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The Wing Chun Motor Homunculus

In looking at the Wing Chun Sensory Homunculus we touched on its role in the awareness of the motor function employed within the body, controlled by the brain to create the ‘whole body’ structure through the correct alignment of the limbs, torso, neck, and head.  We can now explore in more detail the specific differences in the Wing Chun Homunculus over and above the standard mappings. 

The Motor Homunculus represents a map of brain areas dedicated to motor processing for different anatomical divisions of the body.

Within this mapping, the size of the brain region associated with a body part reflects the complexity of the activities carried out with that part of the body rather than its actual size.  

The hands and mouth are noticeably large because of the intricate motions required in your tongue for language, and the fine control within the fingers for manipulating objects.  The data sent from your tongue and fingers are much more detailed than those of your foot or arm, so they take up more space in your cortex accordingly.  This is reflected visually in the Motor Cortex Homunculus model.

As the student seeks to master the Wing Chun techniques and forms, they must develop advanced motor skills in order to accomplish the refined, skilful movements and applications.    In doing so the mappings in the motor cortex are modified.  The purpose of this article is to help the developing student understand what are complex internal changes through a highly visual comparison of the original Homunculus figure (representing how the body is used in everyday application) versus the revised Wing Chun Homunculus figure (representing the control of the body in the application of Wing Chun by an advanced practitioner).  

In the diagram below we see a 3-D representation of the Wing Chun Motor Homunculus showing front, back and side views.

As with the Wing Chun Sensory Homunculus, this model was created with the sexual organs specifically absent, as this is an area not specifically developed within Wing Chun.

What is immediately noticeable is this ‘grotesque character’ looks quite different from the Monkey-Poodle character of the Wing Chun Sensory Homunculus.   It also looks significantly different from the original Motor Homunculus model.  The hands are much smaller, the lips and tongue are much smaller, and the ears are absent.  Instead of the ‘puffy’ 6 joints, the key muscles are now represented.  

Hands / Forearms

The biggest transition for the developing student in Wing Chun is in “taking the fight out of the hands” and instead learning to use a grounded, whole body approach.  Specifically, this means taking the tension out of the fists, forearms, and shoulders.  In the Wing Chun Motor Homunculus, the lighting effects highlight the forearm mapping.

It is important to reiterate that this ‘Popeye’ arm (bulging forearm muscles) does not represent an increase of muscle mass, rather it is how the brain sees itself – and more specifically, the brain’s cortex mappings dedicated to this area.    As such, the large size of the hands in the original Motor Homunculus have been reduced and the forearms instead increased.

It is important to understand that the function of the hands is not diminished in this diagram, rather the advanced Wing Chun practitioner comes to understand that the control of the wrist and the hand originates mostly from muscles in the forearm which then cause movement in the hand through corresponding ligaments.  As such, when completing movement on the hand the advanced Wing Chun practitioner is actively relaxing the hand and allowing the Extensor muscles, for example, in the forearm to allow the hand to flow into the required shape without a conscious focus on the hand itself.

The above diagram demonstrates that the hand contains mainly ligaments, and that control of the fingers results from the muscles in the forearm.    The beginner student to Wing Chun tends to clench their fist and forearm muscles making the arm feel more like an iron bar.  The mental focus is very much within the hand itself.   In taking the focus out of the hand into the forearm, the advanced student is able to relax the hand and forearm, allowing these to swing like a battering ram from the shoulder, united with the rest of the body structure so it extends with a whipping action, with the hand more like a lead ball and the forearm like a chain.

The mapping represented by the increased size of the forearm also results from the Wing Chun refined use of the Brachioradialis muscle (shown also above).   This muscle usage relates to the key principle of Fong song, which translates roughly as “Relaxed extending arm”.  Rather than manually placing the arm in the different technique positions, the advanced Wing Chun practitioner learns to flow through the movements, using the forwarding to seamlessly transition between positions.  This means rather than using the shoulder muscles (Deltoids) to support the weight of the arm and leading from the hand to place the limb into position, the advanced Wing Chun Practitioner extends the arm using muscles in the upper arm and back.

Rather than starting with Tseung Kiu Ma – (the elbow position maintained at a fist distance from the body), which often the beginning student will simply place into this position, it is better than we understand how this position is achieved through the correct motion of the arm as it transition from the Chamber position out into the extended positions (such as Tann Sau, for example).

The relaxed, extension of the hand / arm is made possible from the correct application of relaxed structure in the wrist and forearm, which involves three elements – isolation, stabilisation and alignment.  This in turn is made possible only by having the correct isolation in the shoulder and alignment in the upper and lower body, and whole-body unison of these parts.  This is covered in detail within the article, The Importance of Isolation, Stabilising and Alignment in the Wrist and Forearm muscles in Wing Chun.

