days 325-328: oh yeah, i know, lots to catch up

concepts:

• applications

lessons:

• hsing-yi
• chang quan (long fist)
• miao dao
• shuai jiao
• kyudo

oh yeah, i know, i haven't posted in awhile. sue me. things have been busy. and there have been some career things that i've been having to deal with that's kept me preoccupied.  but i'll try to get everything caught up with this post--it will be a little curt to get everything to fit here.

i should note that Sifu announced a knife seminar for Thanksgiving. it will be Saturday 9:30am-5:30pm on Saturday, November 26 at the CSULA campus.

hsing-yi
we've been working through usage of the various 12 animals. we've stopped in the last few classes to spend some time with tantui and pao quan from chang quan (see below).  but i think that i'll at least provide the videos of the Shanxi hsing-yi videos that i haven't posted on this blog before:
Shanxi eagle
http://youtu.be/ZZ4r4v67C64

Shanxi bear
http://youtu.be/CFA9iosnyZc

Shanxi eagle-bear
http://youtu.be/u_pdOhwRS-U


chang quan (long fist)
we've spent time over several Saturdays reviewing jia men chang quan (islamic long fist). apparently, Sifu has been teaching it to UCLA students outside of his class there, and some of them are attending Saturday with us. i learned jia men chang quan with Sifu in private lessons before, so a lot of this is familiar.

i actually think this is a good thing, since i can see a lot more in it after having gone through bagua, tai chi, and hsing-yi.  there are common principles among the various styles, with the same ideas in terms of physics being utilized and expressed in different ways. i think what happened in history is that either practitioners borrowed from each other or they discovered the same ideas separately, but either way found that the physics inspired them to apply the same principles in creative permutations.

so far, we've spent several Saturdays working on chang quan pao quan and 1 Sunday filming tantui applications for what is apparently going to be Sifu's next book.

miao dao
miao dao on Sundays has been all about applications in the 4 lines.  since 1 Sunday was spent filming the tantui applications, i've actually only missed 1 Sunday--and from what other people have told me that Sunday was spent on the bagua elbow knife form.

shuai jiao
Sifu was asked to give a shuai jiao seminar 1 Saturday with the CSULB kung fu club. this was actually really good. there were a lot of people (>20 at the highest), the club had use of a gym with mats, and there was plenty of space, so it really provided an opportunity to work with different body types and really made things fun.  unfortunately, the seminar only ran for 2 hours, so Sifu only had time to teach a few basic stances and a few applications.  he said it was enough to provide the students with a taste of shuai jiao.

i'm hoping the kids at the CSULB kung fu club liked it enough that they'll want to have a recurring shuai jiao seminar on a regular basis--even if it's just 3-4 times a semester, that's still useful enough to learn applications and acquire some send of how to adjust to live bodies. if they did this on weekends, i think i'd be willing to drive down and join them.

kyudo
kyudo has been a bit of experimentation. i think i'm resolving some of the issues i was having with respect to the arrow not going into the makiwara straight--at least, i've been able to get it to go in at less of an angle.  i think a major part of what's been happening is that by placing my attention on the right half of my body, it's been lifting my left side up, causing the arrow to go into the makiwara with an upward trajectory.  when i put more attention on my left side, it seems to correct...although, the issue now is just how much attention do i have to put into my left side to balance both sides out and get the arrow to go straight.