The 4th major strike is the Sau Chui, a strike which is like using your forearm to hit your opponent’s head like a baseball bat.

In PKK, the Gwa Chui, the Chau Chui and the Sau Chui are practiced together as a trio of three consecutive strikes.

In SKD 3.0 I made Sau Chui a standalone technique so that we can focus exclusively on its practice. In application, the Sau Chui can be used as a follow up after Yum Chui, Gwa Chui or Charp Chui.

How to practice the Sau Chui :-

1) Stand with feet together
2) Place both hands near to your chin in ready position
3) As you take a step diagonally forward to your left, use your left hand to swipe from the right side of your body to your left as if to clear the way. As you do so, get ready your right hand to execute the Sau Chui. Release the Sau Chui the moment your weight shifts from the right leg to the left leg. Bring the left hand up to your head as if to block upwards. Strike the Sau Chui all the way to your left hip

When you practice the basic Sau Chui enough you will be able to feel the knockout power, especially if you test it against a pad held by a training partner.

Initially, I did not like the Sau Chui. I was partly influenced by what I was taught in Wing Chun, that Sau Chui is easy to block because the strike uses a wide arc. In retrospect I would say that never believe everything people tell you, even your own instructor, especially if they are not an expert in the art that they have a strong opinion about.

Master Leong changed my mind about the Sau Chui. He did not give an elaborate explanation about its use or its power mechanics. Instead, he showed me something interesting. Master Leong could use his Sau Chui to hit me even as I tried to hit him with a straight punch.

This is a strange experience considering what I was told in Wing Chun about the shortest distance between two points being a straight line which means if I throw a straight punch and Master Leong throws a big circular punch I should hit him first. Right?

Wrong! Master Leong didn’t try to block my straight punch. He just used his stepping to make me miss and then entered to hit me. He did this a few times.

Master Leong said that the Sau Chui the way he did it with stepping is the highest level technique. I didn’t quite believe it since I was still hung up on linear strikes. Later I got him to admit that in the pantheon of techniques it is the Charp Chui that is the highest level technique.

Still if you want a technique that can knock a person out then Sau Chui should be your technique of choice.

I use the Gwa Chui as the 2nd major strike and the Chau Chui as the 3rd major strike in SKD 3.0.

The Gwa Chui is a strike using the back of the fist. The PKK Gwa Chui uses a big movement to perform the strike because the objective is to knock the opponent out with a heavy blow to the face that cuts across instead of a backfist that stuns.

The Chau Chui is a diagonal hook that targets the opponent’s body. It is typically a follow up to the Gwa Chui especially when the Gwa Chui is used to clear the way to allow the Gwa Chui to enter.

How to practice the Gwa Chui and Chau Chui :-

1) Stand with feet together
2) Place both hands near to your chin in ready position
3) Take a step diagonally forward to your left. As you do so form a fist with your left hand as you drop it to your chest height. As you step execute the Gwa Chui across from the top right to the bottom left, ending by the side of the left side of your waist. At the same time, as the left Gwa Chui goes out past the left side of your face, lower your right fist to the right side of your waist in preparation for the Chau Chui. The moment the Gwa Chui nearly reaches the left side of your waist, quickly let loose the Chau Chui diagonally from your right side to the end at the height of your chest along the right shoulder line
4) Repeat when you step forward diagonally to the right

The power generation relies on how the body is moving and turning. The stance plays an important role here especially the front leg.

The waist can send the Gwa Chui along its smashing trajectory. Use the landing of the front leg to impart additional momentum towards the end of the Gwa Chui trajectory.

At the same time use the dropping and landing of the front foot to “toss” the Chau Chui out. You will feel as if the Gwa Chui is helping to power the Chau Chui.

The first strike we learn is the horizontal punch when stepping in the Two Shift Footwork. Read this post for how to practice the Two Shift Footwork.

The horizontal punch is called the Yum Chui in Pok Khek Kuen. The Chinese character for Yum is the same as for Yin as in Yin-Yang. We pronounce it as Yum because this is how we say it in Cantonese.

The Yin in the name refers to the facing of the palm which when the palm is facing outwards from the body is considered a Yin position whereas a Yang position would be the palm facing the body.

In this regards, the Yeung (Yang) Chui would be a punch with the palm facing upwards. To make it easier and clearer as to which fist position I am referring to I would describe the Yum Chui as a 9 o’clock fist straight punch using the right fist as the reference. If you could remember the name then that would be good.

How do we execute the Yum Chui? Here’s how we start the learning :-

1) Stand with feet together
2) Place both hands near to your chin in ready position
3) Take a step diagonally forward to your left. As you do so form a fist with your left hand and pull your left arm back with the elbow facing to the rear. At the same time your right hand form a fist and punch forward with a horizontal punch
4) Next, step forward diagonally on the right and repeat

From the above you can understand why the Two Shift Footwork is the first thing to learn. It is because when we do the Yum Chui we are using the same stepping and same body posture.

