Siu Lim Tao is a short form in Wing Tsun from which different kung fu moves derive. Bruce Lee used to train wing Tsun before he developed his own martial art Jeet Kun Do which he basically derived from basic Wing Tsun moves like Fook sao and Wu sao.
I'm posting the form and some great videos from Greenvile academy martial arts who explain the basics of the why you do the moves in the form in the most comprehensive manner. I hope you like it.
Siu Lim Tao
Moderator: Shana
LIKE MANY WHO ARE familiar with Wing Chun, my journey to the art came via Bruce Lee.
Having seen Lee’s films in the 1970s, millions of international fans were won over by his
lithe grace and charisma, and we wanted to learn more about what he had demonstrated on the big
screen. During the course of our research we learned that what Lee had practiced was his own
martial creation, which he termed Jeet Kune Do, or “The Way of the Intercepting Fist.” To better
understand the man, we reasoned, we had better understand his art.
Unlike today, in 1973 (the year that Lee died) there wasn’t anybody teaching his art. Evidently Lee
had closed all three of his formal schools several years before returning to Hong Kong to focus on
making the movies that would justifiably bring him international and enduring fame. Those who had
assisted him in his instruction at these schools had, in an effort to both honor his memory and to
preserve his art, started teaching small groups of individuals and/or teaching privately, but you had to
live in either Washington or California to have access to them. As I lived in a small suburb in
Ontario, Canada, such personal instruction simply wasn’t going to happen. The next best thing to
personal instruction from a knowledgeable teacher was self-education through studying Lee’s
surviving writings on his approach to martial art and its underlying philosophy, and then reinforcing
his written words by re-watching his films with an eye toward more carefully examining the
techniques he employed, as well as the movements and postures he made. This sustained us at the
time and taught us much about Lee’s approach to martial art and, as ancillary, the Chinese martial arts
in general, for many years.
Almost immediately we learned that in his youth Lee had studied a Chinese martial art called Wing
Chun under the tutelage of a master by the name of Yip Man (the name would be changed to Ip Man
several decades later) and one of Ip Man’s senior students (and the clan’s best fighter) Wong Shun
Leung. When Lee wrote about Wing Chun and Ip Man he did so with great respect. In an article
profiling the young martial artist in Black Belt magazine in 1967, Lee is quoted as saying, “I owe my
achievement to my previous training in the Wing Chun style. A great style.”
According to Lee’s earliest students in America, such as Jesse Glover, Ed Hart, and Taky Kimura,
no small portion of the principles, training methods, techniques, and philosophy that Lee employed
came directly from the art of Wing Chun. That the man generally considered to be the greatest martial
artist of the twentieth century should hold the art in such high regard won many of us over to it simply
by default. Few of us, however, really understood the depth and breadth of the art, which was greater
than we could have fathomed.
Fast forwarding to 2009, I found myself in Hong Kong working on a film about the locations that
appeared in Lee’s films, where I had the opportunity to meet the eldest son of Bruce Lee’s teacher,
the then 86-year old Ip Chun, who told me stories of his late father (who was then the subject of two
feature films), the principles of the art his father taught, and how diligently the young Bruce Lee had
practiced it. I resolved then that I would take up the study of the art upon my return to Canada and
began immediately looking for a suitable instructor. Being older and having been involved heavily in
the martial arts world at this point for thirty-some years, I had seen many—too many—fractured egos
and self-professed “masters” in the various arts, and, sadly, Wing Chun seemed to me to be an art that
was burdened by more than its fair share of such people. And, unfortunately for me, the nearest
instruction of any substance in Wing Chun was still hundreds of miles away from where I lived. The
next best thing, I reasoned, was to learn from a competent instructor on-line. After all, we were then
well into the Internet age, the era of the information Super Highway, and anyone, anywhere was by
some means accessible. This was how I first met Danny Xuan through his web page. Here at once
was a man who downplayed his significance in the art (which was a surprising and refreshing change
of pace), and yet wrote about it with such a passion and a depth of knowledge that I hadn’t
experienced since reading Lee’s own writings on the martial way many decades earlier.
Xuan approaches his art like Lao-tzu approached nature; looking for and revealing the Tao, or
underlying way of things in relation to human combat, much as Lao-tzu had sought to reveal it in
every wave, bending branch and twinkling star. Xuan’s insights were deceptively simple, which I
have come to learn, is a hallmark of most truly deep subjects. He spoke of the impartial, impersonal,
and yet rational natural law of things—from geometric planes to the nature of force production—to
which all things abide in accordance with their true selves or natural natures. From the perspective of
the Tao, all of the laws of nature are united and their aggregate is simply reality, in which all natural
forces, forms, and structures find their proper place and optimal method of operating and surviving.
Apparent contradictions and diversities seem to dissolve before it. It is a means by which one learns
to understand, trust, and act in accordance with ways of nature.
There is nothing weaker than water
But none is superior to it in overcoming the hard,
For which there is no substitute.
That weakness overcomes strength
And gentleness overcomes rigidity,
No one does not know;
No one can put into practice.-Source: Laotse, The Book of Tao, LXXVIII. Lin Yutang translation, pages 622–623, The
Wisdom of China and India, Random House, © 1942.)
excerpt from the book The Tao of Wingchun by John Little and Danny Xuan
I trained Wingchun some 20 years ago and am now beginning to refresh my memory and train everyday because I got overweight in recent months during the lockdown. It's a great way to connect your mind body and soul and last but not least it's a great martial art for self defense since it is specially designed to defeat stronger opponnents with the light body movements
Here is my instructor Martin Dragoš from back in the days. He developed his own form of Siu Lim Tao, I'm also adding his Qi Gong training for fun and everybody not interested in martial arts.
