This week's set of exercises again consisted of three general exercises.
I. Sense and gao shu exercise.
One partner is blinded and enters horse stance. The other applies pressure in one direction on the forward arm of the blinded partner with enough energy to be on par with a block. The blind partner performs a gao shu in the direction of the applied momentum.
II. Punch, countered with moi shu, countered with gao shu.
The offensive partner initiates with a centerline punch, which is deflected by a moi shu from the defensive partner. This is followed by a gao shu from the offensive partner in the direction of the applied momentum. Variations using from and back hand as well as inward and outward directed moi shus can be used.
III. Punch (o), moi shu (d), gao shu (o), moi shu with vertical gao shu (d).
The offensive partner (O) initiates with a centerline punch, which is deflected by a inward moi shu from the defensive partner (D). O then counters the block with a gao shu, which D counters with a moi shu. D's hand which is not countering then attacks with a vertical moi shu.
The important part of the lessons this week were momentum transfers and sharing momentum in a system, something that I believe is central to this particular form of kung fu. It is essential that the partners are relaxed, otherwise the gao shu counters are not effective or out of position, especially if resistance is involved.
2 comments:
1 - The gao-shu has in it a second hand. The one hand gao-shus, and the second hand sweeps away the moi-shu that the gao-shu responds to. I have some difficulty coordinating the second hand movement. This exercise seems easy until I screw up. Things either work out easily, or you are standing there with your arms all tangled up. Mostly the former, still too often the latter.
2+3 - a few insights were useful to me in this exercise. We always started this exercise with the punch and the (inward) moi-shu starting from the student's back hands. Maybe as a goal for upcoming practice we can mix this up some with outside moi-shus and forward hands.
One thought is after you moi-shu that first punch, keep going down, then come up for the coming gao-shu. Otherwise your gao-shu becomes less circle and more pison like, starts occupying a different space, and my moves don't all fit together as well.
Another is moi-shuing with your forearm, not your hand. This keeps your elbow in / down.
Another aspect is aiming your gau-shu. I don't know if I should be aiming at a particular place. I decided to start aiming for the face, 'cause if I didn't aim for anything then my gau-shu started to become vague, and I was just waving my hand around.
7/10 - I went tonight, but Jesse was at Pub Quiz. I ended up doing this one exercise all night with one of the young students, named Alex. It went like this
Student A: Step, Punch
Student B: Moi-shu, Counterpunch
Student A: Moi-Shu
Student A: (opposite) Step, Punch
etc, back and forth
Sadly, I only learned 2 things from it tonight.
1) For this exercise, I should Moi-shu all the way down to the wrist, to bring my arm back toward me and give him a nice big punch to counter. I think this is just for the exercise, I'm not sure how my form was for actual fighting.
2) Alex is the youngest / smallest kid in the class. As such, I think whoever he's been practicing with hasn't required much from him. He threw really crappy punches, mostly just sticking his arms out and waiting to be moi-shu'd. Maybe he just needs to work on his punches, or maybe whoever is training with him needs to push him a bit harder. Either way I'm glad to have a consistant practice buddy, someone who expects to both punch and be punched. Not full force, but with some seriousness, you know?
There were lots of people there tonight. Hopefully people are done being all busy helping Sifu get moved and stuff. I think there were 8 present tonight. Some of the more advanced students had some really sweet looking exercises going on. I look forward to going back on Thursday. Hopefully we can remember to ask about Exercise 3 from week 6 with permutations other than "Back hand punch, back hand inside moi-shu".
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