day 263: finishing the arm form

concepts:

• power
• applications
  

lessons:

• bagua arm form

i'm going to keep this post really short. i'm inundated with an avalanche of grading that i need to do. so apologies to everyone who might be expecting more.

regarding last weekend (and this Saturday as well), i skipped kyudo class to deal with the exams for my classes. i also had to skip the typical post-class lunch. it even appears i'm going to have to skip the kung fu as well until i get the grading done.

i did manage to make last Saturday's class, albeit very late. i managed to arrive just in time to join everyone in finishing the arm form...yes, we did finish the form. Sifu had us demonstrate the form individually so he could critique us 1-on-1. he corrected a number of movements i had, advising me to stay a little closer to the body with some and extending farther on others, with the purpose being to better direct power--either to redirect incoming power or to project power.

we also spent some time reviewing applications, with sifu stressing to us that we need to remember that applications can be combined in different sequences, and mixed and matched in different ways, and hence we need to be careful to 1) avoid employing single applications (e.g., executing 1 application and then stopping), or 2) avoid fixed progressions of applications (e.g., logical, step-wise combinations). Sifu reminded us that it's important to try and maintain a continuous fluid pattern moving from 1 application to another, with movements following a random unfixed seamless path following 1 technique (or simultaneous techniques) after another.

we finished class around 1 pm, and i ended up hurrying back to get to work.