Jong Sau
樁手
Literally: post hand
Jong sau, the post arm, is a wing chun arm pushed forward as a wedge along the centre line, an extension of wu sau.
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Katas containing this technique
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Jong sau, literally the post arm, is in wing chun an arm that pushes forward wedge-like along the centre line with the fingers leading; the English Wikipedia describes it as wu sau pushed forward. It serves as the first physical line of defence to maintain a safe distance and as a measuring arm that signals the opponent's exact position. The source learnkungfuonline.com describes two versions: an extended knife-edged hand, or a rigid arm braced against the opponent's chest or neck, without fully locking the elbow so it is not vulnerable to being broken, and a variant with the back of the hand and the arm in a half-circle that protects the inside line. In the Wikibooks teaching breakdown of the Siu Nim Tau form, the elbows drop and the arms push forward into a double jong sau, which forms the front half of the ready wing chun stance. The name comes from Cantonese; the word jong also appears in the names Mok Yan Jong, the wooden training dummy, and Bai Jong, the ready position. In Mandarin the technique is called zhuang shou (桩手), where zhuang refers to the zhan zhuang stance.