Wing Chun Alignment

The common concept of being able to hold someone's weight and setting a good structure in Wing Chun is to use strong shapes and line up the bones in the body from the ground to the arm bridge.

This concept of alignment is good and very effective and popular. It is also a universal concept in all Kung Fu systems, not just Wing Chun, and each system expresses this concept differently.

However, in Kung Fu, this concept of using alignment to set a strong structure is only a basic level concept, white belt level if you will.

As you progress, it is possible to hold weight and have a strong "structure", while not looking like you are using the idea of alignment at all. I have a video on my YouTube Channel where I talk more about it: https://youtu.be/qxN8nD006UE. 

This is often very confusing to people because a practitioner can hold weight/pressure and use strong power when it appears like he is not even in a stance.

The understanding of using the spine and spirals allows this to happen. This introduces two new ideas:

1. It is not wise to define an attribute with a 'cast in stone' type of formula, no matter how popular. One must always leave room for a new way of doing things.
   
   
2. One cannot learn something through merely intellectual thinking and observation alone - skill requires 1000s and 1000s of repetitions with the right method and progression.

These principles apply to all attributes, alignment is only one example. Next time you hear a popular concept, use it as a stepping stone, a door to a new level, not a concluding definition!

Stay safe and train hard.

Adam Chan