Now that wasn’t so difficult, right.

What would be challenging is to be able to execute say three consecutive Yum Chui with minimal pausing in between each Yum Chui. This takes consistent practice until you can do so easily. You can think of executing three consecutive Yum Chui as firing three arrows one after another, in quick succession.

This relates to the application of the Yum Chui which calls for you to step towards the opponent, causing him to miss even as he is trying to punch you, while at the same time you are hitting him with your Yum Chui.

Master Leong’s ability to step naturally and strike with the proper range was one of the things that made me interested in PKK even though my initial impression was nah, hard style, external art, not that interested.

Which brings me to the topic of power. When it comes to application having power is good but if you are too slow to step in and hit when the opportunity presents itself then the power won’t do you any good. This is why we learn to step first, so that we can move in quickly and when we can do this that’s when the power comes in.

When practicing the Yum Chui, the movement itself can enable you to generate power. You just have to do it properly. The basic arm movements is like pulling a bow that is held horizontally. The arm that is pulling backwards is just as important as the other arm that is doing the striking.

Besides acting as a defensive hand or used as a countering hand, the pulling motion is a key to generating power. In fact, the movement of the arms, the body posture, the stepping, the stance, they all contribute to how much power you can generate.

To enhance the power and speed we can hold an iron lock in each hand to practice the Yum Chui. When you put aside the iron locks you can feel that your strikes are heavy and they can really fly.

The Yum Chui is very similar in concept to the Cross in Boxing. As such, it is the first knockout punch that we learn. It looks simple so it is easy to underestimate its practicality and not put in more effort to train it. Maybe that’s why Grandmaster Nip was so strict when he taught Master Leong, cause the basics are the keys to mastery. In SKD 3.0 I considered the Yum Chui to be one of the 5 Major Strikes.

We begin the training by learning how to step. There are many ways to step but we will just cover one simple and easy stepping method.

This stepping method we learn is called Two Shift Footwork. It comes from the San Sau collection of techniques taught by Master Leong who is the number two disciple of Grandmaster Nip Chee Fei.

Master Leong learned Tai Chi and a collection of San Sau techniques which Grandmaster Nip called Pok Khek Kuen. The name Pok Khek Kuen (PKK) translates as Practical Fighting Combatives.

I do not the exact background of how PKK came into being. The story I heard is that Grandmaster Nip did research into different styles particularly their most effective techniques. He did this research to aid his fighting skills which he used to catch rebels, some of whom would fight back.

Though Grandmaster Nip was allowed to use a pistol by the authorities, he said he avoided using it in case his pistol was taken away and used on him. As such, his preferred method to subdue a rebel (or rebels) was to close in quickly to knock him out fast, hence the importance of footwork.

The PKK techniques that Master Leong taught were straightforward, unadorned techniques. They relied on the use of one major footwork though there are other footwork methods.

The basic footwork is the Two Shift Footwork which is a method to step to either the left or the right side of the opponent. The objective is to get out of the way of the opponent’s strike while closing in to deliver your own strike without having to block first or to do a bridging technique to clear the way before you close in to deliver a powerful knockout strike.

Despite being a simple footwork Grandmaster Nip made Master Leong practice it for 3 months before he was allowed to learn the first basic punch. Today we would think that 3 months is excessive to learn only one thing, however, that was how the way it was.

I can understand why Grandmaster Nip would insist on it. It is because as a disciple, Master Leong, was expected to not only help to teach but also accept challenges. In order to prepare Master Leong, Grandmaster Nip would have to insist that he gained more than a basic level of competency if he is to have a higher chance of winning a challenge.

Master Leong taught the Two Shift Footwork informally. I have set out a more formal method of learning. Below is how we can begin the learning :-

1) Stand with feet together
2) Body facing the front squarely, look ahead
3) Both hands placed behind on the kidneys, pull back the elbows
4) Take a step diagonally forward to your left. You end up in a bow and arrow stance that resembles the posture of a skater
5) Have your weight at least 70% on the left leg. The right leg should straighten to thrust strongly against the ground. Turn your shoulder more to the left
6) Bring your right foot to your left foot and step forward to your right
7) Remember to keep your elbows pulled back and turn your shoulder more to the right
8) Step forward 8 times, then turn around and repeat

In practice you can step as much as you like. I just mention an arbitrary number. The essential points for doing the stepping and the attendant posture is listed above.

I wish I have a photo of Master Leong doing this stepping or one of the PKK techniques. During the time I learned from him portable video cameras and smartphones did not exist. If you want to capture someone on film you have to get hire a photographer with a film camera. Even then Master Leong would not allow us to even take a picture of him in any PKK posture. He said that the art was a secret.

