A combat application of White Snake Shoots Venom

White Snake Shoots Venom is the first of the four combat sequence sets in the basic Wahnam Taijiquan syllabus, the other three being Green Dragon Shoots Pearl, Black Bear Sinks Hips, and Carry Tiger Back to Mountain.

Each of these sets is composed of three combat sequences, making 12 combat sequences together. These 12 sequences in the present version came from the sequences resulting from Striking Hands training. To help students progress more effectively, Grandmaster Wong stylized these sequences in Striking Hands into 12 combat sequences in the original version.

Although they are not exactly the same, these 12 combat sequences in both the present and the original versions were inspired by our first 12 Taijiquan combat sequences in the 1980s. A main difference between the 12 combat sequences in both the present and the original versions on one hand, and the first 12 combat sequences in the 1980s is that whereas both the initiator and the responder in the former use Taijiquan patterns, in the latter the responder used Taijiquan to respond to the initiator using Shaolin Kungfu.

The first combat sequence set, White Snake Shoots Venom, deals with hand attacks, though there is also a chin-na technique. However, only top and bottom strikes are included, middle and side strikes are absent. These two short-comings are rectified in later combat sequences resulting in Yellow Bee Sucks Pollen and Old Eager Catches Snake. Nevertheless, if an opponent attacks with middle or side strikes, the responder can respond in both cases with Immortal Waves Sleeves, which is an important pattern in the set.

Though it is the first basic set, high level tactics are used, and they include continuous attack and attack-cum-counter.