more stances (sort of):
- low
- dragon
- rooster
- walking the square
- spiralling energy
- fire and water
- single palm change (part of 64 palms)
today was a bit of an adventure.
i started off trying to do the stances with the early arrivals, which included (as it seems to every week) a man named Lee, a long time student of Sifu Jason and a software engineer (he is on first impression a bit prickly but rather congenial once you get to talk to him...i guess it's just the classic programmer's personality coming through), and a woman named Ching-Tzieh (sp?), a dancer from UCLA with rather extensive prior martial arts experience.
i did okay following through the first 10 (even though i'd only worked on 4 last week). but then things got awkward when we started the next series of stances, which are called tantui. from what i can tell, they're stances derived from the Muslim tribes of western China, and a little more open and expressive than the initial set of stances.
to say the least, i was lost. lost balance. lost track. lost attention. lost place. lost everything.
Lee looked at me with a look for mild frustration and told me it might be better if i just watched. admitting defeat with the tantui stances, i moved over resignedly to the side.
as people started filing in, i looked around for Art, who had helped me last week. but he wasn't around. Sifu Jason assigned me to Phunsak, one of the more senior students and a PhD from USC in Electrical Engineering. Phunsak was joined by John, another intermediate student, who was watching my stances.
Phunsak started me on some balance and drills, and reviewed my stance work from last week.
single palm change
just as we were starting, Sifu Jason instructed everyone to gather around him. he proceeded to tell us it was time to start learning something called 64-Palm, starting with the Single-Palm change.
John looked at me with a sly grin and said: "oooooooo...you're getting some advanced stuff."
i looked at Sifu Jason with some uncertainty, basically with the expression of: "are you sure you want me doing this?"
he nodded at me and said briefly, "this everyone will...and if you're a beginner don't worry. you can still do it."
with that, he had everyone line up and demonstrate to us what he wanted.
the Single Palm Change, from what i can tell, is a fairly methodical drill combining several different stances in a progression following a pattern of footwork, all of it designed to simulate a combat situation in which you are engaging and then pushing an opponent. the movements are somewhat circular, but also involve shifting of weight between legs and a coordinated rising and lowering of the body and hands.
spiralling energy
Sifu Jason made it a point to comment on this, using the term "spiralling." he said that in ba gua, spiralling means not only walking in circles, but also moving in circles with other parts of the body. more than this, spiralling means circular movement that actually progresses in a direction--kind of like circular patterns orbiting in a plane perpendicular to an axis of motion. he said this is what is called by bagua practitioners as "spiralling energy."
i'm wondering if "spiralling energy" is what Art referred to last week as "reeling silk," which is a term from tai chi, but seems to be the same concept of twisting and turning to improve energy transmission and decrease energy expenditure. in essence, it's meant to increase efficiency and effectiveness of technique.
fire and water
Sifu Jason also took care to emphasize the importance of rising and falling, and that the Single Palm Change required rising and falling, and that we needed to feel this throughout the motions. he mentioned the term "fire and water" several times, although i wasn't sure what that exactly meant.
from what i could tell, fire and water seems to refer to the idea of performing technique while either lowering or raising various parts of the body, in unison or as separate entities. from the level of attention given to it, it seems to be pretty crucial--just as important as "spiralling energy"--in terms of maximizing efficiency and effectiveness of technique.
drill on a Chinese 4-count cadence
as if to confirm my suspicions, Sifu Jason said the concepts of spiralling energy and rising and falling was important for the Single Palm Change to be maximally effective, since it determined the amount of energy--and hence power--that the actions generated.
Sifu Jason ordered us to line up in pairs, with senior students pairing up with junior students facing each other from opposing lines. i was paired with John. Sifu Jason told us to perform the Single Palm Change as a drill, following a 4-count (using Chinese numbers that i honestly don't know).
i managed to follow along--to a point.
my discombobulation problems from the morning continued, and i found myself having to think through the movements. which is fine, but not when the rest of the class was proceeding along a quicker cadence. i still found myself having to adjust to the movements. at several points, i had to stop and regain my bearings.
i think part of the problem is that my muscles and my mind are adjusting to new movements that they are not accustomed to, and that i am having to focus consciously to perform the movements properly. in other words, i don't have the muscle memory or sensitivity to the new motions yet, and as a result i am missing the physical coordination to perform them naturally and quickly.
class was over before i knew it. i still felt awkward with the Single Palm Change, but not there was not much left to do other than to just practice on my own.
walking the square
i told John, and Phunsak (who came back over from his position in line), that i wasn't comfortable with the changes in stances in the Single Palm Change, particularly in terms of foot positioning and changes in weight from one leg to another. after some discussion and observation of my attempts to perform the palm change, Phunsak told John to show me the concept of "walking the square."
from what i can tell, "walking the square" is a drill designed to introduce a beginner to the idea of changes in foot position and weight change from leg to leg--especially as it applies to the circular progression of ba gua. the student is supposed to imagine four sides of a square, and then step from in sequence from one side to the next adjacent side, with each foot placed parallel to a side of the square. essentially, the student ends up walking in a circle, placing his feet in progression on each side of the square and proceeding endlessly around the square. the drill can be done in different directions, and can also be done with the feet following the square left or right--Phunsak and John used the Chinese term bao (sp?, for left) and hai (sp?, for right).
more (but important) drill, no cadence (Chinese or otherwise)
i told Phunsak that i was also having additional difficulty coordinating my upper body movements with my lower body, especially with the changes in leg stances and shifting in weight from one side to another. Phunsak showed me a drill that basically involved shifting from side to side, using the 60-40 hand position, with the idea that the hands would be positioned one way when the weight was on one leg, and then exchange positions when the weight was shifted to the other leg. in addition, the feet were supposed to pivot in conjunction with the shifting of weight.
after observing my difficulty handling even this drill, Phunsak then noted that i hadn't been introduced to the concept of "fire and water". it was at this point that he defined it clearly for me, commenting that "fire and water" was an important concept, with fire referring to actions that rise and water referring to actions that lower. the body was supposed to rise (or become "fire") as the weight came onto one leg, and then lower (or become "water") as the weight shifted.
i worked on this a little bit, struggling at first, but then once i started to understand how "fire and water" played into the drill, it became dramatically easier. the idea of "fire and water" lent some rhythm to the drill, and made it more natural to match changes in hand positions with changes in leg stances.
trying to further salvage something basic that i could work on, i managed to pause for a short conversation with another junior student named Fang, and asked him about the other stances beyond the 4 that i had worked on with Art.
more stances
Fang went through the stances with me quickly, and i managed to identify 3 others:
low stance
dragon stance
rooster stance
since it was at the end of class as people were leaving, i didn't have the chance to work on the 3 stances with anybody. but i at least managed to identify what they were.
initial thoughts
the thing about today was that there wasn't really a lot covered. but it took a lot of time to learn things, and it was a little more difficult to pick up than the things from last week.
Sifu Jason stopped to offer a few words of encouragement at the end. acknowledging his support, i told him that i just needed some time to sort things out and get used to them.
i'm thinking this is just the way things are for me...i've always tended to learn this way, even when i was a kid in elementary school living with my grandparents. i would always struggle with the basic concepts and take some time to learn things at the beginning, and then accelerate and speed up the learning curve through all the intermediate things, before slowing again and needing time to pause and learn the difficult material.
i'm guessing that's what is happening now. i'm doing my best, but it's a slow start for the beginning. hopefully i'll be able to get up to speed soon.
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