day 10: drills and beginning the circle

concepts:

• walking the square, with inside & outside turns
• walking the circle, with inside & outside turns
• ko and bai

forms:

• 5th palm change
• 2-person drills (inside and outside brush, purple swallow, shake the foundation, kissing the toad)

today ended up being chock full of all kinds of interesting details. based on the above, it didn't seem like we covered a lot, but it's deceptive. we had so much stuff i had trouble remembering it all.

the day started off typically enough. people showed up a little late (well after 10:30am). this time Mike (one of the older students...he started a little after Art) led the obligatory warm-up through stances. Sifu Jason then showed up with the rest of the class from the morning jian shu class. he instructed Lee to lead everyone through the drills we learned last week: single hand drills (front, side, reverse) and double hand drills (front, side, reverse, hawk chasing swallow front, hawk chasing swallow back). this was a relatively straightforward, although Sifu did notice that several people (me included) needed corrections in our posture.

walking the square, with inside & outside turns

at this point Jason instructed everyone to begin walking the square. i noticed that everyone else immediately began doing the drill, indicating their level of familiarity with it. Phunsak had shown me how to do this during one of the first classes i'd had (reference: day 2: stepping things up), so this wasn't new to me, but it was still something i had to consciously think about.

there's nothing complicated about it: the torso, arms, and face of the practitioner are oriented at a 45 degree angle inwards from the direction of the legs and feet. since the legs and feet are following the perimeter of the square, the practitioner is constantly facing in a new direction. the drill, however, requires some body awareness in that if performed properly the arms have to be at the ready position with loose shoulders, the back must be straight, tailbone must be tucked in, the legs must be in a slight crouch with the quadriceps touching each other, and the feet in line with each side of the square as they step along its perimeter. it's straightforward, but requires conscious thought in the beginning before it becomes instinctive.

a slight complication occurred when Sifu said he wanted everyone to start practicing inside and outside turns. i had missed this part of the drill, so i found myself having to observe what other people were doing. after a little bit of awkwardness, i realized that the "inside turn" that Jason was calling was just an extension of the weight-shifting fire-and-water stance drill from day 2. the "outside turn" was similarly an extension of the turn out from the leaf covering summer flower stance in the first 2 palm changes. realizing this, i managed to get on track enough to follow the rest of the class as Sifu called out the stance changes.

walking the circle

walking the square, of course, led into the next drill: walking the circle. walking the circle appears to be one of the main foundation elements of bagua. from what i can tell, the public perception of bagua is of the circular forms that are frequently demonstrated at tournaments, festivals, fairs, and celebrations. which makes sense, since bagua is built around the concept of circles--as noted in previous posts, it is circles within circles in multiple planes and multiple angles in various directions. the most commonly demonstrated forms (xiao ka men, mother palm, 64 palms) are often performed by a practitioner moving in a circle (imaginary or otherwise) on the ground.

being the lone beginner in class, i was the only one who had never done circle walking before. but Sifu Jason appeared unperturbed by this, and had me join everyone else as we broke off into 3 groups of 4 people. Jason then had each group walk its own circle, changing direction from clockwise to counter-clockwise at his command.

in terms of body positioning, walking the circle is similar to walking the square. the torso, arms, and face still orient inwards from the legs and feet, but perpendicular to the direction of walking. the legs are in the same crouch with closed quadriceps. but this time the feet follow the perimeter of the circle. in addition, turns--inside or outside turns--are somewhat more complicated.

ko and bai

i used to think that the words ko and bai (spelling?) were Mandarin for "left" and "right," respectively, but i'm starting to understand that they're more the terms for "in" and "out." with respect to walking the circle, they refer to the orientation of the feet along a centerline of the body, with ko being towards the centerline of the body and bai being away from the centerline of the body.