The thing is that many of PKK techniques are not really secret because they came from a number of famous styles. Most of the techniques were not even modified to fit the PKK narrative and remain as they were in their original styles.

If anything is a secret it is how Grandmaster Nip make these techniques work together that is the secret sauce. Plus, of course PKK was not readily taught to the Tai Chi students but Grandmaster Nip taught it to accelerate the learning of his disciples.

And there is the matter that Master Leong had to invest in a lot of effort to earn the trust to be taught. Master Leong had to act as chauffer, teaching assistant, personal assistant and butler on top of being a disciple. Master Leong once mentioned that it was only after Grandmaster came back from teaching and had rested that he would teach Master Leong.

After Master Leong had driven Grandmaster Nip back he could not rest and must then attend to Grandmaster Nip, massaging his tired muscles and using a fan to keep the Grandmaster cool while he slept. Then after Grandmaster Nip had woken up he would ask Master Leong to close the windows to prevent outsiders from looking in before teaching him.

And that is the story of the Two Shift Footwork.

A number of Chinese martial arts that originated from the Ming dynasty is said to be learned by rebels for fighting government soldiers in their bid to overturn the Qing dynasty.

What I don’t remember reading is the timeline to achieve this overthrowing of the government. Is this important to know?

I am reading a book entitled Book and Dagger. It goes into a little known history of how scholars and librarians worked in intelligence during World War II. Those who were selected and accepted to be trained as spies didn’t just undergo training in how to kill but in many other subjects as well. Read the book if you want to get a better idea of how wars are won before troops even step on the battlefield.

During a period of war or before a country decides to declare war it has to prepare. More often than not there is little time to prepare so training whether to be a spy or a solider is time sensitive. A spy has an important role to collect information, disseminate misleading intel and whisper disinformation, set up resistance groups and carry out sabotage.

A spy has but a few months to learn the subjects he has to in order to be an effective spy. And the subjects are many and technical in nature. So now when I think of rebels that want to overthrow the Qing dynasty how did they plan to overthrow the Qing dynasty? Did they just rush the government troops and try to kill them? Did they gather intelligence? Did they carry out sabotage? Did they have to learn how to do all these? Or did they spend their time learning martial arts?

For example, I was told Wing Chun was one of the arts that rebels learned. However, how much time did we have to spend today to get up to competence level. Months or years? More often than not, we have to spend years to master the art. But if there is a war this would be too long a time to spend training. Maybe the movement to overthrow the Qing dynasty wasn’t time sensitive so they could take years back then.

To win a battle or to carry out sabotage requires more than just the ability to excel in physical combat. Many a times spies on the field were caught by the smallest of details that informed the police, the secret police and the soldiers in the countries that they infiltrated that they were not locals.

Because there was not enough time in a day to learn so many things the things that were taught for physical combat had to be something that can be learned quickly, be effective and not take too long to be competent in. Spies who were trained in Britain’s Area B were taught by W.E. Fairbairn who taught them to attack the “fork”. The first thing Fairbairn taught was not play fair in a real fight to the death. Read the book on this part. Though it is a small part of the story it is informative.

Why do I find this information interesting? It is because when I look back I ask myself if I were to teach all over again would I still teach the way I did? And that is one of the reasons why I came up with the latest training that revolves around simple training sequences, basically how training core principles lead to understanding a bigger picture which when expanded can become a systematic art that is made up of drills, forms and other things. However, this time I would put aside the forms because ultimately the forms are but a means of learning.

Hold out your right arm the way I mentioned in the post “The Willow Branch Response”.

Your training partner will use his right hand to push your arm to one of the following positions at random :-

a) Push your right arm directly back
b) Push your right arm to your left
c) Push your right arm to your right
d) Push your right arm down
e) Push your right arm up

Respond to his push. Redirect or neutralize his push, then respond with 5-6 follow up attacks from 6-Blks, 6-LH, 3-WS or 3-NS. Don’t worry about whether the attacks make sense. This is only to test to see if you can flow.

Do the exercise under the following scenarios :-

a) Training partner uses his right hand to push your right arm
b) Training partner uses his left hand to push your right arm
c) Training partner uses either his right or left hand at random to push your right arm

You can also do the same test for your left arm.

Once you are familiar with how the hand, wrist and arm moves in 6-LH you can move on to incorporating the use of Swallow, Spit, Float, Sink to add power in your strikes.

To begin with you can just work on the first two movements, namely :-

i) 6-LH-1
ii) 6-LH-2
iii) 6-LH-1

You learn to quickly swallow and spit 6-LH-1 to impart power to the strike.

Then you quickly sink to make 6-LH-2 a really forceful block. Use your stance also to assist the gravitational drop.

