day 85: chen, pao quan, jian, & bagua leg form cont'd

concepts:

• yin-yang
• center(s) of gravity

forms:

• pao quan
• chen tai chi long form
• kuen wu jian
• bagua leg form
  

we had a large turnout today, with several students who apparently haven't been seen for quite some number of years. all told, i counted 10 students for today's Sunday class.

the morning was devoted to the usual Sunday session, with the bulk of instruction on the Chen tai chi long form and then a short section on kuen wu jian form. the afternoon was a continuation of the bagua leg form from yesterday evening, and so shrank to a smaller group.

pao quan

Ching-Tszieh showed up, freshly returned from Taiwan. while she was getting caught up with events in the class, Phunsak worked with me to go a little bit further into pao quan. i brushed up some of the question points i had, and then we progressed to some more of the form. i'm guessing i'm around halfway through at this point--which is surprising, because it seems to be l-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-n-g.

Chen tai chi long form

since Ching-Tzsieh and Jay--who also showed up--hadn't done the Chen long form before, Sifu did a short review. he also did a brief backtrack to introduce the combat concepts we've covered in the past weeks, focusing mostly on yin-yang, center(s) of gravity, and entries.

we ended up tying this into the form. Sifu took us a little further in the form, going through the first set of side heel kicks and then a little bit further.

he stopped to show us the combat applications, breaking things down in terms of the combat concepts above. he then had us practice in pairs to see how the concepts determined the types of adjustments that needed to be made to each technique to make them effective based on a specific set of circumstances.

Sifu made a point to repeat something he'd mentioned in passing in yesterday's seminar regarding the yin-yang and center(s). he'd said that in applying yin to yang (and vice versa) the point was less to try and locate an opponent's center and their distribution of yin-yang force vectors so as to determine how to place your own force vectors, but more to locate these points so as to determine how you can balance them about the systemic center. in other words, you're supposed to balance the opponent's yin with your yang (or vice versa) so that the yin-yang balance of the entire system of bodies (i.e., both of you together) is balanced about the systemic center (i.e., the common center of gravity or common center of mass of the sytem created by both of you). Sifu said this was more accurate in determining placement of your force vectors--not just in direction or magnitude, but in point of origin in 3-d space or in time within the dynamic conditions of an encounter.

after this, we did a number of repetitions of the Chen long form we've done to date, just to build it into our memory.

kuen wu jian

we finished class with kuen wu jian. we had to break out extra swords, since there were more people. this went pretty quickly, with Sifu showing us more of the form and then having us repeat it several times to help remember.

we finished the morning session with this. Sifu reminded everyone that we are holiday break, and that he would be in Hawaii until the 2nd weekend in January. he's teaching a class at UCLA again, so he'll be back in time for the winter quarter, but the 1st Saturday session won't be until the 2nd week. he also noted that the first weekend back will be a double session, with both Saturday and Sunday class.

bagua leg form

the afternoon continuation of the bagua leg form grew. both Ching-Tszieh and Jay were interested, so they joined me and John.

Sifu reviewed the form briefly so that everyone could get on the same page, and then went into the combat applications of the techniques. he demonstrated them to us, and then had us work in pairs practicing the techniques.

i found that the concepts we've covered in the past weeks on yin-yang and center(s) extended to the leg form techniques in a pretty straightforward manner. although, there were still a few sticking points in terms of being able to 1) locate the proper yin-yang balance, and 2) locate the proper center(s). Sifu repeated the point he'd made from the morning about focusing on balancing yin-yang forces about the systemic center, and noted how this adjusted our actions in ways that better matched the actions of the opponent.

we finished with a final review of the leg form to date, and then called it a day. Jay and Phunsak stayed for more separate private sessions, and the rest of us wished happy holidays and left.