day 183: more push hands

concepts:

• hwa
• na
  

lessons:

• chen push hands
• kuen wu erlu
  

again, i'm still feeling sick, so this post is going to be short.

chen push hands

we spent this Sunday continuing chen push hands. this time, however, Sifu had us progress to the next stage in push hands, with the switch being an emphasis on hwa and na jing. in push hands, this means using the exercise to try and position yourself to launch an attack against the opponent. this requires that you not only sense the other person's actions (ting jing), but also redirect their action (hwa jing) and then control them in a way that you are positioned to attack (na jing). this involves a transition between states of no force and force.

Sifu also commented that in order for us to get the full benefit of this exercise, we needed to utilize our entire bodies--not just arms and hands, but also start trying to engage our bodies and legs in contact with the opponent. in addition, he also said we needed to start varying the range and scale of our movements, so that it was not just circles of a fixed radius, but varying paths of varying shapes of varying sizes in varying directions.

this added several layers of complexity, and was quite a challenge to adjust to. i wasn't quite comfortable with this, and i think it's going to take some time to get used to this.

kuen wu erlu

we finished the day by starting the kuen wu erlu form. this is essentially the 2nd level of kuen wu jian, and differs from the 1st level in that it incorporates power. Sifu reviewed some of the basic history, noting that while the form originally came from elsewhere, the 2nd level incorporated some of the power issuing concepts taught by Li Shu Wen in his baji/piqua and spear training, and was meant to make kuen wu jian more effective for fighting. we went a few moves into the form, and practiced these a few times.