Positional advantage is a combative position relative to an opponent. It is used extensively to describe a situation of significant tactical advantage over an opponent in open-hand conflict (i.e. without weapons) in William Cheung

William Cheung

William Cheung or Cheung Cheuk Hing , born ? October, 1940, is a Chinese Wing Chun kung fu practitioner and currently the Grandmaster of his lineage of Wing Chun, entitled Traditional Wing Chun...

's Traditional Wing Chun Kung Fu

Traditional Wing Chun Kung Fu

Traditional Wing Chun Kung Fu is a style of the Chinese martial art Wing Chun. It is claimed to be the authentic, more effective version of Wing Chun taught exclusively to William Cheung by Yip Man...

 and Ian Protheroe

Ian Protheroe

Ian Protheroe is a well-known Australian Wing Chun Kung Fu practitioner, teacher, and author. Protheroe learnt the Traditional Wing Chun Kung Fu system from Grandmaster William Cheung in the 1980s in Melbourne, Australia...

's Classical Wing Chun

Classical Wing Chun

Classical Wing Chun Kung Fu is the style of Wing Chun Kung Fu taught by Sifu Ian Protheroe and his students. Protheroe was a direct student of Grandmaster William Cheung in the 1980s in Melbourne, Australia, before moving north to Queensland where he opened his own school and began the development...

 .

In physical altercations, positional advantage is significant because a defender who has attained positional advantage:

• is not as open to an attack from the attacker's rear hand
• may control the attacker's lead limbs (one arm and one leg)
• is in range to attack or defend both hands
• is able to redirect their opponent's force

In the words of Sifu

Sifu

Shifu is the identical pronunciation of two Chinese terms for a master. The character 師 means “teacher”. The meaning of 傅 is “tutor”, and of 父, “father”. Both characters are read fu with the same tones in Cantonese and Mandarin, creating some ambiguity...

 Ian Protheroe, "as long as your strongest side is facing your opponent's weakest side, you have the advantage" . Although positional advantage has been adopted specifically by Classical and Traditional Wing Chun practitioners, the term is applicable to all martial styles, both with and without weapons . Related concepts include centre and central line theory . These terms are used to describe many different things by Wing Chun practitioners (see the Wikipedia entry for Wing Chun

Wing Chun

Wing Chun , also romanised as Ving Tsun or Wing Tsun, ; ; is a concept-based Chinese martial art and form of self-defense utilizing both striking and grappling while specializing in close-range combat.The alternative characters 永春 "eternal spring" are also...

for more information).