day 15: 8th palm change

concepts:

• fire and water
• piqua

forms:

• drills (1-hand and 2-hand, and walking the square)
• palm changes 1-7
• 8th palm change
• mother palm

today began a little late. i was left to warm up alone, and people gradually started to arrive, with Richard showing up first and then Mike, Laura (a new student who began last December), and Siwan-da (sp?--he evidently was a student back in 1995, then left and just returned last week). we had just finished stances when Phunsak arrived and told us that Sifu was going to miss today and that he was going to lead the instruction for the day.

i get the feeling Phunsak, apart from Art or Mike, is the most senior student in terms of time with Sifu and also skill level. while some of the other students have had a roughly equivalent amount of time with Sifu (according to Phunsak--and in correction of a previous post to this blog--it's been close to 12 years), Phunsak appears to be the one recognized as closest to becoming a sifu himself. he likely just needs more time leading classes and building up teaching experience (which, if it's anything like academics, is actually a very fine art and one not always mastered by the many claiming to be "teachers").

i should qualify my comments by pointing out that i know Art is himself an instructor in tai chi, and has been with Jason since the 1970s (long enough to have apparently gone through all of Sifu's curricula several times). but he continues to show up as a student in our classes anyway, and seems content to have other students lead before him. at this stage for him, i suppose he's attending more for cameraderie and culture now more than anything else.

drills

by this point, most everyone had arrived, and we formally started the day with 1-hand and 2-hand drills. from this we went directly into walking the square. i noticed that this time Phunsak emphasized both inside and outside turns (for some reason, my previous exposure has mostly been inside turns), and also monitored everyone performing fire-and-water during their turns.

recall that in bagua, "fire" is supposed to mean rising and "water" is supposed to mean falling. in the turns, the torso is supposed to fall (water) at the same time as the hands rise (fire). technically, according to Phunsak, the torso and guarding hand is supposed to do much of the movement and the leading hand (the one closest to the opponent at the center of the square or circle) is supposed to remain relatively level. proper performance of the inside and outside turns requires expression of fire and water.

palm changes 1-7

after some time with walking the square, Phunsak ordered everyone into lines to review the first 7 palm changes. this is a good thing, because there continue to be nuances that i keep forgetting or finding confusing, and i suspect the same goes for everyone else in class. the reviews provide opportunity to pose questions, resolve problems, and refresh our memories. in particular, the more recent palm changes (5-7) are still somewhat fuzzy or feel awkward.

a lot of this has to with muscle memory. in sports the theory goes that certain physical motions have to be repeated for extensive periods of time to 1) allow muscle adaptation to the motions and 2) ingrain the motions into the nervous system and mind. this allows the body to acclimatize to the pattern of nerve end firings connecting muscle tissue to the brain, synchronize the brain's signals with the mind's intent, and harmonize the new neuromuscular activity with the pre-existing base of built-in muscular memories. essentially, repetition is necessary to develop coordination and fluidity in movement, and the more complex the new pattern of motion being learned the more repetition is necessary. medical science asserts that for most people the brain seems to acquire and store new information (including information on new physical motions) into long-term memory after about 7 repetitions.

this theory is exercised throughout all the sports i've been exposed to--although they argue for far more than 7 repetitions, and call for as many as necessary until physical movement is fluid, second-nature, and part of the subconscious. team sports like basketball emphasize repetition of shooting, layups, pivots, passes, and dribbling drills so that they become second nature, allowing the player to focus on the game rather than their own motions. individual sports like running and swimming emphasize continuous repetition of total body movements (even so far as fingers and toes), timing, rhythm, and breathing, to the extent that the competitor maximizes power output and efficiency without excessive mental energy, which can then be devoted to responding to race conditions. and it doesn't matter how advanced a person is--beginners and professional athletes always end up doing the same drills; the only difference is how well the drills are executed and how diligently they are done.

with the palm changes we've done to date, i've noticed the principle is the same. we're repeating the palm changes to an extent that people are gradually becoming more accustomed to the movements. even now, i can see that the first few palm changes (to which we were introduced first and hence have had more time to practice) are becoming much more natural to perform. the awkwardness of the first few repetitions are starting to go away.

of course, this just means that the prescription for the future is more repetition.

which Phunsak supplied in ample supply. compared to when other students lead the review, i notice that he performs more repetitions of each palm change. he seems enamored of the number 8, since that is the number of times we did each palm change (although in the past he's gone as high as 16). i doubt this has anything to do with cultural preference for lucky numbers--while the lucky number in Chinese society is 8, Phunsak is Thai, and the lucky number in Thai society is 9. i don't know if this is an extension of the bagua fascination with the 8-sided trigram diagram. whatever the reason, at least it's more than the magic minimum of 7 set out by medical science.

