I have seen many demonstrations of Wing Chun are all of the moves standing still in one place? “sil lam tao” i believe its called. I wonder about this im interested in joinging a CMA school and wing chun is at the top of my list. but is there movement because if someone were to come at me with a side thrust kick a tornado kick ect… I would want to be able to dodge or move and block. i know its not completely stand still but if I were in an actual fight and I were useing Wing Chun would I be at disadvantage? Kind of a stupid question but a serrious one give me your imput and info on wing chun
Sil lim tao is the first of three forms in Yip Man Wing Chun. It’s generally done with little footwork, though this varies between lineages.
The other two forms, Chum Kil and Bil Jee, and the Wooden Dummy techniques, contain all the stepping and footwork.
Forms are designed to give you a vocabulary of techniques and drill effective movements. While they may contain actual sequences with combat application, often they are designed to ingrain certain structural and conceptual elements instead, or a mix of both approaches.
Sil Lim Tao is designed mainly to develop an effective stance and postural structure, and to drill upper body techniques and positioning. No foot work? That’s just the way it is.
Forms are a PART of your training, not the WHOLE of your training. They are essential to the tradition of Wing Chun, but not to its application IMO. Gu Lao Wing Chun has forty short sequences of moves and no forms IIRC. I’m not dissing them, I do them pretty much daily. But doing forms alone will make you good at doing forms, to become a well rounded MA you need to do a wide variety of things.
You should be doing plenty of offensive and defensive stepping and more application specific drills in class along with the form, so it’s not like your feet will ever be stuck to the ground like glue.
If anyone comes at me opening with a tornado kick, I’d probably incapacitate myself with laughter and he wouldn’t even need to connect.
I mostly agree with what Anerlich has said, except that I believe that to be really good at wing chun the forms probably are essential for principles not just tradition. But as he said, not for technique.
I would also add that most kungfu styles and some karate styles (look at sanchin kata) start with a stationary form or drill of some kind. It’s simply to get you used to feeling a connection between different parts of the body, (often) using the minimum of tension, and to build your structure before having somebody else test it!
You learn your basic punch and basic hand positions in SLT. While you’re learning this, I would hope that a good school is also teaching you the same moves as you’re learning each part of SLT against a wall bag, with pivots, against pads, against simple attacks/defences with partners… then you can feel how the basic connections feel in practice.
It’s not necessarily a bad school if they just have you practising SLT with none of those ‘extras’ but it will take you a lot longer to become effective. Whether you then become more of the r33l d34dly l33t is a matter of some debate! 
Haaaaaa…DITTO! And then get up and kick him in the nuts! :eek: