day 258: nothing like rigor

concepts:

• stances
• control
• timing
  

lessons:

• chaang (spear)
• pao quan

this Sunday was largely straightforward in terms of the agenda, but definitely higher on the scale of rigor. by the time we finished today the muscular discomfiture had found new locations: the deltoids and trapezii. and just like the feelings in the abs, the soreness was within the deep muscle tissue in places i'm not familiar with. the spear is definitely a uniquely strange exercise in muscular exploration.

chaang

before Sifu arrived, Jo-san led me and Ching-chieh through stances. from there, we worked on the basics we've done over the last few weeks (i.e., holding the spear in 60-40 stance and moving the tip in circles and crescents). Sifu arrived at this time, and had us work through all the drills, having us focus on control, with the control coming from the dantian and kua instead of the hands or arms. for all this, it still works your deltoids and trapezius, and in ranges of motion that you don't ordinarily do in modern life. after awhile, i could definitely feel them.

once we'd finished, he then had us work in pairs. at this point, he had some of the new students (who are from his CSULB class, and have been coming to the Sunday lessons, originally to work on jian shu) join us to try the spear. Sifu showed us some new basic drills, which went from holding the spear in a high position to a more forward one. the issue here was timing, since the shift in the spear had to be timed in a transition from reverse bow-and-arrow to 60-40 stance. we went through these, and then switched off w the new students (they don't have spears of their own) so that they could try the exercises out.

pao quan

Ching-chieh had to leave, but we decided to fit in a little work w pao quan before she left. we reviewed the form we've done so far, with Sifu polishing some of the bigger errors in our movements. he then showed us a little more of the form, and demonstrated some potential applications in the movements. by this time it was getting to the end of class, so we wrapped things up until next time.