8th palm change

following the review of palm changes 1-7, the class took a break. Phunsak took the time to help the newer students through the palm changes. some of the other students, including Art, Mike, and Kie-yon (sp?) broke off to resolve a point of debate about Chen taichi. as a result, it took a little difficulty for Phunsak to call everyone together for the 8th palm change.

the 8th palm change is dramatically different from the other palm changes. while the other palm changes involve a lot of movements coming in close to the body, the 8th palm change seems to call for a much more wide-open, almost expressive series of physical motion.

it begins with a "big bird" stance (every time i hear those terms, i keep thinking of Sesame Street, which is ironic, because Big Bird actually has very small wings, which is why he's flightless). the practitioner is supposed to begin with the arms spread out like wings, rotate them like a paddle-wheel, and then step forward into the bow-and-arrow stance so that the rear arm swings overhead to fall forward of the practitioner's shoulders and the front arm swings under to rise behind the shoulders. from there, the student is supposed to step bringing the feet together while simultaneously bringing the hands together towards the front to push an imaginary opponent. at this point, the student turns to the rear in what appears to be the 60-40 stance, subsequently rotates both hands in a broad arc over the head, and brings the hands facing forward in the same 60-40 stance. following this, another broad arc is made over the head, with the back arched, and the student simultaneously stepping back and around, so that the student ends up turning 360 degrees into a forward lung with both arms arching forward at head level. the palm change finishes by the practitioner continuing the turn out of the lunge into the "leaf covers summer flower" stance and then turning back into the "big bird" stance in a direction opposite of the original starting position.

just like the other palm changes, this was pretty awkward to pick up, and took a few attempts before i was actually able to go all the way through it. Phunsak said that we should just focus on learning it, so that we could practice it more during the week, and Sifu Jason could guide us further into it next week. we didn't do any combat applications, and i figure this is just as well--it was hard enough just figuring it out.

Kie-yon commented that the 8th palm change is very "piqua-esque." Piqua is a kung fu style known for long-range combat, with very wide movements with hands and arms swinging in broad arcs--like the 8th palm change. Piqua is sometimes seen as a complementary style to baji, which is a very linear kung fu style geared towards close-range combat. from what other students have told me, Sifu teaches both, although i've only seen students learning baji and bagua.

mother palm

we finished for the day with mother palm. since i haven't had this in class, i was pretty eager to do this. it's actually a more basic lesson in bagua, and is supposed to be learned before a student progresses to the more advanced levels of xiao kai men and 64 palms. i've felt that i've been missing out by not having gone through this, and so was pretty happy when Phunsak offered to take the class through it.

i've learned the fundamental parts of mother palm with John--at least, enough to know the 8 stances, and how to walk in a circle with them and perform inside turns with teach. what i didn't know, however, was how they are performed walking in a circle with others.

Phunsak showed us how to perform mother palm in pairs. we then began walking in circle with our partners, forearms touching. Phunsak called out commands to change stances or perform turns, and then periodically called out a command to change partners. the result was a free-flowing dance of constantly changing direction, stances, and partners in a continuous pattern.

i can see how mother palm is a pre-cursor to 64 palms, since it introduces the student to the 8 basic stances of bagua, and familiarizes the student with holding them while walking in a circle. in addition, it acclimates the student with the close-range nature of bagua, so that the student gets a better feel of staying within physical contact with an opponent and thereby also gets a better sensitivity to responding to an opponent's movements.

i'm curious if there's more to mother palm. and i'm also curious if outside turns are part of it, since i noticed everything Phunsak had us do involved inside turns. but these are questions i'll hold for next week.

upon completion of mother palm, Phunsak dismissed class for the day.