day 41: drills & palm change 5, side A & B

concepts:

• balance

forms:

• palm change 5 (side A & side B)
• 2-person drill, palm change 5

i arrived somewhat later than i usually do today, but was somewhat relieved to find that no one else at the park apart from Jay (a new student). we spent some time discussing the curriculum, since he isn't able to attend class on a regular basis and has to take private lessons with Sifu. Kieun came in a few minutes later, and all of us went through the bagua stances.

Phunsak and a number of the jian shu students had driven in by this point, and Kieun suggested we do tantui, since we hadn't done it in some time. Phunsak led this portion. i ended up stepping having to slow down and observe after the 3rd line, since i'm only really comfortable with the 1st 3.

palm change 5 (side A & B)

Sifu arrived and called class into session. he instructed Phunsak to lead us through a review of palm change 5, side A, and then through an introduction through palm change 5, side B. he then went to start the baji students with their lesson plan.

the review of palm change 5 was largely straightforward, although this time there were a number of corrections i found necessary to make in light of some of the hand-drill review we've been doing over the past week. in particular, i was much more aware of the nature of the hand and arm movements this time, as well as more aware of the synchronization of ko-bu and bai-bu footwork progressing between techniques.

in addition, there was also some additional commentary from Phunsak, resulting largely from discussions between him, Kieun, and John Eagles regarding the proper form. apparently, there have been different versions of palm change 5 taught in the past, and the 3 of them took several moments sorting out the distinctions between then and today, and whether those distinctions were the result of faulty memory or simply a different way of doing the palm change.

Phunsak also gave some more in-depth points regarding the stances. he noted that each technique finishes with a correlating lower body stance:

• move the mountain and reverse the sea : 60/40
• unicorn turns its body : cat stance
• fairy liu-hai teases the toad : bow-and-arrow
• divert and grab by the collar : 60/40

following this, we took a break, during which time Phunsak helped some of us clean up particular points in the palm change. for me, this was in the initial transition, particularly in the timing of the hands, arms, and legs going from the opening of lion opens its mouth through to white snake spits out its tongue. it turned out that i had been doing move the mountain and reverse the sea wrong, and had to break down the sequence of techniques to get this incorporated back into the form.

after this we proceeded to palm change 5, side B. palm change 5 is a very long palm change, and much longer than some of the others (relative to palm change 1, for example). i recall that side A had taken quite some time to figure out, and it turned out that side B was no different.

Phunsak demonstrated side B a number of times, and then at Kieun's suggestion separated it into 4 different sections of 3 counts each. this helped somewhat, although side B is something particularly tricky due in no small part to its use of a series of 360-degree turns in which the practitioner is supposed to end up facing in the opposite direction. we practiced side B starting purely from the left side, and i thought i was making sense of it until we started doing it starting from the right side, at which point i lost track of the sequence and orientation of the techniques again.

you can check out the Youtube videos of palm change 5 sides A & B:

palm change 5, side A:

the direct link is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdpf_8deCrU

palm change 5, side B:

the direct link is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgXSU2bEK3c

we worked on this for a while. we eventually took a break, although a good number of people kept practicing side B, since it is something that is going to need some time to figure out and remember.

2-person drill, palm change 5

i kind of dreaded this.

palm change 5 is long. and it takes a lot to remember it. and to have 2 sides (A and B) to remember really makes things complicated...especially since 2-person forms for each palm change are hard enough on their own without the addition of more techniques.

we began by organizing ourselves into 2 lines again of opposing sides (A v. B). Phunsak said we'd just focus on doing the first 4 moves of the 2-person form for today, so that everyone could concentrate on just learning the palm change.

as simple as this sounds, it ended up consuming the rest of class. i think a lot of it was people were still acquainting themselves to palm change 5 side B, and so were not quite comfortable in applying it with a partner in the 2-person form.

Phunsak and Sifu (who had returned by this time) said that despite the discomfort, it was still good to proceed with learning the 2-person form for the palm change, since it helps to show the application of the technique and makes it more clear as to their purpose. this assists memorization of the techniques and demonstrates the proper form for each one.

we ended the day with this, leaving the remainder of the 2-person form for next week. i think we all finished class with quite a bit to figure out and remember. we finished class and went to the customary post-class lunch.