Chain Punching

Here is a clip showing how one school uses different equipment to train the chain punch.

Wing Chun Kuen Chain Punch

Here’s a video clip from the Human Weapon series concerning Chain punching:

The Bob

Here is a video of Sifu Alan Orr’s Instructor student, and Pro Mixed Martial Arts fighter,  Neil Broadbent working out on ‘The Bob’. I thought it would follow on well from the Bags, Pads and Mitts post.

Enjoy!

Bags, Pads and Mitts

I simply love striking things, personally I find that I’m never entirely satisfied with a training session unless I’ve worked up a good sweat hitting some kind of striking implement. I know that some of us practitioners think only of hitting southern kung fu’s beloved wall mounted bags and believe that hitting anything else is a sacrilege. Which is fine.  Although personally I love to hit every type of bag I can. 

Wall Mounted Bag

As mentioned this type of bag is the Southern Kung fu classic. whether one, two, or three sectioned this is the most widely used bag in Wing Chun Kuen.  Often the bag is filled with sand (rough or fine) although the filling does range from dried beans to iron pellets.  

When buying a wall bag we want to ensure that the material is thick enough to take a vast number of sessions, it’s also a good idea to check the stitching to ensure that it is well made and won’t split open after only a short while.  Although by far the most common material used is canvas, it not need be so. The one I’m currently battering is made of imitation leather (a good friend and training partner of mine, picked up the material cheap and had his mother make a couple of bags J). I have also seen them made of genuine leather.  Immortal creations, http://www.immortal.co.uk/ , have yet another material, although they recommend we don’t fill it with sand. 

For a quite extensive English article on how The United Kingdom Wing Chun Association, headed by Sifu James Sinclair, does wall bag training check out this page on his website: www.ukwingchun.com/Wing_Chun_Wallbag_Training.htm .  

Heavy Bag

There is nothing quite like working out on a good sturdy heavy bag. Many practitioners talk badly of using swinging bags in Wing Chun, as they feel the energy developed is ‘not Wing Chun’. I don’t hold with that belief, I love working with it whenever I get the chance. 

The movement of a heavy bag when we give it a worthy hit, and the ability it has to allow us to work our footwork really adds a dimension that the wall mounted bag simply doesn’t have. If an extra long heavy bag is bought yet another option is open to us; low-line kicking. Yes, if we have a three section wall bag we can kick it, if we have a dummy we can kick that too, but neither compare to kicking a heavy bag which is swinging towards us. Although the bag is obviously no substitute for a training partner it will willingly accept every striking tool we throw as hard as we can have and never complain about it!  

Top and Bottom Bag

This is a bag I have just started to commit time to.  It’s a great device for working with rhythms, punch directions and speeds. It is a little tricky to begin with, but the effort it takes to master it is worth it. Of course, like the heavy bag, it is also one of the prized bags of modern western boxing.  

And I’m not the only Wing Chun Kuen practitioner using it, from his photos I also see that Sifu Manolo Gallo of Ving Tsun Italia, www.vingtsunitalia.com , likes to set it rebounding too. 

Hand Held Padded Shield

Now this is an incredible piece of versatile equipment. Although now in wide use this type of shield was first introduced into martial arts training to Ed Parker by Dan Inosanto  (it was originally used in American Football). This shield is great for strikes of all types, we only need a padded shield and a good training partner to have an exciting and punishing workout. Imagination is the only thing that holds back its use. Make sure the shield is of good thickness so that it can be used it to work up power in ‘one strike kills’, as well as working for increased endurance in continuous striking bouts. Except no excuses!  

Focus Mitts/ Focus Gloves

These are great endurance workers that really allow us to work on both timing and accuracy.  Again these are a firm favourite of Western boxers. Like the padded shield there are innumerable exercises to work with the focus mitts. All we need is an able training partner who doesn’t act like a human Mok Jong! They need to move, be agile and get us to work your footwork and punching angles. Also they can have us working our parries and evasion techniques by striking at us, with their gloved hands, too.  Although I almost exclusively used them for hand work I have seen many examples of exercises with kicks too. 

Thai Boxing Pads

These pads were introduced to me only recently, and I love them! The exercises I use are similar to that of the Focus Mitt work, with the difference being that with the Thai pads we can really emphasis the power in the strikes. Working with these and an able partner is amazing and will have us sweating and feeling the strain very quickly.  

Other Bags, Pads and Mitts

There are numerous other pieces of striking equipment that I personally want to try, play and experiment with; the speed ball – as used by Wing Chun Kuen Sifu Randy Willams to develop greater speed, rhythm, and stamina; the stand alone striking bag – to give a different feel from the swinging heavy bag; and the makiwara – to see how long my fists will last. 

Resources

Aside from our personal teachers there are numerous ways for us to learn about how to use different pieces of striking equipment. The internet is a great resource although often the articles we find, like this one, only give as a taste of the options open to us.  Two resources that I can greatly recommend is Sifu Alan Orr’s (http://www.alanorr.com/) two Pad workout tapes which are designed specifically for the Wing Chun Kuen practitioner and Dan Inosanto’s book ‘A Guide to Martial Arts Training with Equipment’ which although aimed at the Jeet Kune Do practitioner still has lots of good advice for Wing Chun Kuen practitioners.