day 76: straight chen (sort of)

concepts:

• real and fake

forms:

• chen tai chi long form

today (note: i'm referring to Sunday, November 18, rather than the date on this post) was largely chen tai chi...there may have been more, but i left around 12 to prep for my dissertation defense. the only people left by that time were Phunsak and John Eagles, so i don't know what they covered.

we started with brief discussion of an issue from Saturday. i asked Sifu about the way fighters (i used examples of some boxers) using different punches in combination attacking different sides of the opponent, with only some of the punches being real.

Sifu said this is typical, and applies to more than just punches. he noted the idea of mixing up "real" strikes with "fake" strikes (i.e., feints) is consistent with the principles we've been talking about, and so work just as well with throws, joint locks, kicks, etc. in fact, some techniques actually work better with these kinds of combinations, since they disrupt the opponent's concentration enough that it slows them down and prevents their reflexes from resisting. he demonstrated this with a throw, with one hand in the lower back and the other hand by the neck, and showed how things became dramatically easier with the hand in the lower back initiating the throw.

Sifu added that this doesn't even really require physical contact, and that the "fake" strike can be just as simple as waving a hand to get the opponent's attention. the trick, however, is to make sure that the "real" and "fake" strikes are in different directions (e.g., if a feint is going to the left kidney, the actual strike should be going to a target on the right side). he pointed out that there are are 12 major targets on the torso: 6 left & right (kidney, ribs, armpit both sides), and 6 front & back (solar plexus, throat, face, tailbone, lower spine, back of neck/skull), and that combinations should go to opposing sides to pull the opponent's attention away from the intended target.

in essence, this is really just a way of playing with the opponent's energy and changing yin & yang states, and so according to Sifu can work without physical contact in the sense that the opponent will still see or sense your actions moving in a certain direction, attempt to resist, and thereby open themselves up for the "main" strike.

after addressing this question, we turned to learning more of the Chen tai chi long form, and progressed up to the point with repulse monkey.

Sifu noted that this was another area of difference from Yang. in Yang, repulse monkey is done with the hands largely horizontal as they go in front of the body. in Chen, it is done with the forward-moving hand palm sideways, fingers up. in addition, in Yang, the front foot has the toe down and heel up, while in Chen the front foot has the toe up and heel down.

we went through several iterations up to this point. i left Phunsak and John at this time, since things seemed to be winding down. but i'll check with Sifu to see if he did anything else.