day 253: really the inso basics

concepts:

• distance (long, medium, short)
• hard/soft (yang/yin)
• top of hand/side of hand/palm
• animals
• power projection
• meridians (rinmei, dumei)
  
• weapons
  

lessons:

• bagua inso
• kyudo
  

today was about working on the basics, or at least sorting them out.

bagua inso

we started this Saturday with a general introduction into the arm basics curriculum. Sifu said there are many arm basics, with drills for each of the following permutations:

• apparently, the arm basics ties back into the mother palms, with different arm movements correlated with each of the 8 animals. this means that for each animal, there is a single arm basic movement.
• for each basic arm movement, there are 3 permutations in terms of distance, so that the engagement range is long, medium, and short. long distance involves the entire arm, medium involves contact from the elbow out through the hand, and short from the wrist to the fingertip.
• with each distance, the basic arm movement can be done with a mixture of yin/yang, where the yin refers to soft action and yang is explosive action. a movement can be done with the forward action being yin and retraction being yang, with the forward action being yang and the retraction being yin, or both forward action and retraction being yang.
• for each of the above, the hand can be adjusted, so that the spiraling (chan sieh jin) energy is directed in different ways. the drill can end with the top of the hand toward the opponent, the side of the hand toward the opponent, or the palm toward the opponent.
• consistent with the rest of bagua, any of the basics using the right hand must also be done using the left hand, creating symmetry between the 2 sides.
  

Sifu also gave us some background behind the inso form and its purpose, noting the following:

• the arm form ties in with the 8 animals in bagua, and so exposes you to the characteristics and yi of each
• inso emphasizes power projection, with the energy derived from the movements (from the ground, through the body, via reaction forces and spiraling energy) being projected through the arms
• the arm form conveys power being through the dumei and rinmei channels, and so trains the practitioner to work the meridians
• the arm form is the basis of bagua weapons techniques, with all the bagua weapons forms and techniques relating back to movements in the arm form. as a result, education in the bagua weapons relies on understanding of the arm form.
  

once we finished discussing the above, Sifu had us commence with the inso basics for the dragon. this ended up consuming the rest of class. the number of permutations for just 1 animal is expansive, and i can see that this makes for a lot of variations in techniques and movements in bagua--independent of everything we've already learned in the other forms to date.

kyudo

kyudo this evening went fast, and not just because i had to leave early to prep for my morning bike ride. we had a smaller class (i counted 11 people total, including Sensei and 1 visitor), which with the 5 makiwara meant that we were shooting almost constantly. to slow things down to a pace more consistent with the form, Sensei had us grow in 3 smaller groups of 3-4 people (as opposed to 2 bigger ones of 4 or 5 each).

i'm continuing to become more comfortable with the form, and am able to concentrate on individual weaknesses now. this evening, i worked on what Sensei had told me last time: to try and extend my spine vertically as i drew the bow, so that i literally expanded into it. i noticed that in a paradoxical twist, the act of extending the spine vertically actually helps to drive force vectors through the legs into the ground even as much as it lifts the vertebrae upwards through the neck and the skull. i'm guessing this is what makes it useful in terms of drawing the bow, since it allows the force vectors from the ground to be harnessed through the body into the bow.

i also noted something else, in that i had been working on my elbows in the draw. i had noticed from pictures and videos of myself that i was dropping my right elbow too far forward, which resulted in me drawing the bow using shoulder and back muscles to pull the right elbow back. in addition, i had noticed that i was going into dai-san too far away from my head, which forced me to use my back muscles to pull the bow into me to let me pull the bowstring. this time, i tried to focus on letting the right elbow stay farther back, and to have the bow descend into dai-san closer too my head in a more vertical line. this made a dramatic difference in terms of how easy it felt to draw--i was using a 14-kg draw weight, which has been a struggle to use, but this time things were a little bit easier (easier so long as i kept to a very specific path, but which proved very difficult to feel out, meaning that i found myself waffling back and forth between easy and hard). this is a positive development, but the consistency is something that's going to require some work.

Sensei also added something else this time: waiting. he asked me to wait to release the arrow, so that it went at the right time. technically, from what i can gather, the right time is the moment of maximum draw, when the body is at full extension. but figuratively, there's a bit more, in that the right time also means the moment in your mind when you are completely still. this latter point is crucial, since it determines the stability of the body (the firing platform) and hence the accuracy of the arrow (the projectile fired from the firing platform).

i meant to leave at the tea break, but Sensei had brought several boxes of spare kyudo equipment from his garage with the goal of letting everyone see if there was anything they wanted, and his wife had arrived to help everyone sort through this. i stayed a little longer to pick out some items that i'd originally ordered from Japan--tabi, girikko (deer horn powder), bow string, bow string case, glove bags, bow coverings, and tabi. this was fortuitous, because it obviated my need from the order. i still have my order for arrows and a bow, and i have to say i am very much looking forward to the day they arrive...it'll mean that i really am taking another step into kyudo.