The Biu Jee hand contains emergency techniques.
Iron fingers can strike a vital point at once.
The stepping in elbow strike has sufficient threatening power.
The phoenix eye punch has no compassion.
Fak Sau, Ginger Fist, and Guide Bridge; their movements are closely coordinated and hard to defend and nullify.
Springy power and the extended arm are applied to close range.
The situation is different when preventing from defeat in an emergency.
The Biu Jee is not taught to outsiders.
How many Sifu pass on the proper heritage?
Pretty cool Kuen Kuit stuff. The question I would like everyone’s opinion on is the 4th line. Does this line relate directly to the Biu Jee form itself? In your Biu Jee form, do you have this punch within the form? Is this type of punch in another form (Chum Kiu)? Or maybe it’s in one of the drills you do?
#1. No, unless I feel like it. Then, yes. #2. No, unless I feel like it. Then, yes. #3. No, unless I feel like it. Then, yes. #4. No, unless I feel like it. Then, yes.
The phoenix eye fist is not in TWC’s bil jee or any other form. We don’t have ginger fists either.
However, as Tom said, you could put it into your bil jee or any other form if you wished (wailing away on the dummy with it might not be a gret idea). The forms are vocabularies of techniques and patterns of effective movement, not a set of restrictions on what you are allowed or not allowed to do.
FWIW, GM Cheung advocates (I heard all this at a seminar he gave) conditioning the knuckle and the rest of the fist in order to use the phoenix eye for dim mak. But he also says that dim mak applications are impractical in the frenzied chaos of a fight, and that if you can’t fight without dim mak, there’s no point trying to learn it for fighting.
We dont have the Phoenix eye in our bil jee either. I have seen the wsl form and the twc form and dont recall seing it ther either.
What is the ginger fist?
the main person ive seen doing the phoenix fist in artices is william cheung and alfredo de brocco, i always just thought it must have been in the william cheung method.
Ive seen Ian protheroe forms and dont recall it in there but he does his forms a little different from william i think.
Anerlich does Rick spain still do the twc forms the same as william or are they changed now? I heard the sil lim tau is done in a front stance now?
I pretty sure in the william cheung line there is no phoenix knuckle. In one of the wing chun fighting stratergies dvd ive got of sigungs he talks about how to train it and use it. Suppose you could throw it in there if you wanted.
You are correct, we do the forms in front stance. SLT we do now has more footwork than the TWC Advanced SLT also.
My Sifu said GM Cheung showed it to him that way once. If anyone has problems with that, talk to him, not me. The way we do it IMHO develops certain footwork and defensive attributes and angles not developed so well by the “regular” TWC CK or BJ. YMMV.
I pretty sure in the william cheung line there is no phoenix knuckle.
In the forms there is not. But, as I said earlier, I’ve been to seminars where GM Cheung expounded on it at length and described conditioning methods for its use. So it IS in the system.
Ive seen Ian protheroe forms and dont recall it in there but he does his forms a little different from william i think.
I’ve read Sifu Protheroe’s book - good book, BTW - and the forms look pretty close. He may have made more recent changes, of course. GM Cheung’s made small changes over time and taught different people differently as well. For example the Bil jee in his book differs from the Bil Jee taught in our kwoon when we were in the WWCKFA.
What is the ginger fist?
It’s like a leopard paw from Shaolin systems. striking with the second knuckles of the fingers. Nanyang WC use it and so too do others probably. Haven’t used it where I am, but we also have dummy forms with top wrist trikes and tiger claws, FWI(W.
Also with the ginger fist we use it in our kwoon.My sifu was sayin that when he studied unger Gm Cheung he showed him that but he says he didint use it much thats what my sifu says.
I have the Ginger punch in Chum Kiu and Biu Jee but i have never come across the Phoenix eye punch in VT before.
In Chum Kiu it comes from Bong Sao using inch and elbow power at the head area,
and in Biu Jee it uses inch and waist power aimed at the torso area.
You must have a conditioned wrist for support when using it to strike even the soft areas of the throat, i seldom use it in real combat instead relying on the palm, however my Sifu has used it infront of me with very powerful results and im told he got the necessary power in his wrists from the Bat Chum Do.
Thanks for all the input. With the above comment…you are saying that the wrist movement of the phoenix eye fist is present in the sword form? Could you explain where to me? Interesting ideas!
im not yet on the knife form, yet i have tried various parts of it and had bits described to me, but one thing i found quite obvious was the slashing/chopping strike with the knife cause the wrist to bend forward as the knife moves from vertical to horizontal ( as opposed to the jabbing strikes) - this is the best way i can describe it in words really… the motion is similar to that of the phoenix eye strike, however, the knives, being added weight, enable you to train it harder. i consider the phoenix eye strike to be very valuable and potentially useful, if very dangerous. if you have the oppurtunity to strike a target in a vulnerable area with enough accuracy, the phoenix eye fist can be very effective (IMHO etc etc.)
as for biu jee…isnt there a lot of wrist flicking in the very first section? arent some downward - i guess this is a thumb gouge? but maybe it can be a phoenix eye strike too, same wrist action, different hand shape?
im a humble chum kiu student so im preparing to be heavily slated
Monkeyspoon even though i do agree to some extent with you, i was not reffering to the phoenix eye punch from my own experience. I only have the ginger punch in my VT.
