day 301: okay, so things still shaky

concepts:

• hand, forearm, elbow
• xiao jieh, jong jieh, gong jieh
  
• hips
  
• shanxi-hebei-henan

lessons:

• hsing-yi

well, things are still shaky. i got sick (or i was still sick?), and it left me unable to attend Saturday classes, meaning it took out kung fu and kyudo. even though i still wasn't feeling much better by Sunday, i sucked it up enough to make it for about 2 hours before going hope to rest. as a result, this post is going to be brief, since it's just dealing with Sunday.

Sunday ended up being a review of hsing-yi, since Kieun, Cheng-chieh, and me all needing to fill in the material we've missed over the past few months. We focused on going through the Hebei 12 animals, which everyone else has already finished, and managed to go through the Shanxi 12 animals that everyone just started.

i'm not going to comment much in this post, since i'm still sorting through the material. but i will post the videos of the stuff i missed that we covered Sunday. because there is so much stuff i'm trying to catch up on, i made a fair number of videos on Sunday. to help keep this digestible, i'm going to limit the videos here to the Hebei 12 animals that have been missing from past posts, and hold off on the Shanxi 12 animals until next time.

Hebei 12 animals tai bird: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjcoYOyEnaA


Hebei 12 animals eagle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6dP-Ny6ekA


Hebei 12 animals bear: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhTzx7_u3U4


Hebei 12 animals eagle-bear: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAZHY2MHASI

i should note that eagle and bear are supposed to be done as a combination. for learning purposes, however, Sifu says that they are taught separately to help students understand the physics of each before trying to merge them. Sifu reminded us of the following:

• eagle: here, the emphasis is not on the hand, but rather through the elbow. the hand serves as a way of understanding the direction of the force vector, which goes from the hand in a direction through the elbow. this allows the weight, hence the magnitude of the force vector, to sink through the forearm and elbow. Sifu said that we can break down the physics in terms of xiao jieh (sp?), or tip; jong jieh (sp?), or branch; and gong jieh (sp?), or root. ordinarily these terms relate to the body and are used to help identify the role of each part in applying the principles behind techniques. here, the tip is the hand, the branch is the forearm/elbow, and the root is the shoulder/torso. the main force and general direction comes from the root, finer direction comes from the branch, and the reminder comes from the hand. as a result, theoretically a technique properly done can be applied using just the torso, but for most people it helps to focus by using the hand to remind themselves that power is projected through the forearm/elbow, and thereby helps to adjust the torso to allow this.
  
• bear: last time we'd stressed the importance of having the scapula be the contact point with the opponent and the physics of creating a cantilever as we shrug the shoulder and sink. today, Sifu noted that we also have to pay attention to the hip, which drives additional force into the shrug. the important thing is to have the hips go square relative to the opponent so that the legs push against the ground with the force turning with the hips in alignment with the shoulders.
  

the eagle-bear combo changes the form of each, but Sifu observed that the physics of both complement each other so long as we remember what we want the body parts to be doing in terms of the physics.

we also spent some time discussing the curriculum. Sifu's plan is to go through Hebei and Shanxi styles of hsing-yi, since he's studied both and their curricula are similar. they share the same 5 lines, 5-element theory, and lian huan, with the major differences being the 12 animals. he hopes to spend a little time introducing Henan style, but since he's not as familiar with it and it's so different, we're going to just focus on getting its flavor. Henan does not have 5 lines or lian huan, and instead just goes direct to teaching students 10 animals.

that was pretty much it for Sunday. i'll offer more material in subsequent posts as i work on getting caught up.