Grandmaster Tse’s Wing Chun Note 382

Kūng Fū 功夫 – Part 6

If challenges were serious, a matter of life and death, then you could not have many of them as it is like playing Russian roulette. In the past, in China, opposing masters did not want to kill each other, they only wanted to test their skill. Usually there were no rules and there may or may not have a judge or referee. Only the two masters would know who had won and who had lost. Any part of the body could be a target, the eyes, the groin, the joints, any part could be seriously damaged. It was up to the master to control their force and power when they hit those areas. If one master hit the other gently, but the other master still fought back, it would mean that he or she did not accept that as a loss, and so the next time the master would hit harder, then serious injuries could happen. To the two masters had to understand the loss and accept it. There is a Chinese Kung Fu saying, “làuh lihk bāt làuh sáu 留力不留手 – Control the power, do not control the skill.” However, the best master always won, whether their strikes were controlled or not. You may have seen the movie Ip Man 2. There is a scene where a student comes to test Ip Man葉問 and Ip Man controls his attack, the young man does not realise and refuses to accept he lost, so the next time Ip Man punches a lot harder.

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