Having seen Lee’s films in the 1970s, millions of international fans were won over by his
lithe grace and charisma, and we wanted to learn more about what he had demonstrated on the big
screen. During the course of our research we learned that what Lee had practiced was his own
martial creation, which he termed Jeet Kune Do, or “The Way of the Intercepting Fist.” To better
understand the man, we reasoned, we had better understand his art.
Unlike today, in 1973 (the year that Lee died) there wasn’t anybody teaching his art. Evidently Lee
had closed all three of his formal schools several years before returning to Hong Kong to focus on
making the movies that would justifiably bring him international and enduring fame. Those who had
assisted him in his instruction at these schools had, in an effort to both honor his memory and to
preserve his art, started teaching small groups of individuals and/or teaching privately, but you had to
live in either Washington or California to have access to them. As I lived in a small suburb in
Ontario, Canada, such personal instruction simply wasn’t going to happen. The next best thing to
personal instruction from a knowledgeable teacher was self-education through studying Lee’s
surviving writings on his approach to martial art and its underlying philosophy, and then reinforcing
his written words by re-watching his films with an eye toward more carefully examining the
techniques he employed, as well as the movements and postures he made. This sustained us at the
time and taught us much about Lee’s approach to martial art and, as ancillary, the Chinese martial arts
in general, for many years.
Almost immediately we learned that in his youth Lee had studied a Chinese martial art called Wing
Chun under the tutelage of a master by the name of Yip Man (the name would be changed to Ip Man
several decades later) and one of Ip Man’s senior students (and the clan’s best fighter) Wong Shun
Leung. When Lee wrote about Wing Chun and Ip Man he did so with great respect. In an article
profiling the young martial artist in Black Belt magazine in 1967, Lee is quoted as saying, “I owe my
achievement to my previous training in the Wing Chun style. A great style.”
According to Lee’s earliest students in America, such as Jesse Glover, Ed Hart, and Taky Kimura,
no small portion of the principles, training methods, techniques, and philosophy that Lee employed
came directly from the art of Wing Chun. That the man generally considered to be the greatest martial
artist of the twentieth century should hold the art in such high regard won many of us over to it simply
by default. Few of us, however, really understood the depth and breadth of the art, which was greater
than we could have fathomed.
Fast forwarding to 2009, I found myself in Hong Kong working on a film about the locations that
appeared in Lee’s films, where I had the opportunity to meet the eldest son of Bruce Lee’s teacher,
the then 86-year old Ip Chun, who told me stories of his late father (who was then the subject of two
feature films), the principles of the art his father taught, and how diligently the young Bruce Lee had
practiced it. I resolved then that I would take up the study of the art upon my return to Canada and
began immediately looking for a suitable instructor. Being older and having been involved heavily in
the martial arts world at this point for thirty-some years, I had seen many—too many—fractured egos
and self-professed “masters” in the various arts, and, sadly, Wing Chun seemed to me to be an art that
was burdened by more than its fair share of such people. And, unfortunately for me, the nearest
instruction of any substance in Wing Chun was still hundreds of miles away from where I lived. The
next best thing, I reasoned, was to learn from a competent instructor on-line. After all, we were then
well into the Internet age, the era of the information Super Highway, and anyone, anywhere was by
some means accessible. This was how I first met Danny Xuan through his web page. Here at once
was a man who downplayed his significance in the art (which was a surprising and refreshing change
of pace), and yet wrote about it with such a passion and a depth of knowledge that I hadn’t
experienced since reading Lee’s own writings on the martial way many decades earlier.
Xuan approaches his art like Lao-tzu approached nature; looking for and revealing the Tao, or
underlying way of things in relation to human combat, much as Lao-tzu had sought to reveal it in
every wave, bending branch and twinkling star. Xuan’s insights were deceptively simple, which I
have come to learn, is a hallmark of most truly deep subjects. He spoke of the impartial, impersonal,
and yet rational natural law of things—from geometric planes to the nature of force production—to
which all things abide in accordance with their true selves or natural natures. From the perspective of
the Tao, all of the laws of nature are united and their aggregate is simply reality, in which all natural
forces, forms, and structures find their proper place and optimal method of operating and surviving.
Apparent contradictions and diversities seem to dissolve before it. It is a means by which one learns
to understand, trust, and act in accordance with ways of nature.
There is nothing weaker than water
But none is superior to it in overcoming the hard,
For which there is no substitute.
That weakness overcomes strength
And gentleness overcomes rigidity,
No one does not know;
No one can put into practice.-Source: Laotse, The Book of Tao, LXXVIII. Lin Yutang translation, pages 622–623, The
Wisdom of China and India, Random House, © 1942.)
excerpt from the book The Tao of Wingchun by John Little and Danny Xuan
I trained Wingchun some 20 years ago and am now beginning to refresh my memory and train everyday because I got overweight in recent months during the lockdown. It's a great way to connect your mind body and soul and last but not least it's a great martial art for self defense since it is specially designed to defeat stronger opponnents with the light body movements
Here is my instructor Martin Dragoš from back in the days. He developed his own form of Siu Lim Tao, I'm also adding his Qi Gong training for fun and everybody not interested in martial arts.
There in no might or power except God the Allmighty
For those interested in practicing the first form of Wing Chun, here are also the breathing instructions for the form.
Here is also the book Tao of Wing chun for those interested in these ancient chinese martial art.
Here is also the book Tao of Wing chun for those interested in these ancient chinese martial art.
There in no might or power except God the Allmighty