day 212: struggles with shuai jiao

concepts:

• throws
• entries
• feeling
  

lessons:

• shuai jiao

today was a rough shuai jiao day. for some reason, i just found everything hard. Sifu decided to spend today reviewing everything we'd learned, but adding in the process of setting up the throws.

this was just as well, since i'm at a point where i think i need to work on becoming more consistent with the techniques. there were a number of throws i'm still having trouble on, and even though we spent a good portion of class today working on them, things still aren't as consistent as i would like.

Sifu also pointed something today that i hadn't realized. before, i've asserted that throws require a proper set-up (i.e., breaking their center), since otherwise they don't work. i've also said set-ups require the right entries (i.e., getting around the opponent's defenses and entering their gates). however, it appears that there is another step that precedes this: feeling. Sifu said that even to attempt an entry requires that you be able to sense where your opponent is situated in terms of their focus, and where they are driving their force--in essence, this is the concept of ting jing, with the idea of being able to figure out an opponent's ying-yang distribution.

this is important, in that it allows you to figure 1) where their center of gravity is located, 2) where their axis (or axes) of stability are oriented, and 3) where their areas of instability are situated. once you know that, you can then figure out how to generate an opening to enter their gates and then move them to set them up.

Sifu had us try a number of throws starting all the way from an initial confrontation, with the goal of letting us work on feeling each other out and working to enter, set-up, and then initiate a throw. this turned out to be quite a bit harder than it looks. it was frustrating. it's going to take a lot more practice to get this down.

Viet didn't do much better. he actually ended up splitting his pants at one point, which caused no end of merriment for me and Sifu.

we ended class with a conversation on what we're going to do about next quarter. we're probably going to try and create a UCLA Shuai Jiao club (Viet already created a group on Facebook for it), and then maybe re-arrange the class schedule so that it's easier for people to make lessons. hopefully we'll be to generate some momentum and get some people involved. right now, it's the end of the winter quarter and i don't think we're going to be getting anybody new at this point.

day 211: more of the bagua fist

concepts:

• looseness

lessons:

• bagua fist

this Saturday was a little different from previous days. kyudo today wasn't dedicated to class, but instead to the annual Sukiyaki Festival, which is an event meant to gather the various kyudo dojos in Southern California for a common meal and informal gathering. as a result, i won't post anything here regarding kyudo, but will suffice to say that the meal was good and the company was great and everyone had a very good time.

bagua fist

we further into the fist form, getting into a series that resembled some of the moves in the mantis lien jian form (although, this may simply be because i am confusing all the forms together, but that's another conversation...).

Sifu initially spent time teaching the baji students, and then returned to review our progress. he checked each of us individually, and then made his comments--he said i was still employing too much tension, and that i needed to remember to focus on looseness, particularly in my low stances (where i apparently seem to be tensing up). we spent the class working on this, as well as practicing applications and reviewing the form to date.

day 210: lines and entries

concepts:

• lines
• entries
  

lessons:

• shuai jiao

this post is about as short as i can make it. we did a few more lines today, but spent the bulk of time practicing applications. which is fine, because i'm starting to see that even though shuai jiao may not appear as intricate as other TCMA styles because of its lack of forms, it has a wealth of detail and subtleties that make a big difference in practical use. in particular, we've been learning that while it's possible to make a lot of the techniques work without entirely proper technique, improper technique is still dangerous because a good opponent will be able to exploit any mistakes or flaws in your method (and hence, that's why it's improper, get it?).

we also spent some time today working on entries, learning how to set up some of the throws. this is something i've learned the hard way--throws are nothing without the proper set-up, but the set-up requires having the proper entry.

day 209: mantis and kuen wu erlu

concepts:

• memory

lessons:

• mantis 7-star lien jian
• kuen wu erlu
  

today (sunday) was packed. we crammed a good amount of kuen wu erlu and mantis lien jian together. a good amount of it was review, but these are both proving quite challenging to remember for some reason (actually, i do know the reason, but it's more a personal failing than anything within the forms themselves...see below).

