Bai Jong 敗桩 (On-Guard Position) and Jong Sau 樁手 (Post Hand) – for feeling & enforcing the boundary to your personal space
Posting or framing, and indexing, are important concepts in self defence. They’re especially relevant if someone comes too close into your personal space.
If someone is walking into you, looking to touch noses and bump heads, simply put your knifehand on their chest to keep them back. Or if they grab you from the front, be a bit more assertive and put your knifehand through their neck and walk forward through them, to maintain maximum distance, break their balance and give yourself the best chance of intercepting any punch that might come next.
But be very careful if you will completely extend your arm, as it becomes easily broken this way, and becomes too stiff, so your opponent could potentially use it as a lever to throw you. Ideally keep your stiff-arm a bit less than fully extended – leave a bit of give in all directions. But sometimes you want maximum range, so it’s a judgement call – just beware of the risk.
Alternatively – extend the back of your wrist to create a bubble that they can not pass. This is less aggressive and uses the more protected back of the arm instead of exposing the vulnerable blood vessels & tendons on the inside of the arm; and it’s a much more centred posture, making it harder for your arm to be twisted & broken or thrown etc so long as you have plenty of experience in this position – give educated pressure while staying responsive and don’t tense up too much.
In American Football, we often see the Stiff-Arm Fend which is a form of Jong Sau. They usually put their hand on the opposition’s helmet, partly because they’re wearing gloves which limit their hand dexterity. And in the streets, you could similarly put your hand over someone’s face to push them back, but this can cause things to escalate unnecessarily, especially if fists haven’t yet been thrown.



Jong Sau – the posting hand – is the classical form of Earth energy. It’s just a boundary feeler & enforcer. In feeling, it can be called a measuring or indexing hand – it tells you exactly where the opponent is, so you can instinctively throw a shot with your rear hand very accurately.
The extended forearm / back-of-wrist bubble-making method is more about earthing within your own mass, into the ground; while the extended knifehand or stiff-arm fend is more about earthing into the opponent’s centre of mass.
Placing a hand on a chest to stop someone walking too close is quite understandable. If they say “don’t touch me”, you could say “don’t come into me then”. This is not very impolite, it’s just enforcing your boundary, to protect yourself. It’s just demanding a very basic level of respect.
Pushing your knifehand through their neck is more assertive but still very fair if they’re pushing into you, and is still less provocative than putting your hand in their face, with fingers in eyes, etc. Pushing your knifehand through their neck, backed by a strong posture, will partly collapse their structure and somewhat affect their breathing – it’s a strong demotivator for them, but only to be used in certain scenarios. A confident thug looking for an excuse to escalate things might feed off such a gesture so use it sparingly.
It’s also useful if someone grabs your clothing near your chest, or grabs your neck, for example. If they’re putting hands on you, use your rear hand to pull their hand or elbow down, or at least cover their hand or arm so they can’t punch your face or gouge your eyes with it. You can then use this rear grip as an anchor, for better control when posting or framing with your lead hand.
In Wing Chun, this is like a Fak Sau (thrusting chop) but holding it out there with Man Sau (‘asking hand’) energy. In some styles of Kung Fu, the Fak Sau chop is also known as Sat Ging Sau 殺頸手 (in Cantonese) / Shā Jǐng Shǒu 杀颈手 (in Mandarin) which means Neck-Killing Hand. While the hand & arm structure of this technique matches the kind of posting hand I’m talking about here, the energy is different, since the Fak Sau or Sat Ging Sau is usually trained as a quick thrusting chop, not a static posting hand.
The Tai Chi style Jong Sau usually uses the back of the hand, with the arm forming a semi-circle shape, for expressing Peng energy. This has its place, as a form of posting or framing, but isn’t such an extended strong arm as the technique I’m trying to teach here – it’s more ready to collapse and transition into something else, plus it can seem a bit rude, like you’re shoeing someone away with the back of your hand. It can seem more like posturing, as opposed to the palm or side-palm on chest or neck which is more direct and obvious what it means (‘stay back’) and has far more mechanical pushing strength to it.
Terminology
Jong Sau 樁手 is the Cantonese name for this move. Jong Sau literally means Post Hand. You may recognise Jong from Mook Yan Jong 木人樁 meaning Wooden Man Post (wooden dummy), or from Bai Jong 敗桩 which refers to the on-guard position aka the ‘ready stance’.
The equivalent name for Jong Sau in Mandarin is Zhuāng Shǒu 桩手. You may recognise Zhuāng from Zhàn Zhuāng 站桩 meaning Standing Post – a popular posture or set of postures in Qi Gong and internal martial arts.
The common Standing Post or Post Standing posture, is essentially holding the position of a symmetrical bubble-style two-handed Jong Sau, or Bai Jong. This can also be called Seung Jong Sau 雙樁手 (Cantonese) or Shuāng Zhuāng Shǒu 双桩手 (Mandarin). There are many different forms of Post Standing, although the most common one by far in classical Tai Chi and Qi Qong classes, is making a big circle with your arms, as if hugging a tree where you can almost join your hands but not quite. This is for training Peng Jin (warding-off / fending-off energy) with the back of your wrist & forearm.


When not to use it
A Jong Sau is for keeping someone back, only when they’re encroaching into your personal space. It’s also good for feeling your way around in the dark (to avoid bumping into things) or if your vision is impaired.
But it is not for posing during distant stand-offs. Bruce Lee made a point about this. He said, when the opponent’s lead hand is the only thing within reach, it can be a good target to hit. It’s much harder to fight effectively with a broken hand. For this reason, you should avoid extending your own guard unnecessarily, as that makes it a potential target for your opponent to hit. Much better to be coiled & fluid like a snake ready to shoot. Your opponent will have no easy target to hit, and will be less sure about how far you can reach. Bruce immortalised this lesson in his penultimate completed movie, Way Of The Dragon (1972), where he did a Pendulum Front Kick to the opponent’s guard hand multiple times.

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