First Form: Siu Nim Tao

0:04 — Opening the stance, heels together, turn your toes out as far as possible, some like to go to 180 degrees, but that is not necessary. Slightly less than 180 degrees will be fine. Then shift your weight to your toes, and move your heels outward. Your toes should now be aligned inward with your heels flared out. If you bend your knees, they should track inward to a point where if you go down far enough, they would touch. The key to the stance is that you are comfortable, and reasonably pain free. If you feel pain in your knees, ankles, etc…adjust your stance, go a bit wider/narrower, or don’t drop down so low.

0:07 — Two Punches — Make sure that your punches are traveling forward with a slight upward movement. You will know you are doing it incorrectly if you are moving circularly (the punch moves up and back down to hit the target. The Huen Sao or Circling hand at the close of each punch has several applications, but in this case, it is to strengthen the wrist. So when you perform the Huen Sao, with your palm facing up, bend your hand upward as far as possible (you should feel tension), then rotate it around until your fingers are now pointing downward, close your fist and withdraw it back to the side.

0:13 — Tan Sao, Fok Sao, Wu Sao — There are several important keys to a proper Tan Sao. First, the angle that is formed with the forearm and elbow. This angle should remain the same going forward and back, remember, it is only the elbow that moves, if the forearm moves, you have lost your structure. Second, your palm must be flat and facing up. When your palm is flat, your Tan Sao is much more structurally sound, the hand locks the block in place. When the hand is not held flat, it leaves the forearm susceptible to being moved much more easily.

The key to the fok sao is NOT the hand. The real key is the wrist. As you are examining the Fok Sao, make sure that your wrist is on your centerline, and the back of your wrist is what is guiding you forward. The angle is exactly the same as the Tan Sao, the only difference being the placement of the hand. The hand is utilized as a safeguard, to wrap (NOT GRAB) around your opponent’s arm.

Wu Sao is the final hand in this sequence. It has similar structure to the Tan Sao, except that the hand is now held vertical. Contact can be achieved either through a contact point along the arm, or on the hand itself. This hand appears to be the same as the Pak Sao, but in fact is very different. With the Pak Sao, you are slapping your opponent’s attack out of the way, but with the Wu Sao, you are actually guarding and sliding along your opponent’s arm.

0:56 – 2nd Section. As discussed in class, the first section is performed slower, and is generally thought to be for gathering energy. The second section is then the release of the gathered energy. The two downward palm strikes at the beginning of the section have several applications. Could be to block a lower leg attack, or if someone is rushing in for a tackle, palm strike the back of the neck, and they will, at the very least, fall off balance, if not completely fall to the ground. Working around to the back, you then execute a strike with the heels of the palm, which act as an attack if you are being bear hugged from behind. These two movements are key, the palm heel strike behind you, and then immediately raising your elbows. This is especially so if you are being bear hugged. The raising of the elbows will give you room to move and get yourself in a better position. That is followed up by a double low palm to the front to stop a low kick to the front (you would be looking to make contact on the knee or higher.) After this, you bring your arms up in front of you, left arm over right, both forming a 90 degree angle. Shoot (don’t swing) your arms out to the side of your body (as if your body were forming a “T”, then bring them back so that the right arm is now over the left. After this, immediately drop your elbows, so that your edges or forearm bone is facing out. Then slightly drop your arms as you rotate your hands so that your palms are facing you, and finally drop your hands to waist level, and bring your hands close to your body in an inward motion. From this low position, shoot your hands up and out, to eye level, executing what is called a BIU SAO (shooting hand). Turn your hands (huen sao) and bring back to the side

1:04 – Pak Sao to neck strike. Beginning with the left side, bring your hand to the center, execute a pak sao, moving your hand towards the shoulder, but rather than bringing your hand back to the center, immediately drop your elbow, and send your hand forward, with the attacking point on your had being the pinky side of your hand. Execute the huen sao (turning hand) and return your hand to the side of your body. Repeat on the right side.

1:10 – Tan sao, Gaan Sao, to lower side palm. Bring out your tan sao as you did in the beginning of the form. once you have reached the maximum one fist distance away from your body, stop and use your elbow as the pivot point, moving your forearm down to cover your lower center line, but DO NOT go any lower than your waist. Then execute a low side palm (your fingers should point away from your body) as if you were targeting your opponent’s ribcage. Again, perform the huen sao and close.

1:20 — Bong Sao to Tok Sao. There are two ways to execute this section. For beginners, bring out a tan sao, and then from the tan sao position, turn your elbow up into the bong sao. Otherwise, with your hands at your side, immediately bring out the bong sao. Once you have executed the bong sao, turn your elbow back down to tan sao position, and use a wrist-flick movement upward. Use the huen sao and close

1:26 – Scraping hands and punches. Drop your left hand in front of you, place your right hand just above your elbow line, and scrape downward toward the hand. Your lower hand should also be rotating as the other hand is scraping downward. This is executed three times (left, right, left). At this point, the right hand should be down, the left hand up, execute a series of three punches, left, right, left, execute a huen sao with the left hand and close.

Chum Kiu details coming! Here are a few pictures of Sifu working on our new dummy.