kuen wu erlu

we spent the 1st half reviewing both kuen wu yilu and kuen wu erlu. this is actually quite tricky, since they are so very similar in terms of sequences and rough movements, but yet very much different in that yilu movements are softer, quicker, and more finesse-based, whereas erlu movements are harder, more explosive, and more power-based. this tends to make it very easy (for me at least) to mix up the 2 forms while in the middle of performing them.

we managed to get through all of erlu, and i have to admit it is getting easier now that we've standardized it. but it's going to take some time to get things sorted out enough that i can do either yilu or erlu on command without suffering a mental short-circuit.

mantis 7-star lien jian

we also got farther into mantis lien jian. this is also proving hard to remember. i suspect because the nature of the movements (i.e., what Sifu partially means when he uses the term "flavor") is so different from the other things i've learned. i can understand the physics, but Sifu said that the physics in mantis are much more obvious to see than in other styles; what's proving elusive is the intuitive feel of movements linking smoothly from one to the other. as a result, the form is still a memorization of individual steps, as opposed to a free-flowing movement single progression. this means that i'm having to think things through as i go--which is not good in any form.

we finished a little after noon, by which time i was hungry enough to join everyone else for lunch.

day 208: limited time

concepts:

• watching versus doing

lessons:

• bagua fist form

today was a bit curtailed. i'm in the process of dealing with midterms (giving them and grading them), and so things are very busy--enough so that i had to skip kyudo class this saturday evening. it's unfortunate, but i'll have to make things up over the next few weeks.

bagua fist form

the fist form today went a bit further into the form. nothing new there. but we also spent more time today going through the applications, particularly in figuring out some variations that were posed by the section we were doing today. initially, i'd thought that some of the movements were the same as earlier in the form, but Sifu noted that the applications are actually different here, and so involve a different yi (intent) and a corresponding difference in the physics.

of course, this isn't readily apparent from casual observation, which is why it's very easy to conceive of the movements in this section as being the same as those earlier in the form. but the difference become apparent when you actually do the technique (i have to note this reminds me very much of something they say in sports: there's a difference between watching a move and actually doing the move...and you can't appreciate what you watch until you can actually do).

we wrapped up a little after 1pm and went to a post-class lunch.

day 207: lines

concepts:

• lines

lessons:

• shuai jiao

i'm behind on my posts. really behind. i'll have to do some catch-up.

this Thursday shuai jiao lesson shrank down to just me and Viet. Sifu took us through a few more lines. we ended up stopping to review for a bit, and to try to figure out where we were. it turns out we've one through 12 lines already, which is quite a bit more than i'd thought (or, i have to admit, remember). Sifu noted that these are just the lines, with the applications, but that the entries were something that we'd have to learn separately--but which will be necessary to engage the techniques.

day 206: adventures & misadventures

concepts:

• shaolin
• thinking too much
  

lessons:

• bagua fist form
• kyudo

we had another wet Saturday today. very wet. and cold. as a result, things were a bit unsteady--not for any reason, other than rainy days always seem to be this way, like some psychic disturbance in people's collective (un)consciousness.

bagua fist form

we went a little further in to the fist form. we got to a part that was eerily reminiscent of shaolin styles, particularly in terms of a sweep and a kick. Sifu mentioned that parts of the fist form were influenced by--if it didn't directly come from--shaolin.

he also noted that we were now approximately 1/3 of the way through the form, which is a bit shocking, considering that it takes about 2 minutes to get to where we are now, suggesting that the entire form is around 6 minutes. this makes it in the same category as the chen tai chi long form. no big deal, except that you also have to consider that the fist form is only 1 form out of many bagua forms, while the chen long form is traditionally the only chen tai chi form (the short form is a rather recent creation, and not part of the traditional chen curriculum).

i made a video of where we are, since it's now becoming long enough that i'm having trouble remembering everything. i think i'm going to have to make this a regular occurrence.

kyudo

kyudo today was a continuation of misadventures. this was the 1st day that i wore japanese dojo clothes (i.e., tabi, hakama, obi, dogi). this turned out to be quite a bit more complicated to put on that i had expected, and i ended up getting out of the locker room quite late for the sutra. i can see this is going to take quite a bit of practice to get down to a more manageable speed.

