Jul 3, 20192 min read

The 4 ‘Saan Sau Slots’ in Practical Wing Chun

A note on Cantonese

I use the ‘Jyut Ping‘ (粵拼) Cantonese writing system as I have found it to be the most accurate. For an excellent way to learn Jyut Ping, see Fluent Forever. For a dictionary see Cantodict or use the Hanping Cantonese App for Android.

Intro

The 4 Slots (or positions) to defend against a punch are:

Same side, outside (e.g. your left arm outside their right punch)
Diagonal, outside (e.g. your right arm outside their right punch)
Same side, inside (e.g. your left arm inside their right punch)
Diagonal, inside (e.g. your right arm inside their right punch)

You can also think of them to the same punch as:

Left hand, outside
Right hand, outside
Left hand, inside
Right hand, inside

Notes:

The reason we call them slots is that once you’ve decided which of the 4 you are using, you can slot in any move which fits that slot.
As you’ll mostly be using two hands together, one hand will be predominantly defending while the other will be assisting or hitting.
The reason there are 8 examples below is that each slot is split into whether your hand ends up inside or outside of their back hand.
It is usually better to end up outside of their back hand as it’s easier to control their 2nd move. Sometimes this isn’t possible when their back hand is too wide so we also need to train combinations where we end up inside their back hand.
Later you can use the slots to create 2 punch combinations e.g.:
He Right Hand Punches/You 1 Slot/He Left Hand Punches/You 1 Slot