Sifu Jason instructed us to use these concepts in performing the inside and outside turns, since they were helping in understanding how to initiate and carry out each turn. for the inside turn, Jason said we needed to use ko, which reminded us to initiate the turn when the forward foot is pointing inwards to the circle. the practitioner is supposed to use the forward foot that is ko to stop, and then initiate the inward turn, which is just the same shift in stance and weight involving fire-and-water from the inside turn in walking the square. the end result is that a practitioner who is moving in a clockwise direction will be able to stop, turn in stance to a counterclockwise direction but while constantly facing inwards towards the circle, and then resume walking in a counterclockwise direction.

the outside turn, in contrast, is more complicated. Jason instructed us to use the sequence ko, bai, and ko. this means that we initiate the outside turn using the ko foot, then step forward over the ko foot with the rear bai foot so that it points parallel to the ko foot. from this point, the entire upper body turns in the direction of the inside of the circle and continuing until it begins to face outside. here, the practitioner lifts the ko foot and steps in the direction of the turn, pivoting on the bai foot until both feet face outside the circle. the practitioner then goes into the leaf covering summer flower stance, and then turns out to resume the ready stance in a direction opposite the original walking direction.

basically, a practitioner moving in a clockwise direction will be able to stop, turn in what appears to be a clockwise spin that ends with the practitioner facing to the outside of the circle, and then come out of the leaf covering summer flower stance to resume walking in a counterclockwise direction. conversely, a practitioner moving in a counterclockwise direction would turn in a counterclockwise spin before returning to walk in a clockwise direction.

Jason had us do these turns at random points, with everyone walking circles with their respective group until he would call for either an inside or outside turn, whereupon we were expected to execute the command in synchronized fashion.

at one point, Sifu caught the pace of my group, and with a slight trace of sarcasm said in the driest of tones: "i said walk a circle, i didn't say walk slow." we all broke up in laughter, but took the point and hastened our pace. Jason later made a particular effort to emphasize to us that in a fight, speed is crucial, and that it is imperative that we be able to walk and change direction as quickly as possible. he didn't say it, but i caught his implication that we all needed to practice walking the circle and performing the inside and outside turns until they became instinctive--and more than that, quick.

5th palm change

after working on walking the circle, Sifu had everyone line up to review and then finish the 5th palm change. as John had noted during our practice session over Thanksgiving, there was a 3rd part to the 5th palm change. luckily, however, it is an extension of the second segment, except that it incorporates performance of the turn and execution of the bear stance (i think that's the name) that we learned for the second part of the 2nd palm change.

what was interesting, however, was that after having everyone go through the entire 5th palm change several times to integrate the 3 parts we had learned, Sifu took extra time to point out some nuances of the moves.

for example, with the initial move out of lion covers head, he made particular effort to show the subtle twisting of the arms, making it clear that they were actually performing a block in the transition between stances. the importance of this hadn't been apparent to me, since i'd missed the day everyone had first learned it. but from the looks of it, it was consistent with the concept of twisting force used in other bagua blocking techniques and drills, such as the pole drills i'd learned in the first several lesson days.

another example was the rise out of hawk chasing sparrow, in which the practitioner assumes a stance with one arm outstretched forward with an open palm and the other arm raised above the head and curved forward off the centerline. Sifu said this was called kissing the toad. i had to take a moment and suppress a laugh. this is yet another evocative Chinese term, and one for which i told Jason i wanted an explanation one day. he snickered, and said i didn't want to know.

according to Sifu, in kissing the toad the arm above the head can be either a block raising an opponent's arm, opening the torso for a strike by the forward arm, or an elbow strike against the opponent's chin, again opening their torso for a strike by the forward arm.

2-person drills

in order to illustrate the combat applications of the 5th palm change, Sifu introduced us to 2-person drills. he had us pair up, with me joining Mike.

Sifu repeated his comments from the last set of 2-person drills he showed us:

• the 2-person drills are important in terms of developing sensitivity to an opponent's movement, which often indicate the opponent's intent. this sensitivity is crucial in being able to act and react to an opponent's actions.
• in addition, the drills serve as a basic form of sparring, putting theory and technique into practice so practitioners can better understand how theory and technique need to be applied in a combat setting.
• more than that, it also serves as a up-front, no-obfuscating way of finding out just how good our technique really is--if it is good, then we won't have any problems doing the 2-person drills; if it is not good, then we will find ourselves having difficulties performing the 2-person drills.

