started learning under a direct student of Yip Man , who was a large man , taller than most Chinese, didnt have the jum sao in his methods and adopted gaun sao punches as a primary low section parry with strikes. The SLT did not contain jum sao in the latter 3 rd section .
Now My current instructors , instructor also a direct student of Yip Man , but of somewhat smaller stature is the opposite, with Jum sao being a cornerstone of the striking systems elbow unity of Tan sao and Jum sao. And also using gaun sao. Both Jum and gaun in 3rd section of SLT.
One system develops a completely different fighter from the other. Focus in chi-sao different, for the lack of jum striking , wu wrist blocking. Centerlines dictate hand positions in one , cnterline dictates wrists in the other…subtle shift but worlds apart.
I found this article I have seen before while learning the first method with gaun sao. It refers to the jum sao and gaun sao. The Jum sao has been , imo, eliminated from use by several lineages/teachers I have come across over the last 25 years. Leading me to wonder how its removal has ‘changed’ the system as mentioned in the article from a sophisticated striking angling fighting system, to a more commonly seen method of block and strike with blasting punches. read on :
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[I]There are many people claiming to teach Ving Tsun, and as many different versions of Ving Tsun as there are teachers, or so it seems. The reasons for these variations are many and complex, one factor which immediately springs to mind being that there are at least three or four different systems of Chinese boxing which take the name Ving Tsun (though the Chinese characters may differ). At least two of these appear to have originated in or around the city of Fatsaan (Foshan in the Mandarin dialect), the southern Chinese city where Grandmaster Ip Man of the Hong Kong-style first studied the system under his teacher, Chan Wa Sun, who in turn had learnt from the most celebrated of Ving Tsun ancestors, Leung Jan, the undefeated King of Ving Tsun, a man who is said to have been very protective when it came to passing on his skills.
Herein lies just one of the many causes of todays confusion, that Leung Jan in fact may have taught two interpretations of the same art in order to preserve its uniqueness, one to his own sons (whom he hoped would inherit and pass on his skills), and a somewhat less sophisticated method to Chan the money-changer, the man under whom Grandmaster Ip Man began his Ving Tsun training.
If we are to believe the stories handed down through history concerning Leung Jan and his attitude to teaching outsiders, it is therefore possible that Leung (who was an intelligent, educated man) did in fact simplify things for his not so bright, but physically powerful student Chan, who, it has been said, was a far more gifted fighter than he was a thinking man. What Chan learnt and made use of was a cruder, less sophisticated, but nevertheless very effective form of Ving Tsun.
He of course went on to dispatch his opponent, after which he and Grandmaster Ip got into some heavy discussion about what had transpired.
Two events in recent Ving Tsun history tend to lend substance to this belief. One of these is the well-known story of how Grandmaster Ip was easily defeated by Leung Bik, the son of Leung Jan. According to the story (which has, it must be said, been thrown into some doubt in recent years) said to have been told by Grandmaster Ip himself, and retold by many of his students over the years, he suffered his first and possibly only defeat at the hands of an old man whom he had challenged while a student in Hong Kong during the early part of this century. To cut a long story short, Ip Man was to learn that his opponent was the son of his own teachers teacher, and Ip Man in turn became Leungs student during which time he was taught a much more refined and subtle approach to Ving Tsun, something which may well have influenced what he was to teach to his own students later on.
The second event, which is not so widely known, except to students of the late Sifu Wong Shun Leung (and anyone who attended his seminars on the Siu Nim Tau form over the years), concerns the fact that Sifu Wongs version of the first form contains an extra movement in the third section. The following story explains this fact. While fighting a rather stubborn opponent during one of Sifu Wongs many celebrated contests, his opponent, in a fit of desperation and at the point of exhaustion, dropped to one knee and lashed out with a punch which Sifu Wong attempted to deflect with the Jam Sau movement contained within Siu Nim Tau form. Because the attack was so low, the Jam Sau only partially deflected the blow which then struck Wong in the upper thigh, leading to an injury which nagged him for months. He of course went on to dispatch his opponent, after which he and Grandmaster Ip got into some heavy discussion about what had transpired.
As a result of this discussion, Grandmaster Ip advised his students to include the technique known as Gaan Sau in place of the Jam Sau, previously found in this section of the form. Prior to this time, the Gaan Sau technique was only seen in the Biu Ji and Muk Yan Jong (Wooden Dummy) forms. Sifu Wong decided that both techniques were important (especially in view of the fact that the Jam Sau is an integral part of the basic single-hand Chi Sau exercise), and so continued to include both, while most, if not all of his contemporaries (the instructors of today) dropped the old technique in favour of the new one.
According to Sifu Wong, Grandmaster Ip had explained to him that the Jam Sau movement had been taught to him by Leung Bik, his second teacher, who had been a very small man and had not needed to make much use of the lower action Gaan Sau. Chan Wa Sun, on the other hand, being a taller man, would often make use of the lower action, as many of his opponents had been smaller than himself, and therefore were more likely to hit lower. Grandmaster Ip, being more influenced by his second teacher, Leung Bik, had therefore altered his form accordingly. Jam Sau is also a much more subtle action than the Gaan Sau movement and therefore less likely to be included in the arsenal of a man like Chan who tended to just blast his opponents out of his way.
It has often been suggested, though not proven by any means, that Ip Man taught in a fairly un-systematic way, tending to pass on skills according to the students size, reach and so on. It is also said that he didnt have much time for his slower, less intelligent or less diligent students, and actually taught few people the entire system in person. This, in turn, possibly led to the fact that many people learnt by observing others training, rather than at first-hand, and that quite a few of these individuals actually learnt a second-hand or even third-hand version of Ving Tsun, filling the gaps in their knowledge with guesswork based on what they could recall seeing others do, or even worse, making it up out of their own imagination. This, of course, gave rise to the variations in technique (and the interpretation of these techniques) extant today amongst instructors of the same generation, not to mention those of their younger Ving Tsun brothers and sisters.[/I]
how would you describe the action out there at the wrist ? Im not trying to **** you off , promise 
how would you describe the action out there at the wrist ? Im not trying to **** you off , promise :D[/QUOTE]
so why are so many doing this down wrist action ? we dont use it sparring to a tan sao ?