days 145 & 146: finishing spring quarter of tai chi

concepts:

• lightness
• listening
  

forms:

• yang long form

this week was mostly a winding down for the quarter. Sifu scheduled final exams for this past Thursday, since he was leaving for Hawaii next week. as a result, we focused more on review and less on learning anything new.

day 145

this was Tuesday, and we spent the 1st half of class doing repetitions of the yang long form, to help everyone prepare for the final exam. for the exam, Sifu announced he was going to give everyone the option of doing either the 1st half of the form or the 2nd half, and that he would record the exam and then give each student the digital video files of their midterm and final exam performances to keep as personal record of their progression in class.

the 2nd half of class was spent practicing the push hands exercises from last week, with Sifu reminding everyone to focus on maintaining light contact and listening to the other person. we did the single-arm push hands, and then progressed to basic 2-hand push hands, and tried a few variations. Sifu said we could practice this in class next week--even though he won't be here, he says that Art, Doria, and i can help everyone experiment with some of the basic 2-hand push hands variations.

day 146

this Thursday was devoted entirely to final exams. the format was identical to the midterms, with each student doing their performance of either the 1st or 2nd half of the long form solo in front of the class. i recorded videos. everyone did pretty well, although Sifu withheld final grades until he could get time to assembled the digital video files.