day 38: drills & review (if only Allen Iverson could be here now)

concepts:

• movement

forms:

• 2-person hand drills
• palm changes 1-4
  

a few students showed up early today. we did bagua qi-gong level 1 and level 2 while we waited for class to start, with John Eagles leading. Sifu arrived just as we were finishing. he told us Phunsak was busy for the weekend, so he was going to manage both the bagua and baji sections personally today.

2-person hand drills

Sifu started us with the 2-hand drills (front, reverse, side front, side reverse). we began by doing them solo, and then paired off to do them against partners.

the solo 2-hand drills went relatively smoothly, but the 2-person 2-hand drills took somewhat longer. while we have done these before, Sifu went through each student to correct their form and their technique. he also had us increase the difficulty level by incorporating combination punches, with the "attacking" partner using a 3-step combination (e.g., if left fist is first, then right, then left again). he also made a number of points about the nature of the hand drills that had not been entirely apparent to me before:

• vertical v. horizontal--Sifu noted that the hand drills incorporate vertical and horizontal components in addition to the twisting one. the solo hand drills, however, especially those done against a pole, tend to help students develop the vertical and twisting components, but not the horizontal one. Sifu said the 2-person drills were better at helping develop a feel for the horizontal component.
• spacing & footwork--i was finding it particularly hard working against a partner of a different size (Feng), since it threw off my spacing and rhythm. Sifu commented that this is something that requires footwork, and not just to set a single position, but rather to constantly adjust and locate the body so that a particular technique can be maximized in terms of effect. this meant that my feet had to shift not just for each technique, but actually within the course of each technique as well.
• total body movement--Sifu pointed out that the tendency for students doing the hand drills is to concentrate on their hands and arms. he said this is wrong, and is a bad habit. to do the hand drills right, there should be total body movement. he said that the power is not so much in the hands and arms, but rather in the entire body, which should be moving vertically, horizontally, and turning and twisting through the feet, legs, hips, waist, back, shoulders, arms, and hands.
  

after awhile, Sifu asked us to do the drills solo while moving. he first had us do the solo 2-hand drills moving from side to side, taking a step sideways with each change of hand. we did this in lines, taking a step left for each change of hands, and then taking a step right for each change of hands.

next, he had us do the solo 2-hand drills moving forward, taking a step forward with each change of hand, so that we moved forward along an imaginary line alternating steps left and right.

to some degree, i had practiced this a little before. Kieun had demonstrated these drills to me once while discussing everything i'd missed in the total curriculum. he also had mentioned that the drills also involved stepping backwards, which we didn't do today.

palm changes 1-4

after the hand drills, Sifu left to work with the baji students. he asked Eric to lead us through a review of the palm changes 1-4, for both side A and side B.

we went through these pretty expeditiously, but slowed down for palm change 4 side B. there was still quite a bit of polishing work to be done with this, particularly with the kicking set in the middle, which requires a bit of balance to be done properly. we ended up spending an extended amount of time with this, trying to fine-tune the movements.

Sifu eventually came back and observed us with palm change 4 side B. after awhile, he commented that it was good enough for now, but that we'd need to do more work on it next week.

something that became apparent to me with this palm change is that i'm not quite as flexible as i thought i was in the lower back and upper leg regions. this is odd, since these are areas that quite a bit of heavy usage in my sport (triathlon). i'm not quite sure as to why this is, since it is counter-intuitive--you would think that the muscles and body parts that get the most use would be the most flexible. however, i suspect that my body has been over-compensating for some deficiencies, and among those deficiencies are the lack of flexibility in the lower back (particularly turning) and upper leg (particularly in the concentric phase of the hip flexors and upper quads).

this became most apparent went we did a brief review of long fist. i found my body tightening in all sorts of uncomfortable ways. i had done some of this last fall when i had first started, but hadn't done it since then. it appears i'm probably going to need to do some work on this again, since it' supposed to help in developing flexibility, balance, and strength in the joints and connective tissue of the body.

after class ended, we ended up waiting while Sifu finished off some lessons with the more advanced baji students (James and Andrew). once he finished with them, we concluded things for the day and went for the customary post-class lunch.