Grandmaster Tse’s Wing Chun Note 388

Crooked Nail Part 1

Tāan Sáu 攤手

Whenever we learn any Wing Chun skill, we must practise it in a proper way to develop correctly. One very common technique is Tāan Dá 攤打. In Tāan Dá, one hand performs Tāan Sáu 攤手 and the other hand is a punch, so we are blocking and hitting at the same time. When we first learn it we should begin slowly and repeat it about 20 times. The next day we should repeat it for another 20 times and whilst we are doing this make sure we practise it slowly and make the details of the technique correct and then we think about using power.  We should practise slowly and precisely for about 6 days. After 6 days we may begin to learn other techniques, that’s whatever techniques we learn at the end we need to try how to use them in Chi Sau so that they come out naturally. We must not use power in the beginning otherwise it is like a crooked nail.

If we use power too early, before we have mastered the technique, we can be in the wrong position, use the wrong energy or be too stiff. If we are incorrect and practice with power, it will be hard to correct ourselves later. “Bad habits die hard”. It is like a crooked nail, once a nail is crooked if we continue hammering it into the wood, it will become worse and then it will get too far into the wood and then it is very hard to straighten it, so we must keep the nail straight to begin with. This means when we learn a technique, we must practise slowly at first and think about the detail, after all these things are correct then, whatever the technique, we can use power.

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