days 92 & 93: Yang, with applications

concepts:

• sense, receive, neutralize/divert, project
• breathing
• ball and bowl
  

forms:

• Yang long form

this are a little different this quarter, not so much in terms of content, but in terms of how i perceive the materials. last quarter was a bit of a climb, since it was the first exposure to tai chi concepts (e.g., wuji, tai chi, yin/yang, ball & bowl, etc.). even though we did the Yang simplified 24 movement form, i found the time outside the form more than filling.

this quarter, we're spending more time learning form. this is largely because we're doing the long form, and also because the curriculum was originally intended to accommodate students who had taken last quarter's class. however, i'm finding it valuable to have gone through last quarter's materials, since we're covering the same concepts and principals this quarter with the long form.

what's interesting is that now that i have last quarter's base of knowledge, i'm seeing things with a little bit more discriminating concentration. as a result, even though many of the movements are the same as before, i'm seeing additional layers of subtlety that i missed before. Art had warned me about this before, saying that even though Sifu may present the lessons in the same way multiple times, the amount of insight a person will gain is proportional to their level of experience and knowledge--which means that more advanced students will get more out of the lessons than beginners. i'm starting to understand what he meant.

in regards to these blog posts, you'll find less discussion on the concepts presented last quarter. for the times in class when Sifu presents the same lessons, i'm glossing things over. i prefer to devote more space to the new lessons he gives. i should note that sometimes the new lessons deal with old concepts, but present additional aspects or insight into the old concepts, and so you may find some space devoted to topics covered in previous posts. but for the most part, i'll try to keep things focused on new materials.

day 92

we continued with a progression into the long form. however, today we spent additional time working on stances, guiding everyone through horse, 70-30, 60-40, and bow-and-arrow stance. Art and i helped out in class by correcting some of the students who were having problems.

during today, Sifu also began introducing the concepts of ball and bowl, along with breathing, in relation to the movements. he didn't go into the same depth as last quarter, but i suspect that at this stage beginners would only really understand a little of it anyway. i think Sifu did just as well as to limit today's presentation by excluding coverage of qi-gong, and focusing instead on the nature of using ball and bowl concepts to aid visualization of proper technique, as well as the incorporation of breathing to understand contraction and expansion phases of movement in the form.

something i did notice with the long form is that it really is composed of repeating elements. Art had asserted that this was why he believes the long form can be learned within the quarter--although he qualified this by saying that he meant only the form, and not any of the deeper tai chi concepts related to it (e.g., qi-gong, push hands, etc.).

i commented to him that it seemed like the long form was an extension of the 24 movement form, with the same techniques just rearranged and repeated. Art affirmed this, and said that this is why he thinks that for someone who knows the short form, the long form is a pretty straightforward thing to learn. the issue, however, is to then layer in the additional layers of understanding that make the techniques in the forms more effective.

at couple of points during class, Art demonstrated what he meant by pointing out some flaws in my technique. in particular, my pull-down didn't incorporate any hip movement (which is necessary for the technique to work), and my press utilized too much of my arms and chest when it should have been using my spine and scapula (again, this is necessary for the technique to work).

we spent some extra time today doing applications. i had the privilege of being the tackling dummy. Sifu pointed out the differences in application between ward off, parting wild horse's mane, and slanted flying (ward-off lifts the opponent, parting wild horse's mane sends a vector into them driving them backwards, and slanted flying creates a rotational vector throwing them to their backside). we also spent time learning the combat applications for pull-down and press.

we finished the day with a few additional repetitions of the long form.

day 93

today build upon Tuesday, with introduction of additional stances: rooster and snake. Sifu also challenged people by going deeper into the form. he pointed out to everyone that the extra dose of techniques he taught today incorporated repetition of the same series from earlier in the form, so it really shouldn't be seen as an additional burden.

something that caught my attention today was Sifu's integration of some uniquely tai chi concepts that i've heard in the larger tai chi community but had not yet heard in the UCLA class until today: sense, receive, neutralize/divert, and project. i've seen these terms bandied about quite a bit in discussion related to tai chi, even though i suspect they're really universal concepts about fighting. i don't know if we're using the exact same terms as typically employed in Western translations, but Sifu described them thus:

