day 189: kuen wu and mantis

lessons:

• kuen wu erlu
• mantis
  

today was a little bit different from the normal Sunday. Sifu wanted to get some pictures of jian shu sparring to make some flyers, and so i used the camera and took pictures of Sifu, Kieun, and Phunsak. we got a number of good photos, with Sifu solo and Kieun and Phunsak in sparring poses. if i get the chance, i'll post them here.

because of the photo shoot, we focused primarily on kuen wu and skipped the chen tai chi lessons. instead, we ended up joining the mantis lesson Sifu was giving Jonathan Shen.

kuen wu erlu

we went a little bit further into kuen wu erlu, although we spent the majority of time fine-tuning the movements we've done to date. the form is starting to differ from yilu, with the application of power into the movements calling for a different nature and appearance of actions at a number of points. so far i've been able to keep the 2 forms separate, but it's starting to become a little more difficult and i think it may soon be time to see about recording someone doing the entire form.

mantis

i'm not particularly interested in mantis, but apparently Kieun and Phunsak have some interest in it. since Sifu was working with Jonathan when we finished taking pictures, we ended up just joining in. i don't remember too much of the lesson today, since mantis is a very different style from the ones i've been learning, and mentally has a different perspective that requires an adjustment in perspective that i'm not quite comfortable making at this point. still, it was interesting to sample it, and i can see its general approach to fighting.

i don't know if we're switching to this for the Sunday lesson (Phunsak seemed to be under the impression we were), but i figure this will be something that we'll discuss next time.