As soon as 6-LH-2 is completed, quickly shoot 6-LH-1 out again using swallow, spit.

After you have gained some familiarity you can try with the first three sequences instead.

Later apply Swallow, Spit, Float, Sink to the following :-

a) 6-LH-1 – swallow, spit
b) 6-LH-2 – sink, float in preparation for (c)
c) 6-LH-3 – swallow, spit
d) 6-LH-4 – sink, float in preparation for (e)
e) 6-LH-5 – swallow, spit

At another stage we can apply the GM Wei’s Tai Chi principle of bend elbow, body comes near; straighten elbow, body moves apart.

Finally, to practice Swallow, Spit, Float, Sink more let’s practice a 10-movement sequence culled from the existing sequences. Let’s call this 10-FajingGalore.

1) 6-LH-1 – swallow, spit
2) 6-LH-2 – sink, float in preparation for (3)
3) 6-LH-3 – swallow, spit
4) 6-LH-4 – sink, float in preparation for (5)
5) 6-LH-5 – swallow, spit
6) 6-LH-6 – sink, float in preparation for (7)
7) 3-WS-4 – swallow, spit
8) 3-WS-5 – float
9) 3-WS-1 – sink
10) 3-WS-2 – swallow, spit

Work through it slowly. Later when you pick up speed you will notice that the 10 movements are like a roller-coaster ride.

Touch your right palm to your heart. Then take your heart and offer it to your training partner. Your hand is positioned higher than your elbow.

Your training partner offers you various responses such as :-

a) He pushes your offered right hand back to your chest

b) He pushes your right hand to your left side

c) He pushes your right hand to your right side

d) He pushes your right hand up to your face

e) He pushes your right hand down

How did you respond to this pressure test?

Did you stiffen on receiving the pressure exerted by your training partner’s push?

Or did you automatically and naturally bend like the willow branch with the pressure and then snaps back an appropriate response?

If you play the single hand exercises of 6-Blocks, 6-LH, 3-WS and 3-NS a lot your hand will respond like the willow branch.

Oh, did you notice anything about the pressure tests? It is basically mapping out the movement route of the 6-LH.

If your hand is still stiffening put yourself on the movement diet below :-

1) Use zigzag stepping.
2) Right foot step diagonal
3) Perform single right hand 6-Blks, 6-LH, 3-WS and 3-NS
4) Next left foot steps diagonally
5) Now perform the single left hand 6-Blks, 6-LH, 3-WS and 3-NS
6) Keep stepping forward, keep practicing
7) You can also take a step back and do the single hand exercises

Bored with the same old sequence? Try practicing with Version 2 of 6-Blks, 6-LH and 3-WS.

To train your hand to move even better, play Version 1 and Version 2 of 6-Blks, 6-LH and 3-WS one after another.

Or simply reorder the sequences. Try starting with 6-LH Version 1, then 6-Blks Version 2, etc.

With enough practice your hand will respond like the willow branch.

Next step, try playing single contact hands using 6-Blks, 6-LH, 3-WS and 3-NS.

So now you know 6-Blocks, right?

The sequence as it stands is (let’s call this Version 1) :-
6-Blks-1
6-Blks-2
6-Blks-3
6-Blks-4
6-Blks-5
6-Blks-6

Now try practicing it in an reordered sequence (Version 2) :-
6-Blks-1
6-Blks-6
6-Blks-5
6-Blks-3
6-Blks-2
6-Blks-4

If you are really familiar with Version 1 you should be able to pick up Version 2 within half an hour.

Go through it a few more times and in the next hour you should be able to do it easily.

By night you should be able to do Version 1 followed by Version 2 without hesitating.

By end of the week you should be able to move faster without missing a beat.

The whole point here is not to actually learn a new sequence but to teach your mind to break out of a fixed sequence.

For example, Version 2 could very well look like the sequence below (we will call this Version 3) :-
6-Blks-3
6-Blks-6
6-Blks-1
6-Blks-2
6-Blks-4
6-Blks-5

After a while you will find that during application of technique you can move to any of the other 5 blocks from whichever block you are in. At this point, you can say that you have gained competency in the 6-Blocks.

Later, when you add on the other hand to do a two-handed version of 6-Blocks this will become clearer.

The first step to competency begins with the first repetition.

Some folks like to keep count of the number of repetitions. I prefer to just practice whenever and wherever I find the opportunity.

The more you practice, the more familiar you are with the technique.

The more familiar you are with the technique, the easier it is for you to refine it.

Familiarity is not just a function of theoretical understanding, it is a function of the feel.

Certain things you can only feel with the passage of time. If you don’t begin today, you will never get anywhere, never feel much beyond the surface level.

Practice is simple. Just. Do. It.