• sense--this is connected to the seminar last December in Long Beach (reference: day 84), with Sifu saying this is about "feeling" or "hearing" the opponent's intent, so you can know what they are going to do. the goal is to sense their energy, so you can react to their signals. similar to the seminar, Sifu stressed that we should "play" with the opponent's energy to disrupt their focus and structure, not just in terms of physical activity but also mental activity
• receive--this refers to dealing with an opponent's movement. in tai chi, the goal is to avoid direct force-on-force confrontation, which is likely to cause the defender as much pain as it causes the attacker, and worse produce a situation where control is determined by whoever can exert greater force. instead, in tai chi, the goal is to use indirect reception of the opponent's attack that reduces the opponent's attack vector going into you.
• neutralize/divert--this means responding to the opponent's movements in a way that suppresses or removes their force vector into you, and which allows you to use the opponent's movements to implement your own counter-actions, whether defensive or offensive.
• projection--this is transmission of your own force vector into the opponent. in tai chi, this doesn't necessarily mean utilization of your own energy, but also utilization of the opponent's energy redirected in a way that protects you while controlling the opponent.
  

of course, applying these concepts requires a certain level of skill. as much as they are ways of using physics, and hence are understandable on an intellectual level, they still require a lot of work in terms of learning how to engage the correct bio-mechanical actions to express them...particularly in a combat setting. these concepts require that a person be relaxed, aware of their senses, calm, and clear in focus, none of which are really easy to do in a state of fear, anger, fatigue, accelerated heart rate, surging adrenaline, or any other state associated with self-defense.

it's a lot harder than people may think. and i suspect this is the real area that takes so many people so much time to learn tai chi--understanding concepts and studying forms is one thing, but being able to then use them in a dynamic, hostile setting is something else entirely.

i also suspect that this means that you never learn a form...a form is just a learning tool. but it is a very special kind of learning tool (which is why the original masters developed them). it's the kind of tool that can be used to teach and learn different kinds of lessons with differing levels of depth. you learn the form the first time just to learn the form. you learn it again to learn the techniques. but then you have to learn it again to discover how it can be used to heighten your mind-body awareness. you learn it yet again to see how it can be synchronized to your internal processes in ways that not only improve your health, but your ability to receive, manipulate, and project energy--your own, and that of the environment around you.

this goes on for all manner of lessons, meaning you go learn a form as many times as there are lessons to learn, which effectively means you never truly learn a form...you are always a student (kind of just like life in general).

can a person learn all this going just one time through the form? maybe. probably. but this means going so far into detail that it threatens to destroy a person's larger perspective--the classic "do you see the forest for the trees?" problem: it's entirely person for a person to get so lost in details they lose all sense of how things fit in relation to one another or the context in which things are supposed to work.

i think one of the reasons forms were developed was that it preserved context and perspective, so that a practitioner can still retain reference points as to the overall "spirit" or "nature" of the style (i.e., its principles, philosophy, and general perception of the world) that can help guide them as they delve deeper into the details of the style. as a result, forms just weren't multi-purpose tools for instruction, but really the framework upon which a student can build the palace of their eventual mastery of a particular martial art.

of course, this means that to really build a nice palace, you really have to have a good framework. there's a common principle in sports that applies here: the higher and stronger you want the house of your skills to go, the bigger and stronger your foundations must be. i think this is pretty much the same for kung fu.

i should note that this past weekend we recorded Sifu doing the entire Yang tai chi long form. i posted the videos on Youtube. you can see them at (note: i had to divide the video into 2 parts because of Youtube time limits...booooooooooooooo!!!):
part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qs6t4gzEPUI

part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoiTtPRduco


we finished by going through several more iterations of the long form we've done to date. Sifu reminded everyone that to help everyone out, he's arriving to class early (8 am, instead of the posted 8:30 am) and leaving late (11 am, instead of the posted 10 am). we called class to a close with that.