day 256: connections in a loop

concepts:

• stances
• basics
• mother palm
• bagua qi-gong

lessons:

• arm form
• gong li (seminar)
  

i came into this weekend a little sore. i've started the training for my next Ironman race, and this past week was a build week (meaning an increase in training intensity and volume). i needed some more rest time, so i skipped kyudo this Saturday to get some sleep.

i should also note that this Sunday was the gong li seminar, which covered training methods. i won't go into details on it, since there was just too much to really adequately cover, and also because it's something that people paid to attend, so anyone who wanted to learn about gong li should have gone to the seminar.

arm form

we spent the initial part of class finishing off the arm basics for the animals. we began by reviewing the ones we'd done to date: dragon, big bird, hawk, unicorn, and monkey. since Phunsak, Kieun, and Ching-Chieh were gone for the day, i ended up leading the drills for these.

while we did this, we also helped Shin with some stances, since it provided some good review for the rest of the class. i had some issues on these today, since my legs were still a little sore, but it made for good review, particularly in terms of connecting the animals with the stances--it suddenly dawned on me that when done in a dynamic way, you can feel the power in the stance in terms of the direction of the power projection, with the animal posture dictating the direction. in essence, you can feel the vector (remember, this is a physics term: magnitude and direction). in so doing, you can sense the yi (intent) in the animal.

once we'd finished the review, Sifu took us through lion, snake, and bear. these were relatively simple, and it didn't take too long to go through them. he then went on to the second part of class, taking time to discuss some of the theory behind the animals in relation to the rest of the bagua curriculum. Sifu noted the following:

• the animals in the arm form are correlated with the animals in mother palm and bagua qi-gong, and in so doing provide linkages helping the practitioner understand the linkages between the various areas of bagua
• the animals in the arm form are often taken to show 8 various forms of power projection, while the animals in mother palm are often taken as showing 8 various forms of entries. but since each animal applies for both (e.g., the lion for mother palm correlates to the lion for the arm form), this is supposed to tell the practitioner that the 8 animal movements can be adjusted to match whatever intent, or yi, the practitioner has in mind.
• the way to adjust the yi of an animal is suggested by the arm form basics, which involve the practitioner changing yin-yang distribution of movements (i.e., you change the yi of the animal by changing what action is yin force and what action is yang force).
• the animals in the arm form also relate to the animals in bagua qi-gong. as a result, you can see some of the qualities in the animal movements by translating their expression in qi-gong compared to their expression in the arm form. the yi in the qi-gong involves the utilization of organs and limbs, while the yi in the arm form involves the utilization of power. this can be seen as indicating what actions of the organs and limbs are necessary to project power for the actions of each of the 8 animals--and by extension showing the practitioner how the organs and limbs should be used to generate power in any form of body movement.
  

i took this to mean this is where bagua qi-gong has an additional layer of meaning, in terms of having combat applications in addition to its health applications. the animals, to me, seem to follow a form of Boolean logic, with the animals acting as a logic operator to extend concepts from qi-gong to the arm form, and hence from health to combat. i think it's the commutative property operator, but i'm not sure.

i asked Sifu if this means that the levels of bagua qi-gong associate with varying levels of power projection. bagua qi-gong has 3 levels: energy accumulation, energy projection, and dynamic energy manipulation. this seems very similar to the actions in the arm basics, in that it seems like each of the animals can be adjusted to receive an incoming strike (energy accumulation), project power against an opponent (energy projection), or redirect an opponent's actions (dynamic energy manipulation).

Sifu nodded on this, but added that we should start reviewing bagua qi-gong next week, so that we could get a better sense of the relationships between the qi-gong and the arm basics.

i didn't ask, but it seems to be logical that the inter-connection between bagua qi-gong and the arm basics regarding power and energy must relate to the other energy concepts we've had: ting jing, hwa jing, na jing, and fa jing. the problem is that ting relates to listening, hwa to receiving, na to control, and fa to projection. how these 4 concepts tie into the 3 levels of bagua qi-gong is something i am not clear on, particularly in terms of the 8 animals and the power utilization in the arm basics. i'll have to remember to ask Sifu about this next class.

gong li

i'll just note the topics covered in the gong li seminar: yubei gong (preparation), nei gong (internal, static & dynamic), ying gong (hard, static & dynamic), yangsheng gong (recuperating), wuji, hueng yuen, iron bridge, iron ox, and breathing.