day 162: more refinement

forms:

• bagua 64 palms

this Saturday was more refinement of the 64 palms form. Sifu started class by explaining why he was insisting everyone (both bagua and baji students) take time to refine their forms. ordinarily, he wouldn't be pushing so hard, especially with so many beginners. but since he's expecting to leave Los Angeles and return to Hawaii full-time next summer, he wants to make sure that there is a solid foundation left that is strong enough to be self-sustaining and identifiable as the Wutan branch in Los Angeles. in order to make this happen, however, he needs to have a cadre of students capable of exemplifying the true flavor of Wutan martial arts.
this means students who can do the forms that are technically flawless, and vary only in the sense of personal expression (i.e., a bagua form looks like a classic bagua form, with the techniques smooth, clear, and in accordance with the ideal, and with the only difference being the intent and mental state of the performer.

this is all part of an apparently recent decision by Sifu regarding his plans for Los Angeles after he leaves. he's said in the past that he'd distanced himself from the Wutan organization for awhile, for various personal reasons. but now that he's leaving, he wants to leave an institution, and has decided to tie in more closely to the original Wutan organization. to do this, he wants to formalize things so that 1) there's an identity, 2) there's an infrastructure, and 3) there's a support network. for an identity, he wants to have things known as the Wutan Martial Arts Center of Los Angeles, with a clearly identified focus on preserving the Northern Chinese martial arts taught within the Wutan system. for an infrastructure, he wants to have certified instructors and qualified representatives (i suppose that's where we come in) following a clearly delineated curriculum and objectives, such that there is an institutional corpus that is self-sustaining and self-propagating. for the support network, he wants to see us part of the larger global Wutan community, so as to benefit from the resources and assistance of Wutan members around the world.

all of these things are apparently being done simultaneously now. he's apparently been in contact with Wutan offices in other locations. we're looking at getting uniforms, website, Facebook presence (yes, there is one now), email, and location (in essence, using marketing terminology, we're "branding"). and we're accelerating the pace of refinement before Sifu leaves, with students expected to move farther along in their mastery of forms than might otherwise be expected.

personally, i haven't been aware of too much of this. most of this has been dealt with between the more senior people in the class. although, i do notice that i've gotten quite a bit more correspondence in recent months from Wutan people around the world, and this would certainly explain why.

bagua 64 palms

Sifu had us repeat the evaluation from last week, to give each of us more pointers. i won't cover what was said about others, but instead just focus on mine:

• eyes--apparently i'm not looking at the direction of the opponent, but instead am dropping my eyes to the ground. this affects my yi (intent), and so throws off my power and balance.
• short--my movements are still a little short in some points, particularly in entering and closing each palm change.
• muscle--i'm using too much muscle power. i need to be using more skeletal power, meaning i need to allow the forms to generate power simply from the movement of good technique.
• flow--i need to just flow smoothly from one technique to another, and from one palm change to another. this means having smoother transitions between each one (and apparently, the transitions are just as important as the techniques and the forms, since they allow you to produce combinations of your own choice to fit any set of changing conditions, and to react to anything that may happen to you).
  

between the bagua and baji students, this took the entire day, and we finished around 1pm and went to lunch.