There is a Wing Chun kuen kuit which says: “ yee ching jai dong”, this translates to: “use stillness to overcome movement”. This would seem quite nonsensical to the person uninitiated into Wing Chun. Perhaps it even seems nonsensical to Wing Chun students! Once it is explained what “stillness” means and once you see genuine Wing Chun in realworld combat application you understand the meaning of this kuen kuit.
Some kuen kuit seem relatively straightforward. Some of them are, but some of them aren’t! Some that are being passed around are sheer nonsense (“wrong bong, kick” in the Hong Kong group is a classic example). Others, like “ yee ching jai dong”, are more cryptic and require a knowledgeable sifu to unpack their meaning for you. Let’s unpack this one, then.
First it probably needs to be said that “stillness” applies both to body and mind. Your mind has to be what is referred to as “immovable” and “unattached” for there to be stillness. “Immovable” refers to your mind not being able to be distracted from its calm, alert preparedness, poised to respond appropriately to whatever attack is launched at you. This refers to the mind not being distracted even for an instant. “Unattached” refers to the mind not becoming caught up in a stream of consciousness where you may be apprehensive, conjecturing, or imagining what is happening, what might happen, or what might have just happened. “Immovable” also refers to your resolve. You just have an unshakeable resolve to defeat your attacker instantly. You must not entertain doubts or fears but must strike him down on the spot in an eye blink. This is stillness of the mind.
Whilst the mind is still, it is not frozen or unaware of what is occurring around you. It’s alert, relaxed, poised. The capacity to have your mind under your control in combat and not under the opponent’s is achieved in part through meditation training - both seated, standing, and moving. It entails training yourself in chan and noi gung. This stillness in training is also what is referred to in this kuen kuit. You train in stillness to acquire the abilities in motion to defeat attackers - this is one interpretation of the kuen kuit. Overcoming motion with stillness is also achieved by appropriate san sau drills which are comprehensively representative of the limited range of attack possibilities (due to the structural determinism of the human body) which you could face in realworld combat and utilizing all the Wing Chun techniques and concepts in application.
Secondly, it needs to be said that bodily speaking the “stillness” mentioned is not the same as physically “immovable” or “motionless”. It does not mean you stand there like a statue. It does mean you don’t hop around or dance like you’re barefoot on hot concrete. It does mean you don’t wave your arms around like some pseudo martial arts movie star, screaming or howling like a demented cat. I doesn’t mean you go into some dopey slo-mo series of very poor movement. Leave that nonsense aside - it has nothing to do with any martial art - it’s Hollywood fu or TV fu!
This “stillness” of which the kuen kuit speaks also and principally means that you have comprehensively learnt several essential and defining features of the Wing Chun art. It means that you’ve learnt to control your mind, centreline, centre of gravity, relaxation, alignment, body unity, and structures and all of these aspects of your opponent. It means especially that you’ve learnt to apply gate theory, stepping, angling and line. It means you’ve mastered structural, relative, and your maximum speed. It especially means that you’ve mastered the use of juen ma. It’s in relative not absolute “stillness” that you defeat your opponent’s movement.
Third, this kuen kuit is commonly completely misunderstood by those who interpret it to mean a martial artist standing zombie-like or Frankenstein-like in front of an attacker locked in a usually lifeless and incorrect version of what they think is yee jee kim yeung ma, locked into place as if glued to the ground. It doesn’t simply mean you have to stand immobile in place.
Seeing genuine Wing Chun in application might have the observer wondering how such agile mobility in swift footwork stepping could be reconciled with this kuen kuit. (This would be opposed either to the static front-facing, immobile versions of Wing Chun or to those that dance around with invented or borrowed stances losing the essential defining characteristics of the yee jee kim yeung ma - kim sut and chum).
There can be two responses to this wondering. One is that the situation can determine the amount of movement required. In some instances an observer will see a single swift hand movement from the Wing Chun person and the attacker will fall. In other situations the observer will see the Wing Chun person step rapidly around the attacker as they defeat him with a rapid sequence of moves. Another response is that the mind is still even in physical motion. This aspect of applying the kuen kuit is more paradoxical. Physical motion is relative to other referents and not absolute. Think on this kuen kuit.