concepts:- smooth
- extension
- connections
- power, without fa
- zen
lessons:
i'm changing the organization of these blog posts slightly. typically, the headings always listed "concepts" and "forms," with the "forms" giving the list of section headings and sections in the blog post. this week, however, i began taking kyudo lessons, which is the japanese art of archery, and so something that is not really a form that can be readily listed with the others being taught. as a result, i'm stepping one layer back upwards in the taxonomy, and using that as the new organizational device for blog sections, so that the new section headings will be "lessons," which i see as providing more flexibility in organization that can fit the differing styles and forms and subjects that i'm learning.
i see this as being the direction for the foreseeable future.
pao quanthe pao quan lesson today worked on refining the form, and also finishing off the final moves. i still have a number of lingering issues, but i think the situation is manageable in that the process of refinement is ultimately about addressing 1 issue at a time.
beyond this, however, i also had an extended discussion with Sifu regarding some of the concepts that he thought i needed--not just in terms of chang quan, but in terms of my martial arts in general. he noted the following:
- smooth: Sifu said that at this stage of my development i should focus on doing the form smooth. similar to the acronym SLED he gave to the tai chi class (slow, long, even, deep), he said i should do the same thing, but with the "s" being smooth. currently, he said i tended to have a lot of stop-and-go movements, with the rhythm of the form being broken. this is an issue, in that it throttles the power generation in the techniques, since it stops momentum and suppresses range of motion, both things which are necessary for the techniques to work.
- extension: i'm working on being consistent in the extension of my movements, but it's still inconsistent. thsi is an issue, since a lot of the techniques in pao quan require a certain amount of follow-through to be effective, and the follow-through is only possible by extending fully into the techniques. Sifu said that focusing on smoothness in my movements would go a long way towards alleviating this problem.
- hwa, na, not fa: Sifu commented that i was focusing too much on injecting fa jing (explosive energy) into the movements. but in doing so, i was skipping over the other aspects of jing, particularly hwa (receiving and redirecting) and na (positioning and control). similar to tai chi, chang quan requires the sequence of ting, hwa, na, and then fa jing--i should note this makes sense, seeing that tai chi originated from chang quan.
- connections: Sifu also warned me to not ignore the connections between the techniques. if anything, the connections are even more important than the techniques themselves. the connections serve as transitions enabling the practitioner to carry over energy--and hence power--into new directions. they also serve to integrate ting, hwa, and na jing into movements, setting the practitioner into positions to generate fa jing. as a result, they are necessary precursors to produce effective results.
i should observe that at this point we ended up going into a much more general conversation about the nature of power generation in martial arts--at least, TCMA. it began when Sifu noted that power generation in kung fu does not require fa jing, or explosive energy. in fact, kung fu can actually be effective without it altogether. we touched on a number of points:
- his perspective is that power exerted by the body is really an application of physics. in which case, there is more than just simply explosive action. instead, proper positioning and direction of force along certain paths of motion (i.e., ting, hwa, na) can serve to disrupt and breakdown an opponent.
- this is why he says that movements in techniques should not be directed at the opponent, but should actually be directed through the opponent--because it means that your movements are acting to disrupt and breakdown the opponent's structure. in essence, this means that you have to follow-through, which is why extension is important, since you have to train the body to fully extend through a range of motion to ingrain the follow-through into your body's memory.
- because power can be generated through a variety of ways, fa jing is really just an option. it's not necessary. if anything, it's just a bonus.
- power generation, in a martial arts context, has to be constantly available. in other words, the movements need to have set you up to exert power at any moment. this is necessary, since in a combat situation you have to be able to react to anything your opponent(s) may do. this is why it's important to focus on smooth and continuous movements, with connections that flow seamlessly from one to the other, since this means you are maximizing your ability to apply force in any direction in any time based on whatever you think is necessary to address an opponent's choice of action.
i asked Sifu if these apply to other styles--i could see that they are consistent with chang quan, tai chi, and bagua, but was curious about other styles like baji, which is renowned for its fa jing. he responded that you can visualize the power generation in baji as being like a firecracker, with the fa jing being the explosion. in contrast, he noted that power generation in bagua is like a smooth running engine--it doesn't appear spectacular or impressive, but you still risk serious injury if you allow yourself to be put into contact with its moving parts.
beyond this, however, he asserted that there are serious misconceptions held by many people about martial arts, at least in regards in TCMA, and specifically for northern TCMA. he reiterated his belief that one of the defining characteristics for northern TCMA is the consistent use of all jings: ting, hwa, na, and fa. even with baji, he said it is a misnomer held by many that baji quan is exclusively about fa jing. he demonstrated a few baji moves for me, and pointed out that in each one there is a sequence of ting, hwa, and na that precedes the fa jing. going further, he showed how the baji moves could still be effective without the fa jing.
he extended the demonstration by showing a few bagua movements for comparison, and then pointed out that while bagua may appear to be a converse of baji, in that bagua emphasizes ting, hwa, and na jing, it still allows fa jing to be exerted anywhere in its movements. he pointed out that the more advanced stages of bagua actually incorporate fa jing into bagua movements, particularly the fist and arm forms. an intelligent practitioner, he argued, could actually learn 64 palms, xiao kai men, or even mother palm, and see how fa jing could be utilized within them.
i asked him if this is why so many people find power generation in bagua so difficult, because they can't understand and utilize the idea of using appropriate movements (i.e., specific force in specific directions following specific paths) to apply the energy (i.e., angular & linear momentum) and the physics (i.e., kinetic & potential energy, center of mass, etc.) of action. he affirmed this, and said this is in part because it's very difficult to see, and so hard to grasp. but he noted that it was the same thing with baji, since it is so subtle and occurs so fast that people frequently never recognize that it is there.
this means that all styles--at least, with northern TCMA--express both hard and soft elements in their advanced stages. their curriculum may follow different sequences in terms of which elements are taught first, but in the end they all incorporate all aspects of hard and soft, and integrate all forms of jing.
