days 133 & 134: midterms & demo

forms:

• yang long form
• bagua 64 palms
  

this week was midterms week, and so there wasn't much done in the way of additional instruction, with the focus being exams. there was, however, a kung fu demonstration that some of us did for the Anderson Business School.

day 133

this Tuesday was dedicated to helping everyone fine-tune their renditions of the yang long form. the midterm only covered the 2nd half, so students were only expected to demonstrate their abilities with respect to this part. Sifu had each person attempt to do this solo in front of class, so as to help simulate exam conditions, and to provide some opportunity for custom instruction and feedback.

day 134

this was midterm day. each student did the 2nd half of the yang long form solo in front of class.

the latter part of Thursday was the demo at the Anderson Business School. apparently, they have weekly Thursday social hours (read: happy hour), but this week was meant to celebrate Asian Pacific Islander Heritage Month (which is May). for the occasion, they organized demonstrations by various Asian Pacific Islander student groups, and Linus (one of our students who is graduating from the Anderson Business School with his MBA) was invited to have his kung fu connections appear for demonstration--meaning us.

it ended up being Sifu, Art, Jeong, Linus, and me doing the demonstration. Shuwen, who is also in the business school and also in the UCLA tai chi class, provided commentary. it turned out that this was Linus's going-away farewell, and his final send-off before his business school friends, since he's scheduled to fly back to Singapore forever this coming Tuesday. as a result, Linus was quite popular. Jeong and Linus did a version of the Yang long form (i say version, because Linus admitted he didn't know all the form, and had to struggle as best he could for the presentation). Art did xiao kai men. Sifu demonstrated both the chen tai chi short form and the kuen wu jian. i ended up doing bagua 64 palms.

i have to say this demonstration, while somewhat informal, was a learning experience. it was educational in the sense that it introduced me to the experience of doing a martial arts demonstration in front of an attentive audience (which can be distracting, especially if people are talking, yelling, drinking, etc.). in addition, to honor past masters of kung fu, i did the demo in a 3-piece suit and formal shoes, and got to find out first-hand just how much harder it can be to move in this type of attire. it's definitely a challenge, and a slight increase in difficulty level.

it was also useful in that someone recorded a video of me, and i got to see the difference between what i thought (or felt) i was doing versus what i actually looked like--this may not seem like a big deal, but it is well-recognized in sports circles as absolutely crucial in establishing the mind-body connection, since it essentially creates a reference point (read: it is equivalent of zeroing a scale) to better judge if you are exercising proper technique (read: form) or not. reviewing the video, i spoke with Sifu on the issues i needed to work on, and we noted the areas for me to observe: 1) getting lower in the stances (particularly sinking into the kua), 2) keeping my spine vertical (and by extension, not slouching), 3) keeping more level (Sifu says i have a habit of up-and-down movement), and 4) slowing down in training to better institute the more minute techniques into my movements. add to this that there were several areas in the form that i glossed over during my performance (which, upon reflection, i have to say i was greatly embarrassed by and very much frustrated to realize), and which i absolutely need to do a better job of demonstrating for public audiences.

keeping this in mind, i have a better sense of what i need to do--and more importantly, how to do it. of course, now i just actually need to execute.