Folding Arms

[sonwukong]

Grand master Wong Kiew Kit shows a beautiful application of a technique found in Wing Chun Fist known as "folding arms" I'm sure many of you are familiar with this article, he states that

"I am not sure whether she invented this pattern, but I have not seen this pattern in any other styles of kungfu or other martial arts. This pattern is not found in the two versions of the Flower Set that I have learnt — one from Sifu Lai Chin Wah of Hoong Ka, and the other from Sifu Choe Hoong Choy of Wing Choon, although, I believe, it was from the Flower Set that Yim Wing Choon evolved her Wing Choon Kungfu."

I wanted to start this thread so that I could try to help and throw in my own two cents. In my school's style of Kung Fu "Lai Tung Pai" or "Poon Kuen" This is a very important technique, in our bow before every one of our forms, amongst others techniques, the folding arms are performed twice before the typical shaolin salute. The History of our school traces back to a monk named Chi Sen from the Song Shan Shaolin Monastery. One of Chi Sens students named Yuen Mau travelled south to a temple called ?Hoi Tung? in Foshan where he taught his kung fu. It is due to these facts along with my lack of knowledge about the history of Wing Chun that I cannot be sure if the shorter range techniques in our system were already present before the kung fu had travelled south or if the south played a major role in influencing the techniques of this style. At any rate, It looks a lot like both southern shaolin & wing chun. It features wide stances typical of shaolin kung fu like the bow, horse, false leg, & unicorn. But it also features the shorter stances common to wing chun although they are noticable wider than their wing chun counterparts. Another interesting feature is that while the bong sao is present in our school as a technique, it is very different from the one typical of wing chun, in ours the forearm rests at shoulder level along a horizontal plane angled outward away from the body at about 45 degress, whereas the bong sao in wing chun in more angled downward. Basically kind of similar but I guess the biggest physicl difference is in execution and the height at which you hold the hand. My guess as to their most basic difference in defence against a straight punch is that the wing chun bong sao uses the downward angle of the forearm to escort punches off of the centerline mainly at mid-level. Whereas ours uses the outward horizontal angle of the forearm to escort mainly straight high punches both outwards away from our centerlines and also upwards over our heads. Hope you found that at least slightly interesting

[sonwukong]

combat application of folding arms

http://www.shaolin.org/combat/folding.html

[sonwukong]

I also Have an interesting anecdote involving this pattern. A number of years ago in my days as a boy scout, My scout leader was a many who had spent a number of years training in shotokan karate. We would often talk about martial arts and discuss combat application. One day when we were sharing some techniques he asked me "what would you do if someone did this?" and he placed both his hands on my throat just as it shows in the article, I promptly performed the folding arms techniques and sent him tumbling, although I tried to hold him up, I did not have enough strength and he fell to the ground. To which he said "wow, that's a good technique!". And indeed it is, what a wonderful pattern for smaller people wishing not to meet force head on.