Wing Tsun 1st Chi Sau Section

If you have been taught these sections in another way, that's OK. As the creator of this whole branch of Wing Chun, Grandmaster Leung Ting, famously said: "The sections are only SIMPLE exercises for beginners to understand BASIC Wing Chun principles!"

Which variation of the sections you are learning is less important as long as you are learning all their lessons for posture, yielding to and using the opponent's force while using an effective footwork. What is important is intent, never training without the proper threat level from the attacker and counter-attacker, and having an intelligent method for learning the sections.

Practice them step by step, like in the video, stopping between hits. Do each part until they can be performed with full speed and intent, stopping only enough power to not hurt the co-student. He/she is letting you strike for your training benefit, it is your responsibility to respect this and only use enough force for a realistic threat without following through with damaging him/her. Only then move on to adding the next part. When Chi Sau becomes a choreography without challenging each other, it is as useless for combat as a dance.

The WT sections are a collection of quick and easy-to-learn drills for understanding the basic possibilities and requirements for Chi Sau. The drills teach principles for using sensory input from your opponent in some beneficial ways. They are NOT clever ways to attack an opponent in a fight. They are certainly not sparring, or a replacement for sparring.

In the 7 Chi Sau sections take techniques from all the WT forms and string them together into quick and easy-to-learn sequences that teach the very basics of Chi Sau. In each section, you are given an example on how to use an opponent's force depending on your hand positions: Your wrists can be in contact with the inside or outside of the opponent's wrists. You can have one on the inside and one on the outside, or both on either side. The start positions change which technique are most easily used for defending and counter attacking.

The quicker you understand and learn these sections, and (most importantly) move beyond them all, the faster you will master Chi Sau and acquire your own understanding of it. While these sections are great at exploring the techniques of the Wing Chun forms and how they apply in Chi Sau, they may be a bit outdated. There are now other tools that rapidly teach effective Chi Sau technique that also applies to other disciplines like self-defense, MMA and Escrima.