http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bk2Wg6M0yMU
This is a clip of Yang stylist Fu Qing-quan from Hong Kong doing a short form. What struck me right from the start was his excellent weight control. He sinks fully into one leg, loading it, then steps out so cleanly. Only when he wants to, does he then move the weight into the front leg. I also see lots of nearly 100% weight shifting.
This is another mistake of mine when I do the form. I tend to “plop” my weight down because I have already started the shift before I put the foot down. Doing this can make it very easy to sweep you because you’re putting weight into a foot that hasn’t grounded itself yet.
Holding back the weight in one leg is excellent for building leg strength — something this guy obviously has lots of. It also has many carry-over benefits into PH and san shou. Moving from 100% to 100% allows more force to be transferred forward and back, and also extends your range of motion. If your weight is in the middle, you won’t have the same range of motion.
One caveat though — just be sure that you don’t get caught on the fully-weighted foot. Not being double-weighted is good, but you can get caught single-weighted just as easily. With the weight fully in the back, you’re vulnerable to being pushed. With the weight totally in the front, you’re vulnerable to Being pulled. Some things to think about.
10 responses so far ↓
1 Chris @ Martial Development // May 22, 2007 at 3:15 am
Indeed. I wrote about this particular sweep vulnerability in “Sweep Her Off Her Feet With Wing Chun”
2 zenmindsword // May 22, 2007 at 9:23 am
nice but some parts his control of substantial / insubstantial is not clearly separated - you can see him dragging his foot and some parts he has a spot that is not balanced. but overall its very good demo which reminds me of my training in dong style
3 Kreese // May 22, 2007 at 12:35 pm
Yang and Chen style seem to have very different ideas when it comes to weight shifting. I was taught by my Chen teacher not to shift the hips too much when shifting weight. There seems to be a lot more of a spiral from kua action to effect the weight shift in Chen style. When doing PH, I was told not to shift the weight all the way back (or forward, I guess). The smallest effective movement is the best. But the idea about not putting the weight on the extended leg is spot on. It really brings out the kicking/sweeping potential of the form regardless of the style.
4 Thoughts on Leg Control « Taiji@Stagmont // May 22, 2007 at 1:57 pm
[...] Posted by zenmindsword in Commentaries. trackback FormosaNeijia has posted a post entitled “Excellent single leg weight control” which featured the following clip which I reposted here [...]
5 chessman71 // May 22, 2007 at 2:41 pm
Kreese,
yes, there are substantial differences between Yang and Chen on this. They are so profound that I’ve simply stopped doing Chen for the time being. I probably won’t go back to it.
I prefer the movement of Yang on this and I find that it betters flows with my xingyi and bagua. The kua-dominated movement of Chen was starting to show serious flaws IMO.
I’ll write a post on it soon since the xingyi teacher I had a run in with was using lots of kua-based movement.
6 Juan // May 22, 2007 at 8:10 pm
He may have 100% of the weight in one leg…but look at the other, it’s tense! That’s why many times you can see him going up before shifting weight to the front leg.
7 zenmindsword // May 22, 2007 at 8:36 pm
Juan, you have excellent observation!!!
8 Kreese // May 22, 2007 at 11:57 pm
Looking forward to your post on kua. The use of kua and the characteristic stance of Chen seems very different from many other IMA.
9 Martin // May 30, 2007 at 5:13 pm
Hi guys, isn’t Fu Qing-quan possibly the grandson of late Fu Zhong-wen? I think he lives and teaches in Perth, Australia …
10 chessman71 // May 30, 2007 at 7:19 pm
Martin,
Yes, this is James Fu. I didn’t realize that at first.
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