The benefits
of Wing Chun.

There are many reasons to start learning Wing Chun Kung Fu. The main benefits I will list are self defence, a focused mind, body control & balance, postural alignment, and health.

Many students are not even interested in self defence — especially females. In today's society you do not expect to have to defend yourself, and can easily get through life without these skills. However Wing Chun Kung Fu is an art form which develops self-confidence, awareness, and is a vessel for self-discovery. Of course Wing Chun is an extremely effective method of self defence — however there are so many more benefits to learning this special martial art. Here I have listed a few reasons.

Self Defence

The obvious and most-known benefit. Wing Chun is direct, principle-based, and built for the situation where you have already failed to avoid the fight. It teaches you to defend yourself without depending on size or aggression.

A Focused Mind

In today's modern society, we have many things to think about and to be worried about. Our minds wander from one thought to another — anxious about the future, perhaps depressed about the past. Rarely do we find ourselves in the present, thinking in the present. When you think in the present, for that period of time your worries disappear, time seems to pass quickly, and you gain a feeling of fulfilment.

How do you achieve this state, and how can you achieve it at will? This is something that can be trained — however it occurs in life quite regularly. Anybody who has a hobby will be able to spend hours at a time completely focused on their task.

Wing Chun Kung Fu, by its very nature, helps a person focus their mind, both naturally and through training. As a hobby, one can spend hours at a time training Wing Chun, moving the mind to the present. By also training this focusing during Siu Nim Tau practice, one can develop this skill even deeper. Siu Nim Tau is training both the body and mind — you are working on your body, similar to Tai Chi, and your mind, similar to meditation. For example, you may be walking down the street and you put your awareness into your arm to practice a tan sau movement; at this moment you are focusing your mind into the present and into your body.

A personal experience I can share is related to my university degree. Having very little ability when I was younger to study for more than 10 minutes at a time, I wanted to apply what I had learnt about focusing my mind towards my studying. I can easily spend all day training Wing Chun Kung Fu — so I decided to apply this ability to my university studies. During my Master's degree I could study as long as I wanted (with breaks) with little effort. I had learnt how to focus, and could concentrate for hours at a time to study material. I achieved very high marks; where I could see that others can achieve high marks with little effort, I knew I had achieved it with hard work.

Another example was one student who went to run in a marathon for the first time. He told me that his training helped him greatly — throughout the race he focused on his running movements, joints, breathing, and relaxing his muscles the whole time. For him, focusing on his body throughout the race took his mind away from other thoughts: pain, how far to go, and giving up.

Though I believe you can learn to focus your mind with any hobby, I believe that Wing Chun is geared towards this — as it is an internal style which forces you to focus on yourself, your body movements, your posture, and correct thinking.

Body Control, Coordination & Balance

The benefits of Wing Chun Kung Fu extend to body control, coordination and balance. These are excellent benefits, and is akin to relearning how your body works.

Body control can be attributed to body mechanics — learning how the body moves, and in Wing Chun, learning the most efficient and powerful way the body can move. For example, if the practitioner can learn how to relax the muscles and move from the joints, movement becomes easier, more efficient — and when used in Kung Fu, generates more power. In every day life it brings small benefits such as standing up from a sitting position much more easily, walking up stairs more effortlessly, standing more comfortably, and generally moving with less effort.

Coordination is the ability to control our limbs. Having better coordination allows us to move and do things with our body more easily and effectively. Wing Chun Kung Fu effectively trains coordination development in the body. By learning hand techniques for self defence — with the use of both arms simultaneously, and also together with kicking, stepping and pivoting — Wing Chun increases coordination. Learning sticking hands (Chi Sau), a practitioner further develops reflexes and coordination by continuously using both arms at the same time for extended periods of time.

Balance is the body's ability to stay upright and in control of itself. This is trained in Wing Chun with the Siu Nim Tau stance, and emphasises an equal amount of pressure on each foot. Training also involves finding the body's centre — movements will be the most efficient if they come from this centre. Siu Nim Tau on one leg further trains the body's ability to balance. Balance is much improved with sticking hands training, as the balance is constantly tested by your training partner. After sufficient training, the practitioner will feel better balanced at all activities — whether walking, running, or even standing on a bus.

Postural Alignment & Health

Postural alignment refers to having good posture, and is integral in maintaining good health. The field of Chiropractic is founded on this notion. Wing Chun emphasises good posture — in fact it is necessary for proper power generation in Kung Fu. After learning the internal style of Wing Chun, whether walking, standing or sitting, the practitioner will most likely be thinking about whether his or her posture is correct. In this way, the focus on good posture spills into everyday life, and gives the benefit of preventing back pain from bad posture. This is especially important as we grow older.

Other health benefits are achieved due to Wing Chun's light fitness. Any activity that involves moving around is good for your health. Wing Chun is not a heavy physical exercise like many martial arts — so it can be practiced into old age, and you will get better with age. Similar to Tai Chi, Wing Chun is good for increasing blood flow to the body, and is a relaxed exercise.

For life

As we age, all of these benefits are more fully realised. Having a good ability to focus brings benefits throughout your life. Learning body mechanics, coordination and balance is very useful as we grow older — allowing us to age with full control over our bodies. Similarly, with good posture we can grow older in the right shape in our spines, allowing more freedom of movement in later life. Wing Chun Kung Fu is more than just self defence; it is truly an art-form for life.