day 279: the memorial day review (sort of)

concepts:

• memory
• basics
• structure
  

lessons:

• bagua
• kyudo
  

this post is for Saturday, May 29. it was the Memorial Day weekend so class turnout for kung fu was light (although, surprisingly large for kyudo).

bagua

Sifu announced that next Saturday would be the start of xingyi lessons, and that he wanted us to spend the day on reviewing all the bagua forms we've learned. he also asked that we take some portion of class time reviewing all the basics with the beginner students.

the basics review consisted of the standing hand basics (stationary, and some moving) from some time ago. it was good to back through this, since it's been awhile since i've done them, and i found that there are some nuances in them that i see that i hadn't seen before. i remember Phunsak, Kieun, and Sifu all saying this at various times--that as you go farther you start to realize some subtle things about basic elements that are actually very important, and which allow you to understand more about the basics than you did initially. it was interesting to experience this, and it made me take a different approach to them.

after the basics, we devoted the majority of class time to reviewing forms. this turned out to be a bit of a fiasco for me. it turns out that i couldn't remember major components of the elbow form or the fist form. i didn't even bother attempting forest palm. i managed to remember most of 64 palms and xiao kai men, so there was some redemption there. but Phunsak ended up having to lead us through the elbow and fist forms, and even then i found myself having to stop and think at several points.

this was, to be quite frank, embarrassing. i can't believe my memory is this bad. i'm going to have to take some extra time in the next few weeks to review all the forms, because this is just inexcusable. i've been extraordinarily busy the past few months with my teaching load (which has been much heavier than usual), but i still can't accept that as an excuse. i've expended too much time, energy, and money to forget things so easily, and i also have my pride. we're heading into summer now, which means i will have some more time to devote to martial arts work, so hopefully i can rectify this situation.

kyudo

turnout at kyudo, similar to kung fu, was low. apparently a number of people had taken the day to go to the beach, and some others were taking the holiday weekend off. as a result, Sensei just had us assemble only 3 makiwara (usually we have 5). in addition, he only had 1 round of formal shooting for everyone, and then had us spend the class in informal shoot and working individually with each of us as we shot.

i took advantage of this to work on some kinks in my form. Sensei helped me with my structure, particularly in lifting the bow and arrow--apparently i wasn't aligning my spine as i lifted my arms. my mistake was that i was leaning forward from the feet and then standing into the bow, when i should be doing more of a roll, wherein i lean forward as i bring the bow and arrow up to head height but then start to bring my body back to vertical as i raise the arms, with my tailbone tucking in and my neck rising up. the net effect is not that i stand higher, but that the spine extends vertically, going through the vertebra both downwards from the center/dantian into the ground and upwards from the center/dantian into the sky.

i also took some time to do some maintenance work on my bow. i'd threaded the nocking area on my string the wrong way (in the opposite direction of the spiraling direction of the string), and it's been unraveling over the past few weeks. i've been removing the fibers as they've come loose, waiting until the nocking area becomes thin enough that i can rethread the string again in the right direction. i think it's getting close, and i'll be able to rethread it again within a few weeks.