Arm breaks

In the first section of the Chum Kil form, there is a combination movement of Jut Sau and Tan Sau, this movement is used for arm breaks. I would like to talk a little about this today.

 

The Jut Sau - Tan Sau arm break movement is often explained as an arm breaking application against a chest level shirt grab. In my opinion, this is not a very realistic application as 99% of the time when someone goes to grab the chest level, they naturally lock their elbows - so obviously this arm-breaking movement would not work.

Another common explanation is that when someone punches you fast, you can catch their punch in the air and break their arm with the Jut Sau and Tan Sau combination - this is even more unrealistic trying to catch a fast punch out of the air in close range for the hand is much faster than the eye!  

 

So how does the Chun Kil Jut Sau-Tan Sau combination arm break work? Like all things in Sil Lim Tau, the Chum Kil movement are also a concept and principles NOT necessary literal fix, dead, techniques. The Jut Sau and Tan Sau form movements

are very useful when taken as a concept but a pretty limited and useless movement when taken literally. The concept, in this case, is the concept of a pair of scissors. Observe scissors clips and cuts, it can be done forward, backward,

up, down, left, right, vertical, diagonal, horizontal - in other words, it is adaptive!  

 

What this adaptive concept means is that the arm-breaking idea can be blended in and used in conjunction with any of the Basic Wing Chun hands - Pac Sau, Jum Sau, Wu Sau, tan Sau, Gan Sau, Lap Sau, etc. When this is done properly, it can be a very surprising move for the opponent to deal with. Arm Breaks also opens up many different lines of follows up that attack blind-sided lines which are almost impossible to sense/feel/see on time!    

 

This can only be done and understood when there is a progressive, logical, practical way of training it. Perhaps, this is why the movement is often misunderstood and cannot be demonstrated in a realistic manner. A proper training program is critical! If you are interested in training these methods, you can check out our Chum Kil level 2 course, at this link: https://www.adamchankungfu.com/wing-chun-online-academy

 

Train hard, stay safe!