Martial arts student practicing Bong Sao technique on a wooden dummy at a Ving Tsun training school, wearing a green shirt and yellow shoes, in a traditional kung fu gym setting.

Practicing Kwan Sao on the wooden dummy—where structure meets refinement. This form of Ving Tsun training develops precision, relaxation, and timing under pressure.

Ving Tsun and the Body’s Blueprint

Why the Five Martial Attributes Make You Dangerous—and Move Better in Life

Ving Tsun isn’t mystical. It’s not magical. It’s not some ancient riddle passed down in whispers.

It’s engineering. It’s physics. It’s how the human body works when it’s dialed in, aligned, and ready to go.

Even if the old masters didn’t have the modern language to explain it, they sure as hell understood it. And when you train the right way, you start to realize: this system is built on biomechanical truth.

At the core of it all? Five attributes:

Balance. Sensitivity. Relaxation. Coordination. Timing.

Get these right, and everything else starts working better—your strikes, your structure, even the way you move through everyday life.

Let’s break them down.

Balance: The Base of Power

Balance isn’t just standing still—it’s being able to move or absorb pressure without losing control.

Biomechanically, it means keeping your center of gravity over your base of support. It’s what makes force efficient. It’s what keeps you from being shoved, thrown, or knocked around.

In Ving Tsun, we drill this into the nervous system from day one. Yee Jee Kim Yeung Ma (the Character Two stance) isn’t a ritual—it’s a testing ground. You’re learning how to align your joints, stack your skeleton, and stay rooted without locking up.

These small adjustments? They train proprioception—your body’s ability to know where it is in space. It’s like having an internal GPS for your movement. You feel it, even before you see it.

And when that balance locks in? You’re harder to move, harder to shake, and way more dangerous.

Sensitivity: Feel What’s Coming Before It Happens

Sensitivity is the body’s early warning system.

You don’t wait to see the strike—you feel the pressure shift and respond instantly.

Ving Tsun trains this through Chi Sau (Sticking Hands), where we learn to process information through touch—not guesswork. The reason this works? Touch-based feedback reaches the brain faster than visual cues.

This taps into your afferent nervous system—the network of sensory nerves that tell your brain what’s going on in real time.

It’s not about being soft. It’s about being aware—feeling pressure, redirection, tension shifts, and knowing what to do before it becomes visible.

This kind of sensitivity builds fast, fluid responses in fighting—and incredible precision in anything that involves timing or control. Think: surgeons. Musicians. Craftsmen. Athletes. All of them rely on calibrated touch.

Relaxation: Move Faster, Hit Harder, Last Longer

Relaxation isn’t laziness. It’s efficiency.

When your muscles are too tense, they fight each other. That kills speed, leaks power, and makes you gas out faster.

The goal isn’t to go limp—it’s to use only what you need. This is called selective tension, and it’s what makes Ving Tsun strikes feel like whips, not clubs.

Biomechanically, it allows for better joint mobility, faster transitions, and less wasted energy. You don’t get stiff under pressure—you stay fluid.

This isn’t just useful in fights. Relaxation under stress is a skill most people don’t have—and once you develop it, it shows up everywhere: how you handle conflict, how you breathe under pressure, how you recover after setbacks.

Training it on the floor changes who you are off the floor.

Coordination: The Power of Moving as One

Your body isn’t meant to move in chunks—it’s meant to move as a system.

Coordination is how you link your movements so they build power, not leak it.

Ving Tsun trains this progressively. You start with isolated movements in Siu Lim Tao, then integrate more complexity over time. Eventually, you strike from the ground up—feet, hips, spine, shoulders, hands—all in sequence.

This is the kinetic chain in action: energy starts in the legs and transfers through your structure into your target. It’s the same way a sprinter drives off the blocks or a pitcher winds up for a fastball.

When your coordination is tight, your strikes are clean, your footwork is crisp, and your recovery is faster.

Timing: The Attribute That Makes Everything Work

Timing is what turns good into dangerous.

It’s not about speed—it’s about acting at the right moment.

You don’t just react. You respond when the opening appears—not a second before, not a second after.

At the muscle level, this involves firing at just the right point in the stretch-shortening cycle (where a muscle briefly lengthens before contracting). At the tactical level, it means knowing when to intercept, when to yield, and when to punch a hole through your opponent’s plan.

In drills like Gwoh Sau or Lat Sau, you develop this feel naturally. You stop chasing. You stop forcing. You start reading.

Great timing makes you look faster than you are. It makes opponents hesitate. It turns uncertainty into confidence.

And the best part? It transfers everywhere. In music, sports, leadership—you name it.

These Aren’t Just Martial Arts Attributes—They’re Human Attributes

Train them, and they stick with you.

Balance keeps you grounded—literally and mentally.
Sensitivity helps you stay present, aware, responsive.
Relaxation keeps your energy clean and your stress low.
Coordination makes you efficient in every movement.
Timing sharpens your sense of when to act.

You don’t have to be a fighter to benefit from these. You just have to move—and live.

Want to Train Like This?

If you’re interested in training Ving Tsun the way it was meant to be trained—
Not just collecting techniques, but building the foundation behind them—
Start here with a free trial class:

👉 http://iLoveWingChun.com
👉 [Share this post with someone who could use less tension and more power in their life]

And remember:

Master the attributes.
Everything else gets easier.

Quick Breakdown of Key Terms (for newer readers)

Proprioception: Your body’s internal GPS—how it knows where it is in space without needing to look.
Afferent feedback: Info coming in from your nerves to your brain (like when you touch something hot and react instantly).
Kinetic chain: The way your body transfers energy from one part to another—starting from the ground and ending at your point of contact.
Stretch-shortening cycle: A fast, powerful movement triggered when a muscle is briefly stretched before contracting (like a jump or explosive strike).

About the Author

Dale Steigerwald is a lifelong martial artist, educator, and movement strategist who blends traditional wisdom with modern performance science. He is the founder of the Academy of Ving Tsun Kung Fu and has spent over two decades refining the core attributes that make martial arts effective—in the gym, in combat, and in everyday life.

Dale recently earned his Mental Performance Mastery (MPM) certification through Brian Cain’s elite program, sharpening his ability to coach focus, mindset, and high-performance habits. He is currently preparing to sit for the Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) exam in summer 2025, further bridging the gap between martial arts and sports science.

When he’s not teaching, writing, or training, Dale is pushing the edge of what’s possible in human performance—one principle, one rep, one student at a time.