day 157: more leg drills & mock jian shu

concepts:

• footwork

forms:

• tournament prep--leg drills
• tournament prep--jian shu
  

today build on the drills from last Sunday. we had a new person today, Randy, who had been in Sifu's Long Beach sword class, and is preparing to go the Baltimore tournament. Alex was back today as well, to help practice running the jian shu tournament rounds. we warmed up with a repetitions of the Chen tai chi long form, although a few people filtered in after we had started.

leg drills

we began by repeating most of the solo leg drills from last week (reference: day 155), then went into some new drills:

• crossover step, solo--this followed the same pattern as the step and shuffle drills from last week, except this time we used a crossover step, with the rear foot stepping in front of the front foot to advance forward, and the front foot stepping in front of the rear foot to move backwards. Sifu said this was important, since it reduced the chance of tripping the feet.
• triangle step, stationary, solo--basically, you visualize an imaginary equilateral triangle on the ground, with each side matching your typical stance width and 1 vertex aiming at an imaginary opponent. you place 1 foot on the front vertex and the other foot on either one of the rear vertices. this will place you in a way that has 1 side of your body aiming at an angle in the general direction of the opponent. you then begin shifting your feet, so that you change which side of your body faces the enemy (e.g., if you began with your left foot on the front vertex and your right foot on the left rear vertex, you then move both feet so that your right foot is on the front vertex and your left foot is on the right rear vertex). Sifu said emphasized: DO NOT JUMP, but instead try to move in a way that has 1 foot taking the place of the other on the front vertex (i.e., shift the foot that is on the front vertex). we did this for several rounds of 16 repetitions.
• triangle step, moving, solo--this is the same as the above, except that with each shift in side you either move forward or backwards. we did several rounds of 16 repetitions, with each round either advancing forward or backward.
• triangle step, partner--here, Sifu had 1 partner be the attacker, holding a sword. the other partner was the defender. the attacker's role was to poke with the sword (ideally, it's a fake sword w a dull point, or just a plain stick) straight at the defender's chest. the defender's role was to then use the triangle step to shift out of the way. both partners would do 1 round moving forward, and then 1 round moving backwards. we did several rounds, again with 16 repetitions, and then switching roles.
• mix step, partner--this integrated all the footwork drills from last week. the drill is identical to the triangle step with a partner, except that the defender has to match the attacker's footwork, with the attacker choosing to either step, shuffle, or crossover while poking the defender with the sword. the defender's job is to retreat away from the sword. in this drill, the defender always retreats, and never advances.
  

after we did these drills, Sifu broke us into separate groups, with Simon and Richard going to give Randy sparring practice, and with me, Phunsak, Ching-Chieh, John, and Alex going to run some mock jian shu tournament rounds to practice judging.

jian shu

Sifu decided that we should have Ching-Chieh get some practice being a line judge, since she was going to act as a time-keeper for the jian shu tournament and might possibly have to fill in as a line-judge in case someone got sick or was unable to make the tournament. so we held several jian shu rounds, with everyone rotating in and out as line judges. Alex and i took turns being head referee.

this consumed the remainder of class time, and we kept going until the time Ching-Chieh had to leave (she's going away for 6 weeks for field research, which was why she's been trying to get in so much practice time recently). everyone had things to do and so had to skip lunch, leaving me and Phunsak to go eat.