Muk Yan JongAs I’d already stated, there are only 3 short hand forms in wing chun to facilitate the ease of learning, making it easy for the student to remember & simple to apply, and therefore effective in combat.
The first form contains 99% of all the ‘tools’ used within wing chun. Although it’s the first form, it’s the foundation on which your wing chun is built. It introduces the students to all the ‘shapes’ of the wing chun tools, and to help them develop certain ‘habits’, such as keeping the elbows in, being aware of your ‘lines’, relaxing your body to reduce body tension, keeping your stance low, etc. Not only does this form train the physical elements of wing chun, but as the name implies, it instills in the student the idea or mind aspects of this style. In other words, one is training body & cultivating the mind in SLT practise. It’s quite apparent in the practise of this form that the most important hands of wing chun are tan,fook, wu – it’s repeated many, many times during the form.
Key points: Contains most wing chun ‘tools’ within the form. The foundation of your wing chun.
Whilst the first form concentrated on the ‘tools’ of the trade, the 2nd form introduces the student to motion. Great emphasis is place on turning, swiveling, stepping in conjunction with your hand tools. It also adds the first kick of the style to your repertoire, and 2 new hand ‘tools’ in the form of lan-sau & the lifting punch (upper cut). In this form, one must train the body to be balanced in motion. There are so many turns & swiveling in this form, it’s bound to make you dizzy!
As the name implies, this form focuses a lot on our fingers – or, to be more precise, the thrusting & angling of our fingers. Besides the fingers, we also introduce for the first time the gwai garn (kneeing elbow). The finger & the elbows are probably the most powerful weapons in the system, so why introduce it last? The reasons are quite simple – before you can launch your weapons at your opponent, you must pass their defense first. It makes sense to be able to defend & counter first, before learning how to attack. Also, in the beginning, the practitioner would not have the skill or conditioning to enable them to launch the weapons with any power or accuracy.
Some practitioners have described the Bil-jee form as an emergency form. Personally, I believe bil-gee do contain contingencies for when we get into trouble, but that isn’t its only reason. I believe it also contains higher level attacking weapons as the fingers & the elbows. 1) Why would you name an emergency form ‘thrusting fingers’? 2) The best way to prevent having to resort to emergency measures is to prevent it in the first place, by drilling good skills to prevent your opponent from entering your defence zone. It makes perfect sense to practice to prevent your opponent from attacking your eyes; it’s no good to learn how to act after your eyes have been jabbed! Another analogy is in swimming. We don’t throw ourselves into the pool and try to drown ourselves before trying to recover. Instead, we practice good swimming techniques to make ourselves better & a stronger swimmers, which would limit & minimise our chances of getting into trouble in the first place, preventing the need to resort to 'contingencies'. As the old Chinese saying goes: 'prevention is better than cure'.
Muk Yan Jong
The muk yan jong (wooden dummy form) is a wooden figure designed to resemble the arms & leg of an opponent. It’s a form that allows the practitioner to work on the possible applications of the wing chun system in full power, using one’s own imagination. Practising on the jong will instill the ideal ‘working’ distance between you and your opponent, and it forces the practitioner to adopt the correct body alignment, stance & structure in order to apply maximum pressure against the jong. Working on the jong will also show you the many different angles when facing your opponent, and if practiced correctly, will increase many of your wing chun fighting attributes such as: short action power, good structure, but more specifically the ability to ground power using your hips, timing, good leg work, transition between wing chun ‘tools’, etc., etc. Just like wing chun, on the surface the jong form looks very simple, but look below that surface layer and you will find a very advance form of training. Another important point I should mention here is that in order to reap the most from your jong training, one must setup the jong correctly, so that the height matches the practitioner, and the trunk is mounted in such a way to provide rebounding energy & ‘feedback’ to the practitioner.
Keypoints: The muk yan jong is a very valuable piece of wing chun training device & is used to bring out many attributes required for wing chun fighting. There are many important points to jong training, but here are the most important ones, in no particular order:
1) Shows the best ‘working distance’ – the distance between you and your opponent.
2) It allows the practitioner to work on footwork & ma-bo – specifically the entry techniques – and it also allows the practice of facing and flanking positions – from 0’ to 90’ degrees.