Having a deeper anatomical understanding allows the advanced Wing Chun practitioner to “switch off” the hand.  The hand positions transitioning through the forms occur naturally rather than being physically held in place, as with the beginning student.  The significantly smaller hand represents how much less focus the hand now has in the reprogrammed Wing Chun brain – with the focus instead moving to the fine controlled motor function of the forearm muscles.

Elbow, Upper Arm and Back

Being able to extend the arm out in a relaxed fashion for the advanced Wing Chun Practitioner involves using the Brachioradialis muscles in the forearm along with the Tricep muscle in the upper-arm, along with the Teres major and Latissimus Dorsi muscles in the lower and mid-back.  These are highlighted through the lighting effects on the Motor Homunculus below.

This relaxed forwarding is then achieved through the use of these muscles working together, as shown in the diagram below.

The anatomical relationship and action of motion between these muscles is covered in depth in the article Relaxation versus Structure Dilemma – Article 2.

The concept of Jang Die Lik, translated roughly from Cantonese as “elbow under strength”, helps us understand how this awareness of the internal anatomical structure and physiology gives the developing student a tangible path to developing this skill.

Jang Die Lik is often associated with ‘elbow power’, which is one of the many seeming secret powers of Wing Chun that transfix, but generally evade, the developing student.   There are no secret powers in Wing Chun, just ways of utilising the body that do actually seem to offer super-human strength.  There is no magic to these, the key is just in understanding how to reprogram the brain and body to use it in a more efficient and effective way. 

The physiology behind this structural position and movement concerns itself with both stabilising and sinking the elbow.   The correct structure in the back (Ting Yui) and shoulders (Ting Bok), along with the shoulders being relaxed and isolated (Lok Bok) allow the arms to hand under the natural weight of gravity.  This is represented in the Motor Homunculus below.

Here we see the shoulders are much smaller than in the Sensory Homunculus.  This is because the level of awareness from a sensory perspective in the relaxation of the shoulders and in ensuring the correct alignment and structure across the shoulders and upper back means that the use of the shoulder muscles themselves are actively reduced in the advanced Wing Chun practitioner.

However, the upper arms are larger than in the original Homunculus in recognition of the use of the Tricep in extending the arm forwards. The Bicep, shown in the Motor Homunculus below, is also involved in maintaining the closed angle of the elbow in the Kop Jarn technique – translated roughly as downward elbow – within the Biu Jee form.

When the arm is extended in a relaxed way through the use of correct muscles the elbow develops a gestalt power as a result of the relaxed structure – meaning that it is able to achieve something that goes above the sum of its individual parts. 

This is something that the developing student attempts to artificially recreate through muscle tension, holding the elbow in a ‘fixed’ but rigid position that completely immobilises the arm, removing the whole-body unity and forwarding intent, and gives the opponent the ability to feel and control the tense arm.  

The mental focus to make all of this work happen is in the elbow itself.  In the Wing Chun Sensory Homunculus, it means that the elbow (joint) receives a much larger representation in terms of the cortical mapping.  However, with the advanced Wing Chun practitioner having developed highly controlled and coordinated action of the muscles involved in the relaxed action of the arm moving forwards it is these which get the increased representation and why the elbow itself is normal size in the Wing Chun Motor Homunculus. 

It is through the deliberate, slow focus of extending and retracting the arm in the Siu Lim Tao form that allows the reprogramming of the brain and the development of increased motor skill coordination across these muscles.  This reprogramming is lost if the developing student extends and retracts their arms without this focused action. 

Back and Neck

The use of muscles in the back and neck are key to maintaining upper-body structure.   The key areas involved in straightening the spine, opening out the chest and tilting the pelvis shown on the diagram below.

These are represented through the lighting effects on the Motor Homunculus below.  

In the figure above the Wing Chun Homunculus appears to have an almost lizard-like spine.  This does not reflect the bones of the spine, however – rather than muscles that extend from the waist up the spine into the neck and back of the head.

The concept of Tie Seung San – translated roughly as uplifting upper body – is comprised from these individual structural elements – specifically, Dung Tao, Ting Bok, Ting Yiu and Tei Gong.  Through the refined control and refinement of these muscles the advanced Wing Chun practitioner achieves the correct relaxed, tetrahedral upper-body structure.