I was merely trying to state that the weight, and as you mentioned wrist actions, of the Bat Chum Do allow a student to train wrist power which helps in any action that relys on the wrist.
I study the Lok Dim Boon not the double swords, but from what my master has shown me during discussions is that as the knife/s go in you turn at the wrist making a gash become a hole allowing blood to pour and minimising recovery from such an attack.
Such actions require wrist power that are useful for the ginger punch which i use and i would imagine the phoenix eye punch that you stated
Where in your form do you have the phoenix eye punch ?
Is it a fist with one knuckle protruding like i think ? are we talking about the same thing ?
I too was wondering what you were getting at re the knife form but that makes it a bit clearer.
IMO, the movement of the wrist appears similar with the knives and how a phoenix eye strike might be delivered, but really I think they are different. With the knives, you use the wrist to “slice”, so that the energy is moving back towards you, whereas in a phoenix eye you are driving it into the opponent. Not to say you can’t use the swords with an “away-slicing” movement, or as stabbing implements, but according to (some) folklore the stab was avoided as it was a killing rather than maiming strike and this avoided by devout Buddhists. In our knife form there is no stabbing. It sounds a bit like saying the neutron bomb is more humane than the standard nuclear weapon, but that’s one of the stories.
I think for most people the index finger and knuckle would be the weak links rather than the wrist, and it is the finger rather than the wrist that requires most conditioning.
I think there’s more commonality with the finger strikes in BJ, as you suggest. They go at various angles, and the form is designed to develop striking power into the extremities, which in BJ are the fingers, but could just as easily be a phoenix eye and the strikes used to get the energy into the “eye”. In TWC, the BJ finger strikes are done with a flexed wrist to allow shock absorption as well as angled striking, and while doing some moderate conditioning for the fingers we are not trying to turn them into steel rods. It should work like a fencer’s foil, not a battering ram. It would be interesting to try the form replacing the finger strikes with phoenix eye fists.
Remember, you have to be able to strike properly with a standard fist and palm before you start worrying about more exotic hand formations, and be able to fight without dim mak before even considering trying to fight with it.
Hi anerlich i wasn’t haven a go at your form. Its always good to see new ideas.
I just read the current blitz article on it which explains it well.
Sifu Ian’s wing chun is very good and he is a top bloke very humble, i was in Q.L.D visiting relatives and e.mailed him to catch up and train in his class and it was a great training session, good chi sau and he is a very good teacher i was talking to him about wing chun for 40 or so mins after class. very open and no politics. if anyone is ever in Brisebane i would recomened training with him no matter what lineage your from( my lineage of WC is different from his).
so the cork screwing uppercut from the bong sau in chum kiu is the ginger fist?
I know some WC lineage do a straight punch of it
In Hei Ban Wing Chun, phoenix eye fist appears often. e.g. in Siu Nim Tao just after saam bai fat section. It also appears in the other hand forms as well as the Jong. I think I recall seeing phoenix in Pan Nam WIng Chun demo of forms too. Also Siu Nim Tao in Hei Ban Wing Chun introduces the use of Biu Sao.
Perhaps this and ginger fist are techniques that aren’t expressed during Yip Man Wing Chun, but are more on the fringes of Wing Chun. With that I mean, if the opportunity arises to warrant its use and you understand correct alignment to hit with a phoenix eye… then use it. My inclination would be that it is far easier to punch or palm, which maybe why these strikes are emphasised far more . You can appreciate how failure to align the joint for a ginger fist strike could cause you more harm than the opponent.
With the knives, you use the wrist to “slice”, so that the energy is moving back towards you, whereas in a phoenix eye you are driving it into the opponent.
—But some lineages do perform a “snap cut” with the knifes…extending the arm and snapping the wrist forward at the same time in order to impact with the edge rather than slice. This motion is very much like the phoenix eye strike. In some CMA’s, the knives are referred to as “big choppers.” This kind of strike is essentially a “chop” with the knives rather than a slice.
I think for most people the index finger and knuckle would be the weak links rather than the wrist, and it is the finger rather than the wrist that requires most conditioning.
—How do you condition a finger? There is no need to try and build up callouses over the joint, because the phoenix eye fist is used against soft targets.
Remember, you have to be able to strike properly with a standard fist and palm before you start worrying about more exotic hand formations, and be able to fight without dim mak before even considering trying to fight with it.
—I would add that you have to be able to generate “short power” before considering using the phoenix eye strike, because it is most appropriate at close distances.
—The phoenix eye punch figures more prominently in the mainland styles of WCK than in the Yip Man system. For instance…many sections of the Mei Gei Wong SLT form close with the phoenix eye strike rather than just huening to a horizontal fist as in the Yip Man system. For what its worth…Augustine Fong has the phoenix eye fist and the ginger fist in his BG form. He also has the phoenix eye fist in the dummy form.
—It should also be pointed out, that at least according to Augustine Fong, the "uppercut-like punch from the Chum Kiu form is not the ginger fist. This is a “drilling punch” (chau kuen or juen kuen). The ginger fist is a blow delivered with the palm side of the fist rather than with the knuckles. Its like “knocking on a door”, or “rapping your knuckles upside someone’s head.”