3) It reveals your strongest structural positions & points of leverage. When you push or exert power into the jong and it doesn’t go anywhere, the power has to rebound back, or when you pressure the jong with your wing chun tools (bong, tan, fook, wu, etc., etc.) but can’t exert any pressure or feel comfortable doing so, then the jong reveals to you your structure isn't good.. Unless your structure is good, using the entire wing chun tools, you will be forced to step backwards when you try to exert pressure against the jong. This is an excellent ‘indicator’ of the caliber of your structure.
4) If you setup the height of your jong correctly, it will force you to adopt the correct sitting when you practice on the jong, and thereby develop powerful stance & footwork to power all your movements.
5) If you have your jong setup on the right slats, it will rebound on pressure and will give you ‘feedback’ to work with, improving your timing at the same time. You can try to ‘intercept’ the rebounds of the jong with different tools, to practice flowing from one tool to the next.
There are only 2 weapon forms in the entire wing chun system – the look dim boon gwan (6 & a half point pole form) & the baat jaam doa (the eight cut \ sash knife). The 2 weapons form are reserved for practitioners that’s completed the 3 hand forms, so only very few disciples has learnt the entire wing chun syllabus since few are dedicated enough to reach this stage of development. The ‘exclusivity’ of these 2 weapons forms are apparent by the fact that Yip Man only ever taught a handful of his most loyal students the look diim boon gwan – and even fewer for the baat jaam doa.
Luk diim boon gwan.
The luk diim boon gwan is a 9ft pole, and it’s has been said that, traditionally, it could be between 12- to 15ft in length! The ‘significance’ of the pole as a weapon in this modern era has but all diminished. Besides alerting the police, carrying a 12- to 15-ft pole around just isn’t ‘practical’ – especially if you are travelling on the underground, lol! It’s real ‘purpose \ jewel’ is to develop the ‘gung lik’ & explosive power in your wing chun. As its name implies, there are only 6 & a half pole techniques in the form, but those techniques accomplishes all that it has set out to achieve. It’s a very short form, but with the right training & comprehension behind the pole work, one can develop a powerful body unit, a very strong shoung-mabo, and ‘explosive’ power behind our techniques. In training the pole, we should be ‘one’ with the pole, learning to move our whole body as one unit. We should aim for small movements with the pole, focusing our power on the tip of the pole.
Baat jaam dough.
The wing chun baat jaam dough is a beautiful knife form. Simplistic in action, but profound in application. Using the minimum of angles, the wing chun baat jaam dough have all the ‘points of entry’ covered – a testament to wing chun’s adage of keeping things simple, efficient & effective. Besides being a powerful weapon, training in the knife form brings many other advantages. The weight of the knifes increases the power of your wrist & forearms and, in turn, will improve & refine your empty hand fighting skills. After training with the knifes, your hands will feel very light and powerful, applying your wing chun techniques with ease. It’s a shame only a handful of practitioners around the world knows the original baat jaam dough form as passed down by grandmaster Yip Man, but very few people stay long enough, or reach a level where they are ready to learn this form, and the few that have learnt this form, even fewer is willing to teach it.
Of course, there's much more to the luk dim boon gwan & the baad jaam dough than I have written here. There's more on the wing chun pole & knife in my forthcoing wing chun book.
Many people misunderstand the purpose of practicing forms. They just think it’s going through the motions and practicing techniques in an unrealistic manner. However, for those that know, forms practice has many purposes & is extremely good training regardless of one’s level.
1) Forms introduce to the beginners the ‘tools’ of wing chun.
2) It allows us to practice the ‘tools’ in the perfect position.
3) It allows us to perform the tools using the full range of motion.
4) We can focus on the perfect ‘lines’ of each motion.
5) Develop specific attributes – for example, stretching our muscles whilst we pull our fist back parallel to our ribs, or developing hip & leg power whilst in the ma bo position.
6) Allows us to internalize & embed the movements into our body & mind.
7) Allows us to practice our tools using full power.
8) It’s great for self-discipline & solitude training.
It's true that any martial arts can take out the forms training, but that's like taking out the gravey with your Sunday roast, or the cream from your stawberries -- it just wouldn't be as good!