Jason first showed us 2 drills he called the "inside brush" and the "outside brush." to me, these titles are somewhat misnomers, since they actually involving performing similar drills, but with one on the left side of the centerline and the other on the right side of the centerline. the only other variation i can see is that with the "outside brush" both participants have either their right foott or left foot forward, while with the "inside brush" one participant will have the left foot forward while the other has the right foot forward and vice versa. in essence, both drills are variations of the same idea: using the posture of kissing the toad to block an opponent's strike up or to the side while simultaneously striking their torso or head.

what makes the inside and outside brushes 2-person drills is that the 2 practitioners never break physical contact, with one person always having a blocking arm in physical contact with the partner's striking arm.

the concept is similar with the other set of 2-person drills. from what i can tell, this starts with the bear stance that follows the spin in the 2nd palm change. to briefly review, the bear stance is a low crouch with spread legs and spread arms turned downwards. in terms of combat applications, Jason showed that this is supposed to enable the practitioner to open the lower area of an opponent's forward strike and reach down to the opponent's knees, ostensibly to initiate a counter-strike. the practitioner uses the arm and hand opposite the opponent to lock the opponent's arm, while the arm and hand nearer the opponent then engages in an offensive maneuvre.

Sifu demonstrated 3 drills with differing offensive actions:

1. purple swallow--here, the arm and hand nearer the opponent reaches for the opponent's knees to throw the opponent. the key, according to Jason, is to sink into the reach, so as to set the opponent off-balance. in the 2-person drill each partner alternates being the practitioner stepping in to perform purple swallow versus the opponent attempting to strike. both partners maintain physical contact the entire time, with one partner's locking (rear) hand in contact with the other partner's striking (near) hand.


2. shake the foundation--similar to purple swallow, except here Jason emphasized "sinking" into the opponent and using the shoulder and hip in conjunction with the sinking motion to push the opponent off balance as opposed to relying on a hand to reach for the knees. both partners maintain physical contact the same way as in purple swallow.


3. kissing the toad--here, kissing the toad is used as a finishing motion in the event the opponent counters the above 2 actions. in Jason's opinion, it is necessary to first either apply purple swallow or shake the foundation to misdirect the opponent's focus downwards to their legs, which then leads them susceptible to surprise when the practitioner adjusts their near arm up and rises into kissing the toad. the key here, according to Jason, is to rise rotating the near arm so that the elbow rises to make contact with the opponent's chin. this helps to throw them off-balance, and opens enough space to then use the rear hand in conjunction with a rotation from the hips to push the opponent further off-balance. in the 2-person drill, physical contact is broken because of the dramatic rise from a low stance to a high one, but the alternating turns of reaching down and then rising are preserved.

final comment

the day ended with a final comment from Sifu. it was a repetition of something Mike had told me while we were performing the 2-person drills: the need to understand that in bagua, the movements needed to be loose, in the sense that there should be no tensing of the muscles and no forcing of motion. Jason explained that this was crucial, not just for bagua but for any combat in general. he stated that the act of tensing the muscles or attempting to force an action against the opponent's resistance serves to communicate your intent to your opponent, and gives them signals as to what you plan to do. this allows them to employ counter-options to prevent your actions.

bagua, according to Sifu Jason, is a martial arts form that disguises your actions and your intent, creating a level of surprise and uncertainty in your opponent that you use to your advantage. this is reflective of the underlying concept of deception and avoiding direct encounter of force with force, and permeates so much of bagua combat.

Jason also noted that this meant a corollary: if we were performing any actions wherein we had to apply force, then it meant that we may be performing the techniques wrong. he noted that bagua techniques needed to feel relatively easy and effortless, and that at no point should we be directly engaging the opponent's force. this echoed a lot of what i had noticed during the 2-person drills with Mike, since i found out that things were dramatically easier and the techniques far more effective when i didn't force the actions and avoided direct force-on-force confrontations.

having made his final statements for the day, Sifu dismissed us and we left.