Interviewer:
Sifu, what are the requirements for Yee Jee Kim Yeung Ma?
Sifu Zopa:
Well, Yee Jee Kim Yeung Ma is a very unique stance. Its requirements are very specific. Most people think they know what they’re doing but perform it incorrectly if we adhere to the traditional requirements. There are indeed similar stances in some other arts but I don’t think that they require all the essential features of Yee Jee Kim Yeung Ma as in genuine Wing Chun. First let me say that the Eiffel Tower type of stance with a high knees wide apart lazy pose which you unfortunately so often see in Wing Chun books or magazine articles is a travesty and not the correct Yee Jee Kim Yeung Ma despite many people doing it and teaching it. It’s simply incorrect - and can be dangerous in real world combat.
In Yee Jee Kim Yeung Ma you must relax the chest and shoulders. This is referred to as “sinking”, because this type of relaxation allows the bodily structures to sink down under the weight of gravity. You don’t hunch or deliberately try to draw in the chest. It is totally incorrect to tense or push out the chest. The “how sung” we use when we refer to sinking the chest is not a deliberate hollowing as in some other arts. It has to be natural. If you relax properly it will be correct. You must also straighten the back and neck. This is not achieved by any tension but is also relaxation. If you relax the back and shoulder and neck muscles whilst retaining a straight spine then you ought to be OK. You need to ensure your forehead is not dropped forward or your chin jutting out. Both of these head moves will bend the neck incorrectly. At the tail end of the spine (so to speak - laughs) you have to tuck in the tail bone. This is achieved by tilting the pelvis slightly forward. Not a lot just a little - until you feel the lower back is flat and straight. The feeling is as if you are being pulled up by strings attached to your crown and pulled down by a weight attached to your backside. There must be a vertical line down your spine - or as some people like to emphasise - from the point between the eyes, down through the heart, through the middle of the body behind the waist to the perineum. This, without going into specifics is the way it is described in noi gung training.
It is essential then to point the knees and toes inward so if a line were projected forward from each foot they would intersect about where your knees would touch the ground if you kneel forward when you are in Yee Jee Kim Yeung Ma. Of course there’s some variation in this depending on the relative lengths of the leg bones but it’s a good rough guide. You must be able to draw a triangle between your heels at the base, through your feet, to meet at an apex in front of your knees on your centreline plane. Your knees simply must sink forward and down until a fist space apart. This is “kim sut” and is an essential feature of the original Wing Chun. Anything less is a departure through laziness or some sort of erroneous ego process. No kim sut, no Yee Jee Kim Yeung Ma - it’s just as simple as that! People not doing kim sut are doing some other sort of stance. The elbows (whether in front of the body or as the forearms lightly touch the ribs by the sides for basic training ), the shoulders, and the waist all need to relax and sink down.
The stance, waist, torso and arms feel like they are one and can easily move together when you are in a good Yee Jee Kim Yeung Ma. You have to relax your mind, free of distractions, but also keep alert with respect to being able to perceive motion in any of the gates through which attacks could enter. Your eyes are kept level but not focused on anything. You look straight ahead as if looking at a distant mountain to see all directions. Don’t allow doubt or fear to enter your mind. Yee Jee Kim Yeung Ma is the mother to other stances. There are other stances in the pole form and one of the sup yee sik has a transitional move which departs from the Yee Jee Kim Yeung Ma requirements as does another which has one stance which ends in a terminal position which is not directly related to Yee Jee Kim Yeung Ma (but can transit into it by simply moving the foot position and weight) but all the other Wing Chun stances retain these features - juen ma, bik ma, hau ma, huen ma. Everything is really Yee Jee Kim Yeung Ma.