Does your Lineage also have the curl your back and concave the chest.
Does anyone Know about the Curl. The Curl is a way your suppose to curl your chest in like its concave. An convex your back. It is suppose to allow you absorb blows to body to lessen the impact. The curl also gives you like an inch of width. It can also add power to your punches if you use it correctly. There are two ways you use your curl to increase power.
1.Going from straight body posistion to curl upon impact of your fist to his face.(Don’t forget to Breathe).
2.Going from curl to straight body posistion upon impact of your fist to his face.(Use the Breath).
Please share what you are taught concerning the Curl in Wing Chun
bruce was, yip was just old. Any time you curl your chest you are losing you postural stability. The shoulders should be in a retacted state to use proper muscle recruitment. You are using some of your punching muscles just to keep in a curled position.
This is normally caused by too much forward movement and not enough back. Meaning your chest etc is stronger then your back meaning your shoulder curl forward which cause neck and back problems.
Most people do this as they feel they can get into the centre easier. Better to be off centre slightly then to comprimise your posture.
Also means when pulled your body turns staight away instaed of have some leyway with the shoulder so you can let it go i bit before the body is turned, (sort of like the drag on a fighing rod.
IMO the use of the concave back is far more extansive in other Kung Fu styles, most notably Dragon Prawn boxing and some mantis.
Practitioners feel that it makes them a smaller target, protects the centreline and vital points on the torso better and allows them a reach advantage. Some Western boxers advocate a hunched position for similar defensive reasons, though hardly to the same extent, and not because they can allegedly hit harder from there.
It’s not a feature of the TWC I’ve studied. Punching power comes from driving from the floor via the legs and hips and linking the body through proper structure. IMO flexing the upper spine forward detracts from that ability. Adding a rounding of the back IMO will add negligible force to a punch and may in fact take power away because of other compromises that have to be made to accommodate it. IMO this would not be a position that promotes spinal health.
I would dispute that Yip Man is employing the structure you describe in the photos you attached. He looks to be standing pretty straight to me.
I have seen some branches of Wing Chun use the unfolded waist. The only rationale I have heard is that it brings more force into the legs. That way, you have more power in the arms. Check out Lu Baijun.
As to TCM ( I am assuming that means traditional chinese martial arts) Yang Cheng Fu says in the Tai Chi classics “to pluck up the back and sink the chest”
[QUOTE=Yoshiyahu;1078193]Does your Lineage also have the curl your back and concave the chest.
Does anyone Know about the Curl. The Curl is a way your suppose to curl your chest in like its concave. An convex your back. It is suppose to allow you absorb blows to body to lessen the impact. The curl also gives you like an inch of width. It can also add power to your punches if you use it correctly. There are two ways you use your curl to increase power.
1.Going from straight body posistion to curl upon impact of your fist to his face.(Don’t forget to Breathe).
2.Going from curl to straight body posistion upon impact of your fist to his face.(Use the Breath).
Please share what you are taught concerning the Curl in Wing Chun[/QUOTE]
Simply put, a “natural” curve develops when you practice your Wing Chun correctly. This curve does not stop your back/spine from being straight - a fundamental TCMA principle.
Just to emphasis, this curve is not a forced curve or hunch back curve, but rather, it is developed through natural WC postures that involve the elbow positions and structures. A similar curve can also be seen in Chow Gar Mantis practitioners.
[QUOTE=anerlich;1078198].
It’s not a feature of the TWC I’ve studied. Punching power comes from driving from the floor via the legs and hips and linking the body through proper structure. IMO flexing the upper spine forward detracts from that ability.[/quote]
I don’t believe that it is about flexing the spine. My understanding is that it is a natural curve developed through correct WC practice. Also, I was not aware of its power applications, as regards WC.
However, when it comes to the lineage of Chow Gar Mantis that I studied, then the curved back will play a part in power issuance, but then I know from past discussions here on the topic, that this is not a well known mechanism, so we will have to leave that one where it stands. Suffice to say that in that particular case a curved back will have more significance in the power generation than in Wing Chun, unless that is, we talk about a WC methodology that has, for whatever reason adopted that particular practice.
Adding a rounding of the back IMO will add negligible force to a punch and may in fact take power away because of other compromises that have to be made to accommodate it. IMO this would not be a position that promotes spinal health.
.[/QUOTE]
The concave chest is an illusion. The issue is to “open” your back, the same way you would trying to push a car. But on a standing, centre-lined elbow down position, it looks like you are curling your chest.
[QUOTE=Yoshiyahu;1078193]Does your Lineage also have the curl your back and concave the chest.[/QUOTE]
Sinking the chest and opening the back, rounding the shoulders, is quite common, I thought, in many Southern Chinese arts. But exaggerating the ‘look’ is not recommended IMHO. As my Sifu used to say ‘we aint practising prawn kung fu!’
However, Wing Chun for me is a Yum Yeurng system/style and contains both extremes. Used at the correct time, as with most things, they both have their positives and if you’ve looked into heigung practises you can not ignore either way.
If you look at the pictures of Ip Man above he has a concave chest and convex horse, making a suble ‘S’ shape. Until someone can tell me exactly what he is in this posture for I will continue to use whatever method I’m comfortable with…
I think that this is a good tactic to use while in a striking venue or to avoid getting hit/scored on but terrible for training and health. I don’t recommend this posture for wrestling as it can disconnect your arms from your core. Healthwise it puts all of the force, force you throw out and incoming force from the opponent, into the lumbar vertebra which cN cause injury to the area.
So I would say do conditioning, single person drills, forms with proper upright posture and do sparring and fighting with a slight concave but not too much. You don’t want to end up stuck in that posture when you’re old. This is kind of like practicing kicks high to keep a basic flexibility but aiming low in a fight.
I see lots of young people with this hunched over posture just from sheer laziness.
The concave chest is an illusion. The issue is to “open” your back, the same way you would trying to push a car. But on a standing, centre-lined elbow down position, it looks like you are curling your chest.
Eloquently put.
I don’t recommend this posture for wrestling as it can disconnect your arms from your core.
THe more usual recommendation in my experience is to hunch your shoulders and “turtle your neck” for wrestling. Mightn’t be great structurally, but then neither is getting your cervical spine bent and twisted by people snapping you down and pushing and pulling your head around, that isn’t good for power genertion either.
Then again, a lot of fun activities aren’t exactly 100% beneficial for your health.
As my Sifu used to say ‘we aint practising prawn kung fu!’
There are real prawn styles of KF. My first instructor practiced some of their forms. But yes, that’s not what we do.
