As one steps into the entrance to the covered terrace, oneis greeted with the sight of two young men in a duel of sorts. They are fendingoff each other’s attacks with their only their arms and the combat doesn’t seemto imbibe the seriousness of a gunfight or sword fight. Yet, Raj, the teacherof this art “ he has been into martial arts for the last 20 years “ and theonly authentic one in Goa and perhaps in the country, says that Wing Chunfocuses on softness. “We go in, we lock and trap the attacker and then we punchor hit him and take him down. You require softness. If a storm comes, theheaviest and strongest tree will fall down but a small plant will bend and comeup,” he explains.
“Wing Chun or Wing Tsung (there are 15 different ways tospell Wing Chun) is an extremely close-quarter combat system first made popularby Bruce Lee. It is a scientifically and mathematically formulated Kung Fusystem that originated in China approximately 400 years ago,” informs Raj. WingChun is made up of blocks “ which are basically movements “¬ which one uses todefend oneself. There are 25-30 blocks in all and the first six are the basicones. ‘Links’ is the term given to successive defending hand movements. WingChun does not require the defender to raise his legs above the waist. And mostimportantly, people who have learnt the art can intuitively sense theopponent’s next move and can fight blindfolded; one does not necessarily haveto ‘see’ a blow coming.
The explanation till now involved fighting with one arms andlegs. But what if the attacker has weapons? “There are three other systems thatcan be used with Wing Chun,” says Raj. One is the Iron Fist. This is atechnique to condition one’s hand in a way that one could break a coconut withonly a flick. The second technique is 101 Personal Self Protection Programme(PSP) which was developed by Raj and his master, and the third is using a stick“ called escrima “and/or a ‘peg’. A peg is a small rod made of wood, metal orhard plastic, six inches in length and is used to strike at pressure points. Whenstruck correctly, it could cause death or illness. The three systems howeverare to be learnt only after completing the Wing Chun course.
“Wing Chun was created about 350 years ago by a female KungFu master, the legendary Buddhist fighting nun, Ng Mui. She conceived of asimplified, streamlined martial art that would quickly enable a practitioner todefend him or herself against attackers from any other martial art styles ofthe day.
