Luk Dim Boon Kwun

Quick Facts

About the kata

Luk Dim Boon Kwun is a Wing Chun form with a long pole. Per kwokwingchun.com it is usually learned first among the weapon forms; Kaplan Wing Chun requires solid mastery of the three empty-hand forms and the wooden-dummy form first, and says it cannot really be practiced without a partner. It is easier to learn than the knife form, which has over a hundred techniques: here six techniques are simply repeated in different directions. The practitioner holds the pole throughout by its thicker lower end only, never spinning it or changing grip. Most of the form is done in the traditional horse stance. Kaplan Wing Chun notes the basic yee jee kim yeung ma stance is not used here, replaced by say ping ma and the T-shaped ding ma. eWingChun describes a short pole stance, kwan ma, guarding the legs' inner side, and a narrow grip protecting the hands. The form builds leg and arm strength: a pole about nine feet long is, per kwokwingchun.com, hard just to hold level. eWingChun stresses forearm and wrist strength, which also aids empty-hand strikes. The pole magnifies errors too: a centimeter off the centerline is barely visible at the hands but clear at the pole's tip.

Meaning of the name

The characters 六點半棍 (Cantonese, Yale romanization Luhk Dím Bun Gwan) are translated by the English Wikipedia as "pole of six and a half points". Where that half comes from, sources explain in two ways. According to Wikipedia, some branches work with seven principles, tai, lan, dim, kit, got, wan and lau — to uproot, to extend, to shake, to deflect, to chop downward, to circle and to flow — and the last of them, lau, counts as only half a point. The rules of Wing Chun Kuen Kuit, as quoted by kwokwingchun.com according to Yip Man and Moy Yat, speak of six and a half techniques, of which the half is a fast downward movement from the chest; the same site elsewhere describes it as dropping the pole. Some lineages simply call the form the long pole or the dragon pole.

Creator and history

The English Wikipedia links the pole's arrival in Wing Chun to two men. Wong Wah-bo made his living as a singer with the Red Boats opera troupe, and Leung Yee-tai taught him the six-and-a-half-point pole in exchange for the empty-hand art of Wing Chun. Wong then, per Wikipedia, adapted the pole technique to Wing Chun's principles. Leung Yee-tai, per the same encyclopedia, had it from the monk Chi Sin, who saw in him a successor to the southern Shaolin long-pole art. Kwokwingchun.com is more cautious: the form entered the system "probably" through people who lived and trained on river boats, where long poles were common, and Leung Yee-tai reportedly knew a pole form from another martial art and simplified it together with Wong. We have not been able to establish in the sources when this happened.

Differences between styles

Per eWingChun, versions from the Yip Man lineage share a common core of movements, but their order differs by school, as do technique names — from common Wing Chun Kuen terms to a set taken from Jee Shim Weng Chun. The Sum Nung version, from Yuen Kay-shan, is a short point sequence with minimal repeats; the English Wikipedia credits the Yuen Kay-shan lineage with special emphasis on the six-and-a-half-point pole. Jee Shim Weng Chun's pole forms, per eWingChun, derive from San Kam of the Red Junks, taken up by Fung Siu-ching, and tend to be much longer for a similar point count. Wikipedia says the Weng Chun pole form opens with a section called hei gung, teaching space control through springy footwork. The Nanyang branch Ban Chung Cho Ga has a form Luk Dim Pun Gwan Sap Sam Cheong (六点半棍十三枪), the six-and-a-half-point pole plus thirteen spears.

Bunkai – applications

eWingChun describes the pole as a weapon meant to intercept an attack, working angles like a fencer, keeping movement minimal. A strike lands with short explosive force that jars the target, body or weapon. Kwokwingchun.com theorizes the pole handles the first clash and the knives close combat, so that half — dropping the pole — matters too. Kaplan Wing Chun adds chi kwun, sticking pole: held against the opponent's weapon, attacking his wrist until he lets go.