04.04.06 - Practice Out of Class
Session with Bill during lunch at work
Sifu and I took advantage of the empty conference room and got in a nice workout during lunch today. The first thing we covered: The Formal Salute. I don’t know where the mysticism is with this thing, but that whole wrist thing has me thrown! There is also some symbolism behind the revolving claw and fist but I haven’t gotten to that yet. The hands trip me up… the first maneuver is to present the claw and fist in a manner that is identical to the short salute, but in a forward bow stance and as you transition backward into a cat stance, the hands revolve around one another and essentially trade positions so that you end up with the left hand as the claw and the right hand in the fist. That’s the sticky part! That isn’t the whole salute but it’s the part I’m dealing with right now.
After the salute, we started discussing techniques, namely Stopping the Storm. Bill again iterated how the major differences in Orange and Purple are that I am now intercepting and moving in on the attacker. Sifu went into greater detail and covered the specific targets that I am to practice with ideally. The stop punch drives the second knuckle of the fist directly into the philtrum to the pressure point called su gu. The elbow comes up under the chin and then the back fist comes down to the bridge of the nose or in don. The scoop kick connects at the hoe um pressure point in the groin.
Beyond the pressure points, we also discussed and went over the actual movements, particularly the parry that is part of the initial launch. I have a tendency to bring the hand up to intercept the punch with the palm facing down. Sifu described and demonstrated how the palm is facing mostly upward and then turns over as the parry turns into a block and then a grab, controlling the attacker’s height and depth zones. He also pointed something else out to me that I had completely missed to that point regarding the upward elbow strike to the chin. From the position of the hand at the stop punch to the fully extended upward elbow, you can achieve about ¼ turn of torque. I think I had been doing the movement correctly but I hadn’t even considered the possibility of torque with that strike. Very cool.
After some other items we moved on to Hidden Wing. Sifu stressed that one of the primary things to get right on this technique is the path of travel that the elbow takes to the target. The strike is not a sideways arching swing but rather comes directly up from beneath, with the lower arm being essentially vertical at the point of contact. He demonstrated why this was important by having me dummy while he slowly arched an elbow on a horizontal trajectory and I noted at least two things immediately: the trajectory was visible (no longer ‘hidden’) and I was able to avoid the strike without too much difficulty by simply leaning back away from it. Doing the elbow strike correctly eliminated my abilities to avoid being hit.
We were just getting into the third Purple belt technique when we ran out of time. We were able to get through the basic moves but we didn’t really have the chance to break it down. I learned a ton today and I have plenty to practice with before our next workout, which will likely be next Monday since Bill, Juan and I all have to work on Saturday.
Sifu and I took advantage of the empty conference room and got in a nice workout during lunch today. The first thing we covered: The Formal Salute. I don’t know where the mysticism is with this thing, but that whole wrist thing has me thrown! There is also some symbolism behind the revolving claw and fist but I haven’t gotten to that yet. The hands trip me up… the first maneuver is to present the claw and fist in a manner that is identical to the short salute, but in a forward bow stance and as you transition backward into a cat stance, the hands revolve around one another and essentially trade positions so that you end up with the left hand as the claw and the right hand in the fist. That’s the sticky part! That isn’t the whole salute but it’s the part I’m dealing with right now.
After the salute, we started discussing techniques, namely Stopping the Storm. Bill again iterated how the major differences in Orange and Purple are that I am now intercepting and moving in on the attacker. Sifu went into greater detail and covered the specific targets that I am to practice with ideally. The stop punch drives the second knuckle of the fist directly into the philtrum to the pressure point called su gu. The elbow comes up under the chin and then the back fist comes down to the bridge of the nose or in don. The scoop kick connects at the hoe um pressure point in the groin.
Beyond the pressure points, we also discussed and went over the actual movements, particularly the parry that is part of the initial launch. I have a tendency to bring the hand up to intercept the punch with the palm facing down. Sifu described and demonstrated how the palm is facing mostly upward and then turns over as the parry turns into a block and then a grab, controlling the attacker’s height and depth zones. He also pointed something else out to me that I had completely missed to that point regarding the upward elbow strike to the chin. From the position of the hand at the stop punch to the fully extended upward elbow, you can achieve about ¼ turn of torque. I think I had been doing the movement correctly but I hadn’t even considered the possibility of torque with that strike. Very cool.
After some other items we moved on to Hidden Wing. Sifu stressed that one of the primary things to get right on this technique is the path of travel that the elbow takes to the target. The strike is not a sideways arching swing but rather comes directly up from beneath, with the lower arm being essentially vertical at the point of contact. He demonstrated why this was important by having me dummy while he slowly arched an elbow on a horizontal trajectory and I noted at least two things immediately: the trajectory was visible (no longer ‘hidden’) and I was able to avoid the strike without too much difficulty by simply leaning back away from it. Doing the elbow strike correctly eliminated my abilities to avoid being hit.
We were just getting into the third Purple belt technique when we ran out of time. We were able to get through the basic moves but we didn’t really have the chance to break it down. I learned a ton today and I have plenty to practice with before our next workout, which will likely be next Monday since Bill, Juan and I all have to work on Saturday.
posted by Bonzai at 4/04/2006 05:00:00 PM
1 Comments:
If it's any consolation. The Formal Solute is giving me the same problem. The switching hands positions without switching which hand is in front is just throwing me out of sync. If you figure it out you can help me. We missed you Saturday.
Jeff
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