Immovable Elbow Theory

It is important when assuming the bi-jong that the elbow of your lead arm remain immovable. With your elbow in a fixed position approximately three inches in front of your body, you’ll note that your hand and forearm are free to move in any direction. If you envision a rectangle that has been stood on it’s end, with it’s bottom boundary being your groin area, it’s top boundary being your eyebrows, and it’s remaining two sides being each of your respective shoulders, you will understand the parameters of movement – up and down and sideways – that your arms can travel. Further imagine that there is an invisible perpendicular line that intersects your elbow. If your lead arm is pressed, hold to the core or centerline. Do not give it up, even it if means your entire body must move, and never allow your elbows to dip below your navel.

In gung fu, the immovable elbow is called but doan jiang and is one of the cornerstones of the Wing Chun system. In theory, it is likened to a hurricane of which the eye is always still, but it’s periphery is tremendously forceful and constantly moving. In other words, the motionless center of vortices appears in manifestation as motion, which increases in velocity in the manner of a whirlpool or tornado (whose epicenter is still) from nucleus to periphery. The nucleus is in reality, whereas the vortex is a phenomenon in the form of a multidimensional force field.

Concentrate your energy at the immovable instead of dispersing in scattered activities. In other words, hold to the core.

Excerpted from Commentaries on the Martial way by Bruce Lee


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