06.28.06 - Practice Out of Class
Session with Bill during lunch at work
Sifu and I were able get a brief Kenpo workout in at lunch today. In reality, it was more of a discussion than a work out. He opened the session with “I want to talk about the way you move…”.
Using the ‘alphabet’ analogy that Ed Parker popularized, Sifu stated that I “…know the words, now need to properly form a sentence”. As I’m sure I gave him a nice big blank stare, he went on to explain that he sees a lot of tension in my movements, particularly from the waist up. Although I can root very effectively, I need to be able to move quickly and lightly as well. This is nearly impossible to do with a rigid frame.
He had me drop my arms and let them hang at my sides while I went into a neutral bow stance and moved around the floor with some basic maneuvers. Almost immediately I was bringing my hands up and creating tension. He further described that the ‘flow’ that we are looking for in our forms and movements comes from being relaxed while keeping the ability to explode with power at will – and then immediately relax again.
Sifu asked me to do a few techniques, and to try to relax between the strikes. At first I asked him to define what he deemed as a strike; in my mind, the blocks are strikes as well and I wanted to clarify the point. He sort of loosely determined that a strike was defined as an “intended point of contact”, but stopped short of defining what points of contact in the Thunder and Lightning technique were strikes. My feeling on this is that the blocks are strikes if you choose for them to be so and to ultimately define any movement will itself hinder your choices. I didn’t pursue the point and executed several techniques. He stopped me after a few and told me to continue to practice but to focus on the parts of the techniques that reside between the points of contact. Uh huh. I’m thinking about this. I’m trying to figure out how I’m supposed to concentrate on something that isn’t a move or a strike or a parry? How are you going to fade into a cat stance while parrying and executing a block – and don’t think about the cat stance, the parry or the block?
Well, just before all of this mental hyperbole dribbled out of my mouth, I had a flashback to the Kenpo in the Carolinas seminar in April. I remember watching Vic LeRoux move and remember thinking how “light” he was in motion. I related to Bill that there was one point in which Vic came up to my partner and me in the class and demonstrated one of the pak sau/lap sau drills we were doing. I remember watching him move so freely and without effort – and then being amazed when he pinned my arm securely just as effortlessly! It was just cool to watch his foot maneuvers. He did the same things we were doing but he was not forced or jerky in motion at all. This is the smoothness, the relaxation, the ‘spaces between the points of contact’ that Sifu wants me to focus on. What I witnessed in watching Vic is an example of what I should ultimately be striving for.
With that, our time was pretty much over. He did ask me to do the Master Form a couple of times and noted something that I was doing incorrectly. When I transition from Deflecting Thunder and go into Thunder and Lightning, I was executing the parry on the outside of the block. I was asked to explain why we don’t do it that way and I knew that it was possible for the attacker to pin the parry arm into the blocking arm and defeat the movement. I’ll correct this and practice it properly.
Sifu and I were able get a brief Kenpo workout in at lunch today. In reality, it was more of a discussion than a work out. He opened the session with “I want to talk about the way you move…”.
Using the ‘alphabet’ analogy that Ed Parker popularized, Sifu stated that I “…know the words, now need to properly form a sentence”. As I’m sure I gave him a nice big blank stare, he went on to explain that he sees a lot of tension in my movements, particularly from the waist up. Although I can root very effectively, I need to be able to move quickly and lightly as well. This is nearly impossible to do with a rigid frame.
He had me drop my arms and let them hang at my sides while I went into a neutral bow stance and moved around the floor with some basic maneuvers. Almost immediately I was bringing my hands up and creating tension. He further described that the ‘flow’ that we are looking for in our forms and movements comes from being relaxed while keeping the ability to explode with power at will – and then immediately relax again.
Sifu asked me to do a few techniques, and to try to relax between the strikes. At first I asked him to define what he deemed as a strike; in my mind, the blocks are strikes as well and I wanted to clarify the point. He sort of loosely determined that a strike was defined as an “intended point of contact”, but stopped short of defining what points of contact in the Thunder and Lightning technique were strikes. My feeling on this is that the blocks are strikes if you choose for them to be so and to ultimately define any movement will itself hinder your choices. I didn’t pursue the point and executed several techniques. He stopped me after a few and told me to continue to practice but to focus on the parts of the techniques that reside between the points of contact. Uh huh. I’m thinking about this. I’m trying to figure out how I’m supposed to concentrate on something that isn’t a move or a strike or a parry? How are you going to fade into a cat stance while parrying and executing a block – and don’t think about the cat stance, the parry or the block?
Well, just before all of this mental hyperbole dribbled out of my mouth, I had a flashback to the Kenpo in the Carolinas seminar in April. I remember watching Vic LeRoux move and remember thinking how “light” he was in motion. I related to Bill that there was one point in which Vic came up to my partner and me in the class and demonstrated one of the pak sau/lap sau drills we were doing. I remember watching him move so freely and without effort – and then being amazed when he pinned my arm securely just as effortlessly! It was just cool to watch his foot maneuvers. He did the same things we were doing but he was not forced or jerky in motion at all. This is the smoothness, the relaxation, the ‘spaces between the points of contact’ that Sifu wants me to focus on. What I witnessed in watching Vic is an example of what I should ultimately be striving for.
With that, our time was pretty much over. He did ask me to do the Master Form a couple of times and noted something that I was doing incorrectly. When I transition from Deflecting Thunder and go into Thunder and Lightning, I was executing the parry on the outside of the block. I was asked to explain why we don’t do it that way and I knew that it was possible for the attacker to pin the parry arm into the blocking arm and defeat the movement. I’ll correct this and practice it properly.
posted by Bonzai at 6/28/2006 11:00:00 AM
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