Thursday, August 20, 2009

day 238: starting the elbow form

concepts:
  • structure
  • locks
lessons:
  • bagua elbow form
today was a mixture of perplexion, frustration, and observation. not necessarily in equal measure or in that order. we had a bit of a light turnout today, largely because i suspect there was a still a post-tournament hangover and a number of people elected to stay at home for the weekend.

Sifu began by making an announcement regarding next year's tournament. apparently, the decision has been made to hold it in Khaosiung, Taiwan. it's Taiwan's 2nd biggest city and it's located on the southern end of the island. it was chosen over Taipei (Taiwan's biggest city and located on the northern end of the island) because Khaosiung is cheaper and the city government is more welcoming of a tournament. the date has not been set, although Nick Scrima and Master Su Yuchang had originally worked around a date sometime next August (this is subject to change, since many Taiwanese have pointed out that Taiwanese Augusts has the most volatile weather, particularly in terms of typhoons). Sifu said that this tournament was going to feature an international body, with a much greater number of participants and spectators, and that we should try to make the trip if at all possible. he encouraged us to try and plan for the tournament, and make it a project for the course of the next year.

bagua elbow form

Sifu decided to start the elbow form today. as an introduction, he told us the form is pretty short--much shorter than the fist form (which can last around 5-6 minutes), but that it has many subtleties within in it. he made a number of points to keep in mind as we learned the form:
  • elbow strikes are not necessarily elbow strikes, but instead can have other functions, including opening gates, penetrating defenses, or providing misdirection (i.e., feints)
  • the form contains a number of movements which externally appear to be motions of the arms and hands, but that even then the intent and focus of force needs to be through the elbows if the techniques are to work properly
  • the engagement distance using elbows are much closer relative to techniques involving fists, hands, or legs
  • with elbow techniques, it's useful to keep in mind their relationship with the rest of the body, since there's a greater transmission of power if the structure is maintained through the body into the elbows
with these comments, Sifu led us through the first few movements of the form. based on these, the elbow form seems to have some similarities with the forest palm and fist form. the opening is almost identical to the opening of the forest palm, and the sequence after the opening goes along a line in a repetitive pattern reminiscent of the repetitive pattern along a line in the beginning of the fist form.

having said that, the techniques are radically different from either one. Sifu showed us the applications for each of the ones, and then let us practice on each other. the nature of the techniques in each of the movements varied, with multiple techniques possible in each movement, depending on the opponent (e.g., their positioning relative to you, their body composition, their actions, etc.).

i found the techniques somewhat straightforward when i worked with Kieun, but then found things to be more difficult when i switched to Phunsak. i found the physics shifted, and had to feel my way through the techniques--not with complete success. i took this as another reminder of just how important it is to work with different body types when practicing applications. even though the physics are the same, the deployment of the physics are different, largely because i suspect that different body types mean that you need to have different placement of force vectors necessary to exploit the physics. this means the issue is not just what technique to use where and when, but also how. this is something not always intuitive.

this brought up the issues i had last week with the locking technique (reference: day 237). one of the things i'd thought about in the wake of my issues from last week was that people were giving me different hints and interpretations of the same technique, none of which seemed really helpful. not to say that any of them were wrong; they were all very likely correct, except that they were correct for the people advocating them. in other words, that different people were providing tips ands hints that worked for them individually, and hence had been tips and hints appropriate for their own unique set of problems.

this is a phenomenon common to teaching, learning, and education. different people have different ways of perceiving the world and different learning problems (due to having different bodies and different minds and different habits acquired during the course of different lives). as a result, even though the subjects being taught are the same for everyone, the method of teaching has to end up being different. this means that different people require different tips and hints to help them overcome their different problems.

this is fine, except that it means that in order to get the tips and hints useful for a specific individual, you can 1) identify their specific problems, 2) associate it with the appropriate tips and hints, and 3) the individual then has ability to employ the tips and hints.

and the last item is a bit of a kicker. i've mentioned before that i find a lot of kung fu to be a test of coordination, largely because it involves movements i'm not familiar with, leading to a situation where me trying how to effectively apply techniques is comparable to a blind man being asked to learn the color blue (as i've said in previous posts: how do you tell someone the feeling of technique if they've never had the feeling before? how do you describe the color blue to a man who is blind?).

i am starting to suspect that this is why so much of the teaching methods associated with Asian cultures are so mystical and vague. culturally, teachers in ancient Asian societies saw this phenomenon, and decided that the best solution was just to let students figure things out for themselves, since any attempt to explain things would just devolve into semantics, confusion, and trial-and-error...which is what happens anyway if you let people stumble around on their own.

of course, for someone more associated with Western culture, this can be incredibly frustrating, especially if your philosophy is that any help is better than no help at all.

i spend the last part of class trying to sort the lock out. it's maddening. sometimes i think i'm getting it, and then it turns out i'm not. Kieun identified it as a structural issue--something i strongly suspected, but then offered some tips he picked up from japanese martial arts. this seemed to help a little, but it's something i'm going to have to continue to explore.

i'm devoting extra time to this technique because i'm of the belief that it involves some principles critical for many of the other techniques in martial arts. while it is possible to get some of the techniques to work without these principles, there are some that simply will not work without them. and even for the techniques that can be made to work without them, the principles act to make them more effective. as a result, these principles are crucial, and i believe that my progress is going to be severely hampered unless i get them down.

in some ways, i know the principles. i understand them on a conceptual level, and i can deploy them in other techniques. but this particular technique indicates that there is an area in terms of my body mechanics that is still problematic...and i am unfortunately the blind man trying to learn the color blue. i'm going to have to work on this.

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