Traditionally it was taught in Wing Chun that we ought to lock out the elbow when striking. This was all well and good for those trained slowly from childhood by a master. However, I’ve seen some spectacular, literally crippling results from this practice! Hyperextending the elbow joint – especially if you relax – smashes the epiphysis, the rounded end of a long bone, like the upper arm, at its joint with adjacent bone(s), the elbow and forearm bones. Repeated practice of hyperextension, whether with kicks or arm strikes, damages the epiphyseal plate (growth plate) and the articular cartilage. This is one aspect of tradition that, in the light of modern medical science needs to be dumped in the garbage can! Whilst we have to respect tradition, that tradition has to be tested in the fires of scientific analysis and current knowledge!
Following seeing former junior fellow trainees (permanently and irreversibly) damage their joints, I asked the opinions of sports physicians and physiotherapists. All winced when I demonstrated what had formerly been advocated. They all agreed that hyperextension inevitably damages the joints, often in a remarkably short span of time. Some time ago, I remember helping one teacher teach his students. He advocated the “lock out”. I was somewhat reluctant to contradict him - as it was his class. (The amazing thing was that he was qualified in a para-medical area and ought have known better!). His students knew I was a senior martial artist – even though I dramatically played down my knowledge and skill so as not to reflect on the teacher. He was fairly apprehensive concerning the knowledge and skills of others, it seemed. I quietly and respectfully privately informed the two students (who were to subsequently significantly damage their elbows) that they would be best served by maintaining a very slight bend in the elbow. The result? They ignored my advice and persevered with the teaching of their Chinese teacher. No gwailo could possibly know better than a Chinese sifu, see? The final result, however, was that I was vindicated. They both developed such severe elbow damage in a very short time that, as young men, they had to give up all martial arts. One was very keen and a nice fellow but not too intelligent and was too guillible to see the wisdom of what I proposed. The other was quite lazy and not as praise-worthy in character, I’m afraid. Still, it was a shame that their closed-mindedness resulted in them suffering permanent injury and excluding them forever from learning Wing Chun – or any martial art.
There is actually a precedent in what I had worked out in the kuen kuit. We say: “Jahng Dae Lik”, which translates as “Elbow down power”. If you point your elbow to the ground as you strike, as we do in Yun Hoi Yuen Kay San Wing Chun, you not only better protect your centre-line (given you align your elbow correctly on the centre-line) but you also have your elbow necessarily slightly bent. This protects your elbow from hyper-extension. It also preserves your shoulder joint! The shoulder is a very unstable joint. If you are practising on the wall bag or dummy and striking things with a straight arm then you are progressively also damaging your shoulder joint. This is because it is receiving all the force directly back through it and out to your rear. It has no structural support from the torso, hip and stance. You can permanently damage not only your elbow but also your relatively weak rotator cuff by striking thing with your arm locked out. The kuen kuit, jahng dae lik, was recorded and passed down for a reason. And this is it: you protect your centreline, elbow and shoulder joints if your elbow faces the ground and is centre-lined. Of course you must sink your stance and root it correctly too, in order to link the body into your strikes.