Transcript

So the wing chun turning stance, again, is one of those things, depending on what lineage of wing chun you do, depending on your particular Sifu's inclinations or whatever, it's always going to be a little bit different, all right. But this is pretty standard form in most WT schools throughout the world.

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So what we do first is we're going to set the frontal stance just like we did in the previous video. All right. And then, at least the focus in the way we do the turning stance, is to move our body out of the way. There are some wing chun styles that teach you basically to turn along the center here mainly for power generation with the hip. This is not the primary function of our turn in wing chun.

The idea is that if we're caught off guard, if we're not able to go forward which is our primary MO in wing chun, we're going to turn. We're going to move out of the way. Assuming this is probably the most important target we want to move this completely out of the way of our opponent so we can dash out of the center and attack our opponent back.

Now the way we do this, all right, in a very classical wing chun way, is you're going to shift your weight onto which ever leg, depending on which side you need to turn to, and as you shift your leg, through the knee pressure, the linkage force, your foot is going to turn like this. Then you're going to come back to the center, and then you're going to turn to the other side.

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Again, like when we're practicing the frontal stance, you always want to keep the knees pulling in together. Because we don't have a low stance in wing chun, we use an upright stance, our stability comes mostly through the abduction of the knees. And the same thing goes in the turning. When you turn to one side it's the abduction of the knees that maintains the stance together.

So that's also why, when you watch me turn, you will only see one foot turning at a time. When I shift my weight, which is the first thing you do, you should never turn first because you're still in the line of sight, you should shift your weight so that you move out of the way. Once your weight is shifted it's very easy to turn like this. All right. My foot turns until they're both parallel. Now I come back, and then I turn to the other side.

In the turning stance you should finish at about a 45 degree angle. Of course, depending on how much pressure, how deep your opponent comes in, that's going to adjust. It's not fixed. It's only a basic formula. But it's slightly different from the advancing stance which we'll cover in another video.

The turning stance you basically just turn 45 degrees. All your weight is shifted on the back leg. You should be able to lift this leg without your upper body moving at all. That's one of the tests. Once you turn like this the upper body doesn't move at all, and then you know you've shifted all of your weight.

Turning stance.