Scientists were fascinated when research found some remarkable aspects of the weather phenomenon of Tornados. The wind of the Tornado would pick up a common piece of barnyard straw and after the storm the researchers would find the straw embedded in a tree trunk! How could this be? A fragile piece of straw embedded in a hard piece of wood! The answer lies in the science of Physics: speed supersedes mass as the most important factor when studying the (force) of an impact.
In studying the concept of punching and striking power in the martial arts, one comes to the realization that certain things are usually listed as attributes in martial arts and sports: speed, power and skill. How do you get all three? Of course lots of practice is the first requirement. Does WingTsun have separate drills for each of these attributes? Yes. Most sports and martial arts have some separate drills to hone special skills. Would it not be great if we could get both speed and power with one training method? WingTsun has practice methods that do this.
The explosive quality of WingTsun punches, kicks and other striking techniques is responsible for the power and not the strength producing muscles. In order to eliminate the risk of using strength-against-strength in a real fight which uses the big skeletal muscles and the big, circular movements that you see in movies, the WingTsun practitioner takes a different approach. In order to get power, the WingTsun student is taught an internal type of punch. The student is taught to relax the body in order to strike with explosiveness. This explosion is acceleration and is needed to generate power. By combining the straight-line of the punch from our chest outward with explosive speed, we also get power and effectiveness. A punch that is powerful but that you do not have the skill to land on an attacker is quite useless in a real attack and so this approach has been eliminated in favor of tactile skills and using the force and the momentum of an attacker against them. The focus is on gaining the skill to actually land a blow which far more difficult than the movies would have you believe.
The Arm of a WingTsun Practitioner
The arm of the WingTsun practitioner can be compared to a hollow metal tube. Inside the tube is a metal ball. Picture a big ball bearing. As the ball is thrust through the tube by the whipping action of the tube (the punching action), the ball rolls down toward the end. If a WingTsun practitioner has done his or her chain punching practice on the wall bag, then the practitioner has learned the skill of releasing the force of the punch (the metal ball is the force of the punch a ball of energy) at the moment of the impact of the target which is the attacker