day 118: more side B & chin na seminar

concepts:

• fire
• water
• brush
• spinning
  

forms:

• palm change 3, side B
• chin na
  

today was a truncated day for Saturday, with the class ending at 12 (noon) so that everyone could head over to Cal State LA for the seminar, which went both Saturday and Sunday. as a result, the only item scheduled for class was to continue with the refinement and applications for palm change 3, side B.

palm change 3, side B

we did an initial review of this, doing several repetitions in a circle. Sifu then went through the applications of the individual techniques one by one.

originally, i thought that this palm was very tai-chi-esque, because its movements resembled some of the ones from Yang and Chen. however, today, Sifu said this was actually wrong, with the intent behind the movements and the force vectors actually being different. in particular, he noted:

• divert and grab by the cloth into snake spits its tongue--i had interpreted this to be akin to tai chi's pull-down. but apparently divert and grab by the cloth can actually be a brush, with the goal of establishing contact with the opponent and deceiving their perceptions, so that snake spits its tongue can then be applied as the actual driving strike.
• snake coils in its den--this is very similar to Chen. but Sifu said that in Chen the force vector is moving on a circular path on a predominately horizontal plane, whereas with snake coils in its den the force vector is largely along the vertical axis of the body's rotation, with the body weight sinking on the axis and thereby serving to create a force vector downwards. in addition, in snake coils its den, the upward hand rises but is not utilized as a primary force generator (i.e., you're not really pushing with it). instead, it acts to maintain contact with the opponent and divert their attention from the real force vector. this contrasts to Chen, where the upraised hand plays a more participatory role in applying force.

to finish, Sifu discussed the nature of the green dragon turns its body. he pointed out that although the form has the rotation going in one direction, that the practitioner actually has the option of rotating in either clockwise or counter-clockwise directions, with both serving to place the practitioner in a location to initiate strikes to the opponent. while spinning is somewhat risky, since it momentarily puts your back towards the opponent, breaking your visual awareness, it can be effective. the major caveat is that the spin be towards the dragon gate (i.e., outside the opponent), and not the tiger gate (i.e., the inside of the opponent), since spinning to the tiger gate would mean you are placing your back to the front of the opponent, making it easy for them to attack.

chin na

i'm including discussion of the seminar here, since i figured it would be more appropriate to just give a summary of the seminar content, and that as a result it wouldn't really require a separate post. there's so much detail but only so much blog space and personal energy to allow a full presentation of the seminar. besides, people need an incentive like in-depth first-hand education to go to seminars, don't they?

i should note that there is a seminar manual, with 2 DVDs, covering everything presented. so anybody interested in trying learn more should contact Art to get copies.

Saturday was devoted primarily to chin na theory. we began with a brief historical overview of chin na, and then went into a discussion of the 5 categories of chin na:

• je mai (intercepting chi in the extremities)
• bi chi (stopping chi in the torso)
• fen jin (isolating tendons)
• chuo gu (destroying bones and joints)
• dim mak (pressure points)
  

Sifu stressed the principles of each of these, stating that while it is possible to learn an innumerable number of techniques, knowing the principles will allow you to figure techniques for yourself. the risk with memorizing techniques is that you rely on your brain's ability to organize and remember techniques, which is difficult in full-speed combat. in comparison, understanding principles is easier, and allow more natural and hence faster movement in a fight.

from here, Sifu presented his theories in terms of applying chin na principles. we've had a lot of these in class before, but today we dealt with the theories in relation to chin na. Sifu organized his theories into 6 categories:

• yin-yang
• whirlpool/vortex
• using the ground to generate reaction forces
  
• neurological responses
• mind control
• flow & change of energy from ting, hwa, na, and fa
  

we finished Saturday with some brief demonstrations of principles and theories.

Sunday was more applications and demonstration of theory. Sifu reviewed example techniques illustrating the principles and theories. he then broke us into different groups, with one group for bagua, another for baji, and another for tai chi. each group took turns breaking down various techniques in their style into the constituent principles and theories, and then demonstrating this to the group, with Sifu making additional comments and corrections.

you can see examples of this at the following videos (these are only excerpts, since we covered a lot more):
bagua:

baji:

tai chi:


we continued with discussion of how to train for chin na, and then finished with some question-and-answers.