day 150: tournament prep drills - basic fists and kicks

concepts:

• bagua fists-attack & defense

forms:

• tantui
• tournament prep

this Saturday was run much the same as last Saturday, with people showing up just to practice whatever they wanted. there was a lower turnout this weekend relative to last week, and so things were much more informal. today ended up being about tournament preparation. we broke up into 2 groups, with Phunsak and Ching-Chieh continuing practice on the 64 palms 2-person form for the tournament, and Kieun working with me and Viet for the sparring work on the tournament.

tantui

since Phunsak ran a little late due to a traffic jam, Kieun had us warm up with tantui. we haven't done this in class for awhile (although i do it periodically on my own for review), so it was good to run through it. i hope to go through chang quan with Sifu to get the applications in tantui and pao quan, since i think this would really help me make some progress with chang quan--although, it will have to wait until the fall, after the tournament has passed. i think i'm at a sticking point in terms of my skill with long fist, and it won't get any better until i can get some more insight as to what the intent and physics are supposed to be utilized within the forms.

tournament prep

Phunsak eventually arrived and went to work with Ching-Chieh on the 64 palms 2-person form. Kieun, Viet, and i started the sparring prep with basic movement drills, beginning with the shuffling and stepping along a line drills from last week, and then building on them with some shuffling and stepping in combinations and angles.

from here, we did a review of the basic kicks from last week, doing repetitions of each against kicking pads.

after this, we went on to finish the introduction to the bagua fists we'd done last Saturday. last week we'd managed to get 4. this week we finished off with the other 4: hawk, unicorn, monkey, and big bird.

for today, Kieun and Phunsak both noted that each of the 8 bagua fists has an application on both offense and defense, in that each one can be used to attack the opponent or to parry the opponent's attack. in some situations, they can also serve to simultaneously do both. Kieun had Viet and i take turns applying the fists on both offense and defense from a stationary stance. while doing so, he pointed out that different kinds of fists are meant for different distances and different body areas (either as targets for attack or body parts to defend), which from what he and Phunsak said can be broken down as follows:

• lion--range: long or medium, body area: upper part of upper body or head
• snake--range: medium or short, body area: lower part of upper body or midsection
• bear--range: short, body area: lower part of upper body or midsection
• dragon--range: medium or short, body area: upper part of upper body or head
• hawk--range: short, body area: upper part of upper body or head
• unicorn--range: short, body area: lower part of upper body or midsection
• monkey--range: short, body area: upper part of upper body or head
• big bird--range: long or medium, body area: upper part of upper body or head
  

after going through the introduction to these, Kieun had Viet continue with basic punching drills (the same ones from last week), and had me work on using the fists while moving, first with repetitions of each fist, and then progressing to randomly employing them in response to free-form actions by an opponent.

i struggled with this, since i haven't had the opportunity to practice free-form partner drills (i.e., drills where actions of one or both partners are random), and it added another layer of complexity that disrupted my coordination. i suspect that it gets easier with time--which based on my struggles today i'm definitely going to need.

this consumed the rest of class, since there was quite a bit of material covered.

i should note that i'm finding this pretty educational. most everything that i've learned with bagua is connected to takedowns in terms of throws. we have had some punching applications and joint locks, but they've been covered in relatively lower proportion to takedowns. this is the first time i've been spending time exclusively focused on using punches with bagua. this may be because i joined after the curriculum had covered this material (it certainly seems like Kieun and Phunsak have seen it before), but i'll have to ask.

we eventually called things to an end around 1pm, when we decided it was time to go to lunch.