day 143: 2-person forms, and nothing but

concepts:

• changing

forms:

• 64 palms, 2-person forms

we had a very light turnout today, for both bagua and baji students. but it was Memorial Day weekend, so i suspect this played a good deal in the attendance. this ended up making for a light day, with the focus on continuing further in the 2-person forms.

64 palms, 2-person

we'd started review of the 2-person form for palm 6 last Saturday, and we picked up with this today. we began with a review of the 2-person forms 1-5, and then spent the remainder of class on 6.

this particular 2-person form, while not as long as palm 5, still offers some challenges in that there are so many variations. Phunsak says it's the one that's had the most number of changes, with Sifu making alterations with each pass through the curriculum to emphasize different aspects of bagua. the form also is tricky, in that the initial movements are almost identical to the initial movements to palm 3 side B, but then diverge dramatically. it can easily mislead you if you're not paying attention.

Ching-Chieh and Phunsak ended up spending a greater portion of time going through all 2-person forms from 1-6, in an effort to prepare for the tournament. Laura, who is preparing for solo forms, took time to work on 64 palms side A. Sifu ended up reviewing everyone to check on their status.

Phunsak said that for the tournament it was important to be able to do the 64 palms 2-person form out of order, and so that they needed to be able to change the sequence at will. Sifu has mentioned this before, since sometimes it's possible to forget a palm change or to lose track of where you are. dealing with this involves having 1 partner who can decide on changing to another palm, with the other following. Ching-Chieh says this is pretty much the same thing that happens in dance. she decided that it'd be better if Phunsak made the decisions, since he knows them better than her and can therefore more easily adjust if there's a problem during the form. Phunsak replied that this issue can be better avoided by memorizing the palms.

i'm finding that John Eagles prescribed the best method for memorizing all 64 palms (sides A & B). he does palms 1-8 sequentially for side A continuously, and then for side B continuously. he also will do them in combination in sequence, starting with palm 1 sides A & B and continuing through to palm 8 sides A & B. i've used this to help remember all the palms. i've also played games with this method, choosing a random palm and side, and then continuing by choosing another random palm and side. it seems to work--although, the trick is to actually remember each palm the way we've learned it, and to double-check against the videos to make sure there's nothing being misplaced or forgotten.

this actually ended up being a slightly longer day, with the progression through the 6 2-person forms to date consuming all the time. we ended class around 1:30, when hunger finally got the better of us.