To understand what happens in WingTsun it is best to take a look at two typical WT beginners. One of them has an athletic, robust build. He has perhaps done some strength training or bodybuilding. He looks strong and has good muscle tone. He is the typical case of a student who first has to be educated in the ways of what we call softness by our WingTsun training. He has plenty of power, but has considerable problems with Chi-Sao because of constant tension. He is stiff and cannot give way. The more sparely-built, dainty student is the exact opposite. He has only little physical strength, but is extraordinarily flexible as a result of his lower muscle tone. Achieving softness in Chi-Sao is not his problem. What he lacks is forward pressure and striking power.

What are the characteristics of the power we are looking for in WingTsun? We need muscular flexibility to give way to a much stronger opponent, but at the same time we want to develop maximum power. Accordingly the WingTsun student trains in such a way that he minimises the two negative muscle characteristics of tension and weakness, while maximising the two positive characteristics of power and flexibility.
In this respect we cannot say that either of these typical beginner groups is disadvantaged in WingTsun. The group of strong but overly tense students must train away their muscular inflexibility, and often these students have great difficulty in adopting certain positions at all. They take a considerable time to manage the first strength principle – free yourself from your own strength. Chi-Sao is twice as hard for them, as they have to build up muscle tension in order to reach the exact positions at all, and at the same time they are supposed to react flexibly to the pressure of their training partner as well.

The group of weaker but soft students does not have all these problems. Instead these students often experience considerable frustration during the early stages of their WingTsun when they train with representatives of the other group, as they do not yet have the technical and tactile skills to make them realise that they do not have to match the strength of their training partner. We must not forget that where technical skill is the same, superior strength wins. Strength only loses its importance if superior WingTsun techniques can be used, i.e. usually against non-WingTsun people. This does not usually occur during training, however, as students who are at roughly the same level of skill normally train together.

Ideally students from these two groups should train together, so that each one can feel and assimilate the respective positive characteristics of the other during Chi-Sao.

During WingTsun training, the typical WingTsun power is therefore a synthesis created by combining the positive characteristics of the two extremes.