Shoulders

Ting Bok is critical in allowing the shoulder to be isolated from the main torso.  This is a necessary precondition for Lok Bok – translated roughly as ‘dropping shoulder’.  The other element is relaxation of the shoulder.   Specifically, this action requires the beginning student to stop using the Levator Scapulae muscles (used to shrug the shoulders) along with stop locking the shoulder and back together using the large, external Trapezius muscle.  As a result, the shoulders are relatively small in terms of representation on the Wing Chun Motor Homunculus.  Actually, the shoulders (Deltoid muscles) are used much more extensively by the beginner student who uses these in the punching action and holding the arm out in the positional placement of individual techniques.  As such, this should have greater representation on the original Motor Homunculus.

This action of the isolated shoulder with the forwarding of the arm allows for Tseung Kiu Ma – where the elbow position is maintained (roughly a fist distance from the body).

Pelvis

A key part of the Yee Chi Kim Yeung Ma (basic) stance is the tilting of the pelvis whilst sinking.  This is part of the principle of Tei Gong – roughly translated as ‘to make solid’.    Having ‘made solid’ the centre of gravity, the pelvis then becomes a stable platform grounded through the stability of the legs from which the upper body structure can then be constructed upon. 

A key part of being able to use this structure to defeat a larger opponent is to move beyond using individual limbs, or smaller isolated muscles, to instead using the whole body – using everything together to generate a gestalt force.  A critical part of this is uniting the lower body triangular pyramid structure with the upper body triangular pyramid structure.  This is achieved through the pelvis – the intersecting point where the two structures meet in the centre of the body.

This ability is made possible by the Psoas muscles.  The Psoas is the deepest muscle of the human body affecting our structural balance, muscular integrity, flexibility, strength, range of motion, and joint mobility.   The Psoas is the only ‘muscle’ to connect the spine to the legs.  This major core-stabilizing muscle acts like a suspension bridge between the legs and trunk.

In the Wing Chun Motor Homunculus model this muscle is visibly prominent, as the advanced Wing Chun practitioner learns fine motor control of this muscle not only in the rotation of the pelvis, but in the ‘biting point’ balance between ‘sinking’ (allowing the relaxed weight of the body to sink into the structure) and ‘springing’ (using slight muscle application or ‘forwarding’ to project from the ground up through the structure out through the arms and into the opponent).

Legs

A key part of the transformation from ‘beginner’ to ‘master’ is learning to switch off unnecessary muscle use.  The transition from a normal standing stance to the Wing Chun stance with the feet and knees angled in to form a triangular base structure also means that the developing student must use muscles in different ways.  This is particularly evident in the necessary transition from how a beginner student attempts to stand in Yee Chi Kim Yeung Ma (basic) stance compared with the advanced practitioner.  This is reflected in the larger upper leg muscles of the Wing Chun Motor Homunculus compared with the normal Motor Homunculus.

In Wing Chun this relates to the principle of Kim Sut – roughly translated as ‘knees in’.  The primary purpose of keeping the knees in here is simply to make sure that they are aligned along the correct structural lines, so that the weight of gravity does not cause the rest of the structure above to cause it to wobble and call upon other muscles to stabilise it.

A key mistake of the beginner student is to artificially hold the knees in.  The Hamstring muscles tense up to try and hold the weight of the body, as they are accustomed to in the normal standing position.   The entire upper-body weight now bears down into the knees, which will cause short-term pain and long-term damage is not corrected. 

The weight of the body is also loaded into the Adductor muscles, causing them to tense up in trying to support the weight of the upper body pressing down under the force of gravity.  Additionally, the muscles in the bottom – Gluteus Maximus and Gluteus Minimus are held with muscle tension because the new student is using these to forcibly rotate the pelvis and hold this thrust forward.

The advanced practitioner uses the legs muscles differently – when the whole leg is rotated through the ‘opening’ (legs are opened so the feet and knees point outwards) and then ‘closing’ (the legs are rotated again so that the feet and knees point inwards at 45%) of the stance the suspension action of the body remains in the Hamstrings and the Quadriceps (which become the springs) and the Adductor muscles become the hydraulic piston that stabilises the vertical force of the weight of gravity and allows the whole structure to rise and fall up the vertical Centreline ‘pole’.

The action of sinking and raising the body through relaxed structure in the legs takes a long time to develop.  Having developed this statically in the form, the advancing student must then learn to translate incoming force from an opponent’s attack and translate ‘forwarding’ from their strike into the opponent.  This requires subtle control of the Adductor / Abductor and Hamstring / Quadricep muscles pairs to control this energy.

Feet

The feet are marginally larger in the Wing Chun Motor Homunculus is comparison to the normal Motor Homunculus as these are used with greater control to provide balance and manage incoming and outgoing forces.