Sensei also observed that some of my clothes were a little mis-sized--in particular, my hakama was several centimeters too short. he said this is something we can rectify in time, but that we'll have to live with this for now.

as for the rest of the evening, i actually am starting to get a little more comfortable with the general pattern of the art--cleaning the dojo, preparing the equipment, dressing the self, meditating, and then pulling on the glove and lining up to shoot.

but i should note this is only up to a point. i'm still struggling a bit with the act of shooting, and i'm still tensing up and making mistakes in performance of the form. in particular, i can tell my shoulders and scapula, along with my elbows and spine, are still entirely discombobulated. i think i'm trying to concentrate on too many things at once, and am not at a stage where i can just let things flow naturally. Sensei admonished me at one point, saying: "you're thinking too much."

ah yes, so goes my ongoing education in the bow and arrow. this is going to take some work.

day 205: more shuai jiao

concepts:

• lines

lessons:

• shuai jiao

this was the 3rd shuai jiao lesson. there's a slight hiccup, with 2 out of the remaining 4 students dropping out for financial reasons. this leaves Viet and me. we've been working on ways to recruit more people for the class, but it's a work in progress. we had one of Sifu's other tai chi students (a woman, and from what i know a phd student), join us for today, making it 3. Viet and i are distributing fliers around campus, so we'll see if anybody responds.

the lesson today was a continuation with the previous classes. we began class by practicing falling, and then learning more lines. we spent the bulk of class practicing the applications, particularly a few which proved to be more difficult than they first appeared.

we finished around 8, and spent a few minutes discussing the fliers and other options for recruiting.

day 204: kuen wu jian erlu (final...really, final)

lessons:

• mantis
• kuen wu jian erlu
  

this post is a little late. it's also going to be really short.

we spent this Sunday going a little bit further into the mantis form and also finalizing the kuen wu jian erlu form--and i mean really final. Sifu had detected a few errors in the last video and wanted some changes.

here's the video of the final standardized version of kuen wu jian erlu, with Lance still the performer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yJkbvkcg4E

day 203: 2 left feet, hands, and pretty much everything else

concepts:

• a bad day

lesson:

• bagua fist form
• kyudo
  

today was pretty much just a bad day from top to bottom. for some reason, i just had no sense of coordination or concentration, and was largely discombobulated the entire day. as a result, i can't say that there was much constructive accomplished, and i can only tell you that this post is going to be very short.

bagua fist form

we went further into the fist form and worked on applications. Sifu pointed out that a number of applications weren't what they appeared to be--that is, even though they use fists, they are not really punches, but instead actions leading to throws and locks.

i was able to keep up with the most part, but i was having severe memory lapses that caused me to get stuck at specific points in the form, with complete blanks in memory about what to do next. it was a struggle. i think i managed to iron most of these problems, but given just how clueless i was, who knows.

kyudo

kyudo wasn't much better. Sensei allowed me and Phunsak to shoot again (although, with the admonition that it be supervised). but try as i might, i couldn't do anything right.

i think i pretty much made every mistake there was to make today. my footsteps were wrong, my bows were wrong, i held the arrow in the wrong direction (with the notch and feathers facing the target!!!), i couldn't nock the arrow onto the string (it kept falling onto the floor...loudly), i couldn't raise the bow and arrow, i couldn't sight, i couldn't draw, and i couldn't shoot. and to emphasize the last point, i actually missed the makiwara (the hay bail)--meaning that i essentially missed a target at point-blank range.

how lovely.

yeah, it was a bad day.

i was actually relieved when class ended and i could just tuck my tail between my legs and crawl back home.

we all have these days, when nothing seems to go right. it just happens. it's the law of averages.

but i sure hope things will be better next time.

day 202: shuai jiao cont'd

concepts:

• formalities

lessons:

• shuai jiao

this is going to be a short post. we're still working on the basics, learning falling. we also took part of class today to learn 3 more movements, and practiced performing lines of them.

in addition, this was the 1st day Sifu began to show us the formalities of shuai jiao. apparently, there are rules how and when to sit (cross-legged, during every lesson), when to walk around the room (between practice sessions), and which way to face in practice (depends on the room).

we also took some time to figure out ways to try and recruit more people, and to dry to address administrative details regarding books and uniforms.