Sifu then returned to the notions of smoothness and connections. he said that in his opinion the earlier stages of any curriculum of any style, at least in northern TCMA, should focus on developing smoothness and connections in movements. this serves to set the stage, or base, that allows a practitioner to exert fa jing at will--and the key words are
at will. in essence, you don't have to exert fa jing the same way or the same time as anyone else does or anyone else shows...in fact you don't want to do this at all, since your decisions to generate power, via fa jing or any other method, should really be a function of what is going on in combat, and what you choose to do in relation to your opponent. in essence, it all depends on what your opponent is doing.
Sifu finished by then discussing the historical order of the various martial arts he knows, so as to provide some context as to the development of thinking regarding the concepts we'd covered. bagua is the most recent, and reflects a fairly sophisticated level if thinking that exploits the insight that power generation can be done through the physics of movement, rather than explosion. tai chi is older, and shows an earlier expression of the principles that were expanded in bagua, and you can see that tai chi really was the product of martial arts practitioners who took long fist and modified it to focus more on concepts of ting, hwa, and na jing--even though they would then keep the option (just like bagua or any other northern TCMA) of using fa jing within it if a situation called for it.
baji/piqua are slightly older, and came from a different source than the others, but you can still see that the people who developed it were following a line of reasoning that still worked with the same concepts used by the other styles.
chang quan is the oldest, and expresses all the concepts at the most fundamental level. having said this, Sifu noted that it is still just as difficult to grasp, since so many of the movements don't clearly demonstrate ting, hwa, na, and fa jing, or the nature of the techniques and the transitions connecting them. there are many nuances, and unfortunately many people have either never learned them, or they gloss over them without realizing their importance. Sifu observed that it's unfortunate that so much of modern wushu works with chang quan, since it has served to distort chang quan and given a very skewed image of it to the public.
of course, the oldest by far is shuai jiao, since it traces back before the start of the Christian calendar. and in many ways, it's also the most basic, working with the most elementary concepts of the human body. but it precedes the development in understanding and reasoning that began with chang quan and which was picked up by the later styles.
Sifu commented that it is somewhat useful to travel to China to visit with people who have preserved these styles, since you can clearly see the progression in thinking in the original versions. this is why he said so many people recognize the martial arts practiced in the Muslim regions of China, because the Muslim Chinese tended to preserve their martial arts very well, and so allow you to see the thinking of the styles as when they were originally conceived. he cautioned, however, that the number of practitioners who preserve the older traditional styles is decreasing, since so many of them are old and hence in the process of dying off. this makes it harder to see the original TCMA. it doesn't help that the newer generation of practitioners has been influenced by modern wushu, which has done little to preserve the traditional versions of TCMA. Sifu said this is why it's important that any TCMA practitioner visiting China schedule time during their tours to meet with the old masters and see their martial arts, because chances are they won't be around for long.
this was the end of the session, and Sifu said that the next time we'd work on refining my movements, and then also work on alternative techniques in the form.
forest palm
Sifu scheduled this saturday as the start of forest palms. he had us practice 64 palms side B for awhile, and then led us through the initial movements of forest palm.
by way of introduction Sifu noted the following:
- forest palm assumes that the practitioner is already well-versed with a large number of concepts and movements, and so is reserved for more advanced students who have a firm grounding in the earlier stages of the bagua curriculum
- forest palm develops the components of bagua that apply to confronting multiple opponents at once--2, 3, or more. to do this, practitioners utilize dummies consisting of wooden poles, sometimes as many as 8, and do the form weaving in and out and among the wooden poles to mimic the actions undertaken against the corresponding number of opponents.
- the techniques in forest palm feature further variations in applications compared to xiao kai men or 64 palms, even though they may appear similar, and so can serve to demonstrate a larger array of interpretations
we went about 8 moves into forest palm, and spent the bulk of time working on the form and learning their applications. we finished with this, and went to lunch.
kyudo
Saturday evening marked my 1st kyudo class. i seriously considered skipping this today, since i was feeling a little tired. but i figured i had committed to this, and that it would be good for me to follow through.
the kyudo dojo is held at the Japanese Cultural Institute in Pasadena, and is run by Sensei Rick Beal, who it turns out is also a zen monk. from what i can tell, based on initial impressions, things are somewhat informal but also very formal--there is no set curriculum following a specific timetable that people follow, either in terms of each class or their long-term development; there is, however, clearly defined rituals and steps in terms of sutras, the kyudo forms, dojo practices, and opening and closing activities.
originally, i had meant to attend last weak, but Sensei had informed me that last week they held no class, and has asked i wait until this week. for today, as a make-up, it turned out they had an extended session starting from 3pm and going until their usual finishing time around 10pm (note: the usual class time is about 5:30-10pm).
for today, i spent the class observing, and having conversations with some of the other students as well as with Sensei. we ended up talking quite a bit about zen, and spirituality, as well as the nature of breathing, the nuances of the japanese kyudo bow, and the coordination of body movements (particularly the spine and dantian) to facilitate the actions involved in movement (including, but not limited to, using a bow).
i have to say i enjoyed this. it's definitely a change of pace, and in many ways a much more reflective endeavor. it's a good way to end the day. i'm glad i went, and i can see this becoming a regular part of my schedule...i just have to keep doing it. but i think this is something i can manage.
concepts:
