day 17: 8th palm change application & review

concepts:

• encountering resistance

forms:

• documents
• review: palm changes 1-8
• combat applications (sweeping aside 10,000 men)
• xiao kai men

we had new students who joined today for baji. there were 3, and for the life of me i can't remember their names. they join Siwann-da (sp?), along with a couple of returning baji students, making the baji side of the course suddenly much greater. today i counted 7 baji students in total--and there were still a few baji regulars missing, which is quite a change from several months ago when there were just 2 or 3 each day.

the new students made for a bit of confusion for the morning warm-up. since they arrived before Sifu arrived with the students from the jian shu class, we ended up involving them in the stances. Art and Mike suggested the warm-up be divided into 2 groups (but adjacent to each other), with 1 going through the bagua stances and the other going through baji stances.

this kept everyone pre-occupied until Sifu appeared, and the group then divided into separate baji and bagua sections.

documents

i had posted a request on the Yahoo! group for some bagua documents that Mike and Phunsak had mentioned in a previous class. the documents provided the names of the techniques for 64 Palms, as well as for Xiao Kai Men (the introductory form for bagua). Sifu had promised to bring the 64 Palms sheet, and later Mike had said there was actually a whole set that he had.

Sifu and Mike kept their words. i received what i consider to be a treasure trove (at least, it is for beginners)--the kinds of reference material that should probably be treated as a packaged set to be given to new students as they join. this is what i got:

1. terms of the 15 forms in bagua zhang (!!!--all this time i thought the only forms were just Xiao Kai Men, 64 Palms, and then weapons, but this means there's a virtual avalanche of material to learn)
2. terms (in Chinese, with English translation) for the techniques in Xiao Kai Men
3. terms (in Chinese, with English translation) for the techniques in 64 Palms (side A)
4. terms (in Chinese, with English translation) for the techniques in 64 Palms (side B)
5. description, diagrams, and illustrations (in Chinese, with English translation) for bagua zhang qigong

this made me pretty happy. not that i can read Chinese, but i figure that as a matter of intellectual and pedantic integrity it's important to preserve the original Chinese as things often get lost in translation, and sometimes mistakes are made (and they apparently have been...i noticed Sifu had hand-written in corrections to some terms).

because of some requests that had been e-mailed to me, i am taking these documents and scanning them for upload to the Yahoo! group as JPEG or PDF files. i think this should make it easier for new students (or current students) to find them. in essence, this can start the creation of a "reference library" for students to help them learn and remember class lessons.

review: palm changes 1-8

Sifu held onto the terms sheet for 64 Palms (side A)--which is apparently what we've spent the past few months learning. he said it would be a good exercise to go through the palm changes identifying the name for each technique, and had everyone line up.

this was actually a very useful exercise. in a previous post (see: Poetic Titles and Kung Fu) i noted that Art and Ching-Tszieh (sp?) had said that the poetic titles in kung fu serve the purpose of helping students remember the techniques, particularly their order within each form. more than this, because they tend to be very evocative and vivid, they also remind students of certain key elements necessary to ensure the effectiveness of each technique.

doing the review of the palm changes with Sifu identifying the name of each one also revealed another important value of the poetic titles--they help distinguish very similar techniques from each other. apparently, in several of the palm changes we had gotten techniques confused with each other and were incorporating techniques that were different (albeit very similar) to the ones specified by the palm change. this is problematic for the following reasons:

• this a corruption of the bagua system--it does not conform to the recognized "canon" of the bagua zhang system. while all kung fu styles evolve over time (e.g., tai chi begat Chen style, but later gave rise to Yang, which gave rise to Wu, etc.), corruption is a bad form of evolution in that corruption is change NOT done for a specific purpose or desire to improve the system while evolution is change done for a clear purpose or attempt to improve the system (e.g, Yang tai chi was directed at emphasizing more "internal" manipulations of energy, and so was less physically aggressive than Chen tai chi). as a result, corruption can lead to a decrease in the effectiveness of the system, which is something entirely contrary to the intent of the people who have contributed to it and to the needs of the people who are learning it.
• this interrupts the fluid nature of the palm change--it became apparent that there is some method in the order of techniques in each palm change. following the techniques specified by the "canon" i got a discernibly greater feeling of fluidity and intuitive movement progressing from one technique to another, whereas applying some of the techniques we had earlier thought we were supposed to use i had experienced moments of awkwardness and physical discombobulation.

having said this, Sifu noted that in combat we should not actually feel obliged to follow the same exact order of techniques as they are prescribed by the palm changes. in fact, he made it clear (and has made it clear throughout the classes) that this is probably one of the worst things a person can do and that we need to focus on reacting and applying techniques in response to the actions of our opponent(s). he pointed out that the listing of terms for each palm change is an important part of training, but it's only a part.

this is pretty consistent with what other people have told me about martial arts--and even warfare in general. combat, if anything, is chaos, and chaos means very rarely does anything ever follow a prescribed pattern, and the best a person can do is to make enough sense out of chaos by making the engagement an expression of fluid, controlled, natural fighting. i suspect this is part of the definition of "effective" fighting (this is also reminiscent of the saying from boxing: everybody has a plan until they get hit...it's what you do when your plan falls apart that decides if you win or you lose).

combat applications

after review of the palm changes, we took a minor break while Sifu went to teach the baji section. we all gathered around to discuss the bagua documents and the titles. i commented that it reminded me of the old cheesy kung fu movies from the 70s and 80s where opponents would yell the names of techniques at each while they fought (which would never happen in a real fight...seriously, why tip off your opponent as to what you are doing?). Kieun joked that this was typical of Shaw Brothers kung fu movies, and this is why the Shaw Brothers films were classics (because they were just so cheesy).

eventually, Sifu came back and gathered us together to show us the combat applications of another technique in the 8th palm change. i referred to this before as a 360 degree turn into a forward lunge with both arms reaching forward. it turns out that this is called "sweeping aside 10,000 men" (see what i mean by evocative and vivid?--the movement really does evoke a vivid image of turning and lunging and sweeping aside an invisible army of warriors in your way).

Sifu showed us that this technique is actually a throwing motion, with the lunge going under an opponent's guard and the turn and arch meant to drive the opponent off-balance to their backside. both arms are involved in the lunge, so that they can interrupt the opponent's other arm (and potential counter-strike) and work together to push the opponent. Sifu pointed out that the performance of the technique in the palm change is actually exaggerated, but that this is intentional since it is meant to ingrain proper performance of key elements of the technique:

• turning into the direction of the throw
• reaching with both arms under the opponent's strike, so that one hand is higher than the other and coming under the opponent's chin or face and the other is into their chest
• positioning the feet to facilitate the direction of the throw, so that as the practitioner steps forward to come under the opponent's strike the lead foot goes bai (points outside from the center line)

Sifu then ordered us into the line drill from previous weeks to practice this, and then went to teach the baji section.

i found this particular technique to be somewhat easier than last week's combat application of the "big bird" stance. for some reason, it didn't seem to have the same level of subtleties to it. after awhile, figuring that i needed it more, i decided to backtrack and take a few moments with Art and Phunsak to review the combat application from last week. i think i managed to make better sense of it--enough that i can probably do it about as effectively as this week's "sweeping aside 10,000 men."

Mike made a comment to me while we were discussing application of the techniques with Phunsak and Keiun that reminded me of something Sifu alluded to in earlier classes. Mike said he normally doesn't practice applying a technique against someone offering resistance. he said this is because bagua is about avoiding resistance, and that in bagua, if a practitioner senses an opponent resisting a technique, then the practitioner should change to another technique. this is pretty consistent with some other things Sifu has said in passing about the nature of bagua in combat. without going into too much detail, i'll summarize them as follows:

• if you feel the opponent posing resistance, it means the opponent can read your move and is setting up a counter-strike
• bagua is supposed to involve surprising a opponent or keeping them unsure of your move. neither is being accomplished if the opponent is reading your moves well enough to offer resistance to them
• bagua is supposed to be fluid, and about simply going in directions that are natural. attempting to overcome resistance is not natural and not fluid, and just creates a point of struggle
• bagua is about avoiding direct confrontation of force with force. attempting to overcome resistance is nothing more than a direct confrontation of your force with the opponent's force
• bagua is about change. if an opponent resists a technique, you should change to another one

after awhile, in an attempt to try and move the line faster (it was moving pretty slowly with 10 people in it), we broke it into 2 separate lines of 5. this seemed to accelerate the line, and gave everybody more chances at practicing the technique.

xiao kai men

everybody seemed to stop together after some time and take a communal break. people began to slowly break off into groups to review particular things they wanted to learn--some went over the palm changes, others over some of the combat applications. i decided it was a good time to start learning something i knew i had missed in the curricula: xiao kai men.

xiao kai men is an introductory level form for bagua. in the curriculum, as far as can tell, it's supposed to be learned after stances, hand drills, mother palms, and walking the square. and from what other students have told me, it was traditionally used as the test by ancient masters to decide whether to allow a student to continue learning the more advanced levels of bagua (e.g., if a student couldn't perform xiao kai men, the master would tell the student they would not be allowed to learn bagua and should try another style).

i asked Mike to start teaching me xiao kai men. we spent a number of minutes reviewing the techniques and their order. i was a bit surprised to learn that it was just 4 basic techniques performed in a sequence, and which could be performed either in line or in circle. but i guess this makes sense, seeing that xiao kai men is an introductory level form and so would presumably be much simpler than the palm changes in 64 Palms. Mike just started me off with learning the techniques in line. which is fine, since i figured i could work on just this, and get more in subsequent classes.

final words

Sifu ended class by surprising me with the duty of closing the lessons. usually Mike, Art, or Phunsak does this. i was so shocked i completely forgot how to close the lessons. i ended up relying on Art to tell me what to do--students are supposed to line up, and then say (translated into English) "Students: Attention! Students: Bow! Sifu: Thank you!" (to open the lessons, the ending is "Sifu: Hello!"). my pronunciation of the Chinese words was bad, and i ended up having to take a few minutes with Ching-Tzsieh to figure it out (although, i suspect based on her laugh, i didn't even come close).

i guess this is something else i'll have to work on for the future.