The feet provide the connection of the structure to the ground.  There is a saying in Cantonese –  ‘Ging Chong Gwut Gun Faat, Lik Chong Gerk Jang Sheng’ – which translates roughly as ‘Power comes from bones and tendons, strength originates from the heels’.  This is the recognition that the feet and ankles are the foundation or base on which the entirety of the structure rests upon or, more specifically, built up from.   The ankles are one of the 6 major joints of the body involved in giving structure to the Wing Chun stance along with the knees, hips, shoulders, elbows, and wrists.

A key part of maintaining balance the entire structure through the feet requires a slight gripping action in the toes.   Just as in the hands and flexion of the fingers (creating a fist) the beginning student will typically over egg the pudding, using a lot of muscle tension from the larger muscles in the forearm and locking out the hand and wrist like a tense iron-bar.  Tension is added into the forearms when the hands are opened from the fist position where this uses the superficial Extensor Digitorum muscle.  Instead, using the deeper Extensor Pollicis muscles allows the hands to open from ‘within’ with a feeling that the fingers are like petals that are gently opening like an unfolding flower.

The same is true in the toes and feet, where it is easy to initially use the larger Flexor Digitorum Longus muscle of the lower leg which is involved in the action of curling the toes, but through its action the result of more a ‘clench’ of the toes whereby the muscles are tensed.  This has the tendency of locking the foot and lower leg together, again like an iron bar which immediately strips out the relaxed structure from the whole body and allows the student to easily be toppled off balance.  When applying this muscle, because of how it connects to the toes, you get a feeling more of curling the toes from the top part of the foot creating a claw from the outside.

When using the Flexor Digitorum Brevis, however, this has the same feeling as if the toes are curling gently inwards like petals of a flower closing.   Again, because of the different point the tendons connect to the toe bones, this feels instead like the energy is coming from within the foot, or from the underside.  And, because this muscle is entirely within the foot itself this avoids any binding of the foot and the lower leg together, allowing the ankle joint to make the necessary balance adjustments to maintain stability.

We see from the above diagram that the Flexor Digitorum Brevis is only involved in the central toes, whilst the Flexor Hallucis and Flexor Digiti Quinti Brevis are responsible for the same action of flexion in the large and small toes separately.  I have found the best results of using the Flexor Digitorum Brevis alone to act like a suction cup securing the central part of the foot to the ground whilst using the other Flexor muscles in the side-to-side stabilisation of the foot – for example, like keeping a boat steady in the water by gently rocking it one way or the other.

Stability of the structure is key within Wing Chun, so you may wonder why the feet are not represented to a larger extent, both in the original Homunculus and the Wing Chun Homunculus.  This is actually a good question, because although we do not have the same fine controlled movement of the toes as we do with the fingers, for manipulating objects the muscles of the feet are continually making fine adjustments to correct our posture as we walk, stand or otherwise change our weight and balance position.   As such, I would personally expect a larger representation in the original homunculus. 

As Wing Chun practitioners we are much more mindfully aware of out centre of gravity, balance and the origin and control of this through the feet.  This is why the feet do have a larger representation in the Wing Chun Sensory Homunculus.   However, just as the fine controlled movement of the hand  is actually driven through muscles in the forearm, the same is true for the foot – which is why the lower leg in the Wing Chun Homunculus is larger.

The fine control of the foot, and the detail of muscles involved is outside the scope of this article.  Importantly, these muscles are commonly used for stability and, apart from the above specific use of the Flexors, the advanced Wing Chun Practitioner does not use these in any new way – they simply make effectively use of these incredibly important and active muscles.

Final Note

When the beginning student first steps into the class and observes the Sifu demonstrating forms or techniques and then attempts to mimic their actions, it is no great surprise that they do not have the slightest inclination of the physical and mental reprogramming journey that has taken place to enable this mastery of Wing Chun to happen. 

From the outside alone they can appreciate the relaxed, effortless, speed, accuracy, and power but it will take many years of their own Wing Chun journey to begin to understand and then apply this internal learning to develop their own abilities in this way. 

Having gone through this process, as an advanced Wing Chun practitioner you will come to ‘see’ yourself in the same way that the Wing Chun Homunculus visually represents these changes.   Hopefully, through the creation of the Wing Chun Sensory and Motor Homunculus figures and supporting guidance material, this will give the developing student a sense of the changes that are required for them to go through, a guiding light that will help them navigate what is a long and difficult path.  In doing so, helping them in some small part to achieve their own metamorphosis in becoming a Master of Wing Chun Kung Fu.

Copyright @ Craig Sands