day 224: reconstructing drills

concepts:

• gai bu
• tuei bu
• bei bu
  

lessons:

• chen tai chi

i'm so sick right now i can't even remember what we did last week. i have some vague recollections about last Sunday, but it's a fog.

chen tai chi

we spent the class dealing with chen tai chi. Sifu had us work on moving cloud hands--basically cloud hands, but integrating more footwork, and in pairs. he had us do drills in pairs, involving footwork, which were as follows:

• bei bu (sic?)--i forgot the exact name, so this is probably wrong. basically, it's the shuffle step where the front foot slides first and the rear foot then slides second. we did this in pairs, with both partners facing each other, and then going backwards. the aim was to do cloud hands (using just the hand facing the opponent, and in contact with their hand) as we did the footwork.
• tuei bu (sic?)--ditto, i can't remember the exact name. this is another shuffle step, except that the rear foot slides first and then the front foot slides out second, giving the impression of a slight skip. the partner drill was the same as the above.
• gai bu (sic?)--ditto. this involved the front foot rising up first, and then hopping slightly w the rear foot before moving forward to land with both feet on the ground. the partner drill was the same as above.
  

we spent the class repeating these drills.