Principles
The eight principles of Wing Tsun form a system of aggressive self-defense that allows one to adapt immediately to the size, strength and fighting style of an attacker. There are many ways to express the principles, since they are essentially very simple. However, it takes years of performing the forms and practicing chi sao with a knowledgeable instructor to train the body to follow the principles reflexively and to understand their applications in specific situations.
As well as describing the progression of a self-defense response, the strength principles also describe the progression a WingTsun student must follow over years of training: first, form training and a great deal of punching to learn to be relaxed in a fight and to (counter intuitively) punch without tension; second, countless hours of chi sao training to be able to yield to — and exploit — the attacker's strength; finally, strength training specific to WT to increase punching and striking power.
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Famous quotes containing the word principles:
“To abandon oneself to principles is really to die—and to die for an impossible love which is the contrary of love.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“Now there cannot be first principles for men, unless the Divinity has revealed them; all the rest—beginning, middle, and end—is nothing but dreams and smoke.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“The mode of founding a college is, commonly, to get up a subscription of dollars and cents, and then, following blindly the principles of a division of labor to its extreme,—a principle which should never be followed but with circumspection,—to call in a contractor who makes this a subject of speculation,... and for these oversights successive generations have to pay.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)