day 149: miscellanous, with no agenda

concepts:

• 5-element theory
• bagua fists
  

forms:

• basic qi-gong
• 5-element qi-gong
• tournament prep
  

today was not really a formal class day, since Sifu is at home in Hawaii for the next few weeks. but i'm going to list it--and the next few weekends that Sifu is out--as blog posts, since i figure i'm still learning things which otherwise might not be recorded in this blog.

we're supposed to be starting double-up weekends for the summer, with the plan being to have class on both Saturday and Sunday every weekend from this point on throughout the summer up until the Las Vegas tournament. this applies for the next few weeks Sifu is gone. however, for this weekend, we only scheduled to meet on Saturday, since Phunsak had a fencing tournament on Sunday and everyone had already made plans as well.

Phunsak says the general idea for this time without Jason is to review and practice. he's also offered to cover anything that anyone wants to request, whether it be bagua, tai chi, or anything else. James has apparently also offered to do the same for the baji students.''

basic qi-gong

i'd asked Phunsak earlier in the week for some help with qi-gong, and so we'd scheduled to meet up early before class (at 9am). i asked for this because Jay had checked me earlier in the week and had said that my qi was entirely too low for someone my age (his words)--he's said this a number of times before, and so have other people, at least in terms of the sentiment that i have low qi. thing is, none of the bagua or tai chi qi-gong really seems to be helping me on this, and so i figured i might as well devote some time getting assistance focused exclusively on qi.

Phunsak started us with some basic qi-gong (he called it "qi-gong 101," which i'm guessing is what i need). we began with 2 basic postures, holding them for a few minutes each to get the form right and focus the mind and breathing. Phunsak noted that when he first started, he usually did these every day for around 10 minutes each, and that over time the tingling or warm sensations normally associated with qi began to become easier to bring on, and that eventually he could feel it throughout the entire body as opposed to just the fingertips (which is about the limit i've been able to do).

i asked how you can tell the difference between the tingling from real qi compared to the tingling from the body part falling asleep (e.g., when your legs become numb from sitting too long). Phunsak said there is a clear difference, and you'll know.

5-element qi-gong

from there, he took us--by this time Ching-Chieh and Viet had arrived--through 5-element qi-gong. i have the DVD for this, although haven't watched it since going through the introduction to 5-element theory in Sifu's class this past quarter. this is the qi-gong taught by Sifu Su Yu-Chang, and Phunsak says he suspects Sifu Su developed it (even though he claims he learned it from other sources). basically, it incorporates 5 sets of qi-gong movements corresponding to each of the 5 elements in TCM (i.e., wood, earth, metal, fire, water), with each set having 3 moves corresponding to yin, yang, and neutral. it's a very active qi-gong, with movements that are both soft and explosive.

i asked Phunsak about this type of qi-gong in relation to the bagua and tai chi qi-gong i've learned so far. he said that a lot of the movements and postures are actually really the same--there are variations, but you can see that the general postures are the same, and the principles of breathing and concentration are the same as well.

tournament prep

at this point, Keiun appeared. Phunsak went to work with Ching-Chieh to practice the 2-person 64 palms form for the tournament. Kieun, Viet, and i went to work on sparring preparation.

for today, Kieun had us working on more basic drills, consisting of the following:

• basic movement: stepping and shuffling
• basic kicks: roundhouse, side kick, bicycle kick
  

Kieun said to focus primarily on getting used to the body mechanics in the drills, and developing coordination to improve speed and power. we did a number of iterations of these drills along a line, consuming a good chunk of time getting these down.

from here, Kieun then led us further into punching drills, adding onto to the ones we did last week. instead of drills to work on timing, however, this time he said we needed to learn the range of fists in bagua, so as to provide us more material to work with in the next few weeks.

this was the first time i've heard mention of bagua fists. i know there is a bagua fist form, which presumably teaches students how to integrate fists into bagua (meaning it goes from being bagua zhang, or 8-trigram palm, to bagua quan, or 8-trigram fist), but Sifu has not yet taken us through this form. apparently, however, the fists have been covered earlier in the curriculum--this must have been before i started, presumably around the time when everyone learned the 8 mother palms or xiao kai men, since i began just when everyone finished xia kai men.

basically, the bagua fists consists of 8 (duh...bagua...) fists, and much like the 8 mother palms and 8 stances and 8 qi-gong movements (duh...bagua...), each fist is associated with each of the 8 bagua stances (duh...bagua...sure do love the number 8). Kieun had me and Viet work on the fists for the first 4: lion, snake, bear, and dragon. we practiced punching against mitts, with Kieun telling us to just focus on getting the technique and timing down for now.

this took the remainder of practice time for today. Kieun had to leave strictly at 12:30 because of wedding preparations, and so we stopped with the 4 bagua fists, with the remainder reserved for next week. we stayed long enough to record a video of Ching-Chieh and Phunsak doing the 2-person 64 palms form (note: this is not going to be posted on Youtube, since it was Ching-Chieh's personal video to help her learn the form for the tournament). after this, we ended practice for the day and went to lunch.