Whoa! Much information has passed from sifu into my tiny brain in today's class, mostly Chum Kiu related. As I've only been doing Chum Kiu for about a month, the learning curve at the moment is pretty steep. As familiarity grows with whatever it is you're learning, the curve usually gets more shallow but at the moment every time sifu does it, there is something new to grasp. Today was no exception.

Bong Saus At 45 Degrees

With every bong sau you are facing 45 degrees off from the front. While your body is facing 45 degrees, you are actually looking forward though. This is something I intuitively knew, but had to ask today to get clarification. I'm a anally retentive pedant stickler for precision.

Stretch Those Tendons

I picked up something that is not peculiar to Chum Kiu, but is related to Siu Lim Tau too. After a punch, when you hoon sau and gather the fingers into a fist, how can someone get something so small so wrong??!! I can, easily. For the last 3 years I've been mimicking the action of wrapping my fingers around something (no sniggering ath the back!) and returning my hand to the upright position before snapping my hand into a fist. The way sifu showed me today was to really stretch the fingers whilst your hand is till rotated, gather them into a fist whilst the hand is till rotated and only then rotate the wrist and snap the fist up. The difference this makes is huge as it works the tendons in the hand much more, the purpose of course being to strengthen the fist. Such attention to detail! Another gobsmacking revelation! A few of those, and my hand really felt the work it had done.

This movement is present in both Siu Lim Tau and Chum Kiu. I know that details like this sometimes vary between different Wing Chun schools, especially around this part, so what you are doing may differ from what I am doing.

Shoddy Footwork

As usual my footwork needs a little polish. Specifically, near the start of Chum Kiu > after the first punch > then chop > my feet are all out of alignment so that when I return to the front my right leg is further forward than my left. I know exactly where this is going wrong - it's the turning to the front to bong sau followed by the turn to the side (is it lan sau?). After 3 repetitions of that my feet have gone AWOL. No revelations here though. It's just a case of doing it over and over again and checking my foot placement after each turn.

Here's Yip Man doing Chum Kiu. I imagine he's doing it right