Wing Chun techniques – wing chun forms

wing chung

Wing Chun is a powerful martial art – if you train it in a way the founders intended it.

This site is dedicated to the first form of wing chun. This wing chun form is not called „Little idea form“ by accident. You should get a little idea of …. yeah, of what, exactly?

Are you practicing basic „techniques“? My answer to this is – no you don’t.

Are you practicing strikes or defenses? No you don’t.

I really have shocking news.

Shocking news for wing chung practitioners

The exact movements you are training in Siu Nim Tao are totally irrelevant. Let me explain.

The very core of the first wing chun form is something that is called the „tremor response“ (also read my leading article on this site).

The „tremor repsonse“ is a natural way of the body to release itself from trauma and stress. It is – as I believe today – the very core of Siu Nim Tao.
It usually starts somewhere in the pelvic reason. This is when your body starts to release the M. Psoas.
Practicing further, this „wobbling“, as I call it, will extend to other regions of the body – including your arms and legs.
This releases stress and trauma, releases fascial tissue and thus improves body structure and helps to remain the body pain free. I call this releasing „unwinding“.

Wing Chun and the tremor response

This response we have in common with all vertebrates – but somehow our way of living makes us unlearn this. Here is a video of a polar bear who has been hunted and shot with a tranquilizer gun which starts the tremor response to release trauma from it’s body upon waking up:

Without the tremor response trauma will be „saved“ in our fascial network and will build up movement restrictions and can even lead to mental illnesses e.g. depression.

The movements in SNT are especially designed to provoke the tremor response.
In principal you could do ANY movement – as long as you do it correctly.
The purpose of the predefined movements in the first wing chun form is:
  1. relieve the student from being „creative“ and thus keeps him from doing the same stuff all the time.
  2. help the occurence of the tremor response. SNT contains every possible movement you can possibly do with your arms.
Again, shocking news: In principal the movements you do are totally irrelevant – as long as you do them correctly!
Weren’t the founders of wing chun some clever chaps?

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Picture Credits: Jon Seb Barber, IMG_7626, flickr.com, Creative Commons BY 2.0