Sunday evening Kung Fu

Being one hundred percent present here and now is the talent of a true martial artist. Through the practice of martial arts, we can learn to feel this presence, call upon it, cultivate it, make it a part of ourselves. When we can enter this dimension at will, it becomes possible to have free access to an enormous source of power. -Daniele Bolelli, On The Warrior’s Path



Sunday evening Kung Fu.

Punch and Jab, aka "Arrow Hand". I've practiced this a bunch (I had to), but there are two minor corrections from the way I was repping it.

1)Right after you wipe the attacker's arm off and bounce that same hand up into a palm-heel to the face, that hand does an across-the-chest parry underneath the right punch that you're doing next. It does not chamber.

2) As you do the hammer-fist with your right hand, the left does not chamber. It stays out front, low.

Although I will need to work on those adjustments, I must say I was happy to not be stumbling over the form in class. The practice paid off. I was even happier when I saw the next piece of the form.

Turn east and do a little skip so that your left foot is now where your right one was. At the same time, do a right ball-of-the-foot snap kick east. At the same time, left hand palm-heels head level to east. At the same time, right arm does a rising block at head level. Yeah, there's a lot going on. Too much going on. This form (heck, this entire style) is whacked out. You are never just doing something- you're doing six things at once. When it takes an entire paragraph to describe ONE move, there's too much going on!

After that bizarre spasm, you set the foot back down into another north-facing horse stance, hammer fist right hand at head level to east (NOT to north- this is the same opponent that you just directed the previous sequence at). The left elbow stays horizontal to chest level, but do *NOT* hunch the shoulder! The lower arm below the elbow ONLY drops to parry across the chest simultaneous to the hammer fist strike.

After some reps, I noted that it made more sense to my mental process if I turned the blade hand in that last parry into a Mantis claw. So I went ahead and did it, albeit subtle-like, because it had been presented as a blade hand. About five minutes later, JoE commented to SK, "I keep wanting to do a Mantis claw here!" SK then showed us the next move of the form- that blade hand turns into- yup- a Mantis claw in the next sequence. Ha. I love it when that happens.

"My brain is sizzling. Can we take a break?"


Apps. Not of *THAT*, thank Gods- it's going to take a zillion reps before I want to even think about trying that with a partner. We worked the same wrist-release app that we'd done last week, up to the right punch. I was drilling with JM, and my right punch was landing with exquisite precision right in the side of her neck. After about twelve of these, she abruptly added a pak sau that deflected the fist with a sharp cracking sound. We both froze and started wide-eyed at each other. I just about died laughing.

Then we added the parry, second wrist release, pull off-balance, and hammer-fist to head.

Had some problems with the second wrist release. First it seemed that my right elbow was flying up too high, but after I'd fixed that, I was still having issues. I could get her grip off my wrist just fine, but the way I wanted to do it- the way I'd been practicing/visualizing it- that wrist turn and pull was one fluid full-body motion that also incorporated the left arm doing a violent pull-apart and yanking the opponent down and to the north, hard. The fact that you're also turning your body to the north further serves to pull that overbalancing opponent over your right knee (just in case s/he wasn't already doing a nosedive to the mat). At least that was my Grand Plan. I found to my annoyance that it was necessary to use all of my faculties just to achieve the wrist release. This meant that all the rest of that stuff was step two- which took longer and also had a lot less full-bodied momentum and power. We monkeyed with it for quite a while, and the apps worked- we just couldn't incorporate the maneuver into a single violent motion. Without that violent motion, I was unable to get the opponent bent over to my satisfaction, and unable to use my knee as a stumbling block. I complained that if I was trying to do this to someone taller (like Nemesis), I wouldn't even be able to REACH the back of the skull with my hammer fist. SK suggested that if I found I coudn't reach that target, alter the technique to instead do an elbow strike to the arm that I was immobilizing, just above the elbow.

Note- don't cheat the turning of your wrist right after that second wrist release. It is the turning of your wrist that turns the OPPONENT'S arm over and prevents hir from being able to easily reach you to strike back at you. It also helps to overbalance hir.


Sparring. I made a mental note to try to stay focussed on my centerline. I seem to do much better most of the time when I visualize myself sort of like the sharply-pointed prow of a ship- driving through the waves and shucking them matter-of-factly off to either side of that unassailable front-center point. As soon as I start trying to fool with White-Craney centrifugal crap, or try to get too creative, I think that's when things start to go to Purgatory in a small woven container. Solid grounded stance, look for openings, all attacks coming straight from the center and driving in on that line like machine-gun fire.

Me attacking Nemesis. SK kept having to stop us because we couldn't seem to prevent ourselves from speeding up. After several stops, he said in exasperation, "Inserting long pauses in between lightning attacks does not constitute going slow!" He also made us back off and come in again instead of me stalking after Nemesis with my chi sau sticky Snake hands constantly bridging all over his arms like I enjoy doing. Darn. I can't do that to SK, but against the others I'm really liking that. It also leads very nicely into Snake strikes to the throat, which has become probably my most common attack in live sparring.

Nemesis grabbed me by the hair three times. Grrrr.

JM attacking me. Again I begged off trying to spar in a single style. Because I didn't have to try to focus on that, one of the things I was able to do was experiment with some non-traditional ready/guard stances.

I did one technique that resolved itself very smoothly into a rear choke, and SK exclaimed, "Ooooh! Python! That was awesome. Can you recreate that?!? " "Heck no."