day 182: many many things

concepts:

• directions
• formality
  

lessons:

• pao quan applications
• bagua forest palm
• kyudo
  

i've been quite sick this week, either because of food poisoning (some bad fish) or because of a virus that's been having its way on campus. either way, the symptoms have been digestive issues, intense nausea, diarrhea, high fever, and severe weakness. as a result, i haven't been inclined to take time to do much of a write-up regarding last weekend, and this post and the next are going to be pretty short.

pao quan applications

my pao quan lesson this past Friday was a continued refinement of the form, but with a fair amount of time devoted to reviewing applications. there were a number of applications that i realized we hadn't covered, and Sifu said we might as well make sure to go through everything. in addition, he also showed me alternative applications for some of the techniques.

he observed that a lot of them were obvious to him, to an extent that he often doesn't think it's necessary to show them, but that he forgets that for people without a background in martial arts it all is largely obscure. he also noted that because there were different applications possible in the various techniques, that there were several different acceptable variations in the movements associated with them in the form--but that the variations were okay only so long as it was apparent that the person doing the form understands the applications in the variations.

bagua forest palm

this Saturday we continued forest palm. we began with a review of what we'd learned to date, both of the form and the applications in it. we then went about another 8 moves further into the form, and spent the class refining our movement.

Sifu observed that one of the major ways forest palm differs from xiao kai men and 64 palms is that it utilizes different directions. xia kai men and 64 palms work either in line or on a circle. in contrast, forest palm breaks away from both and involves constant change in direction, with movements moving continuously in directions that match neither a line or a circle. Sifu commented this is a reflection of the form's emphasis on teaching you how to use bagua in any direction at any time, and is part of why it is useful in learning how to apply techniques against multiple opponents, who invariably attack from multiple directions at once.

kyudo

the kyudo lesson today featured 2 other beginners besides myself. as a result, Sensei Beal took us as a group and introduced us to the basic 8 steps in the kyudo form, emphasizing breathing and timing in relation each of the 8 steps. following this, he had one of the senior students (an older Japanese-American man everyone calls "Doc") teach us the basics of kyudo stepping (which looks and feels suspiciously like bagua stepping) and rising in and out of a sitting posture.

today was a bit of a lead-in to the very basic elements of kyudo and showed me just how formal an art it is, with clearly defined requirements for each component in the art extending from sitting and meditating to walking and posture, never mind shooting and setting up the bow. it's very different from the kung fu, which is much more performance and applications-driven, but i suspect this is why kyudo has the suffix "do" (which is the Japanese word for "way"), since it is a refined art form dedicated to making an elevated aesthetic and spiritual experience of what traditionally was very much a performance-driven martial art.

in essence, from what i can see, kyudo isn't about being practical, and isn't meant to be such, whereas the kung fu i've been learning is, and you can see the difference in what is taught--and neither is better or worse than the other, but they are nonetheless very much different in this way. of course, this should not be taken to say that one is "prettier" or more spiritual than the other, since i see these aspects in both, but it is to say that one makes it a point of emphasis more so than the other in terms of the focus of teaching...at least, for this stage in my training.