That was interesting
Feb. 23rd, 2010 09:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fitzwTonight’s Gongfu class was one of the special classes for Gold Sash (with or without stripe), normally held on every other Tuesday evening. The school currently has five students of that rank. Two were not present tonight, and the other two that were present were unable to practice, only watch (John was ill but present, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
helwen is having difficulty with her knee).
So, that meant that I had the instructor, Sijie Jess, all to myself.
Sijie asked me what I wanted to focus on, so I asked about the things that I felt that I needed at this point: Cannon Fist (Pao Chuan) form ending, handstands, and cartwheels.
I went through the entire Cannon Fist form (felt a little like taking one of the rank tests, being the only one doing the form), and she said that she felt that the ending appeared to be what I had the most confidence and surety in. We then went over some fine points of the form, including but not limited to my habit of not always looking at where my “target” is (bad habit). She also explained some applications of part of the form, which will help my focus.
Then, on to handstands and cartwheels.
(Those who know me are probably snickering just a little bit — OK, perhaps more than a little bit — at the mental image of me doing a handstand or cartwheel. That’s OK, I do, too.)
We went over different approaches to getting into the handstand position (facing a wall, so that I won’t go over once I actually manage to get upright), which I will have to work on, and then spent time where I could actually be in a handstand, to get used to what it felt like. The way that we did this was for me to stand in front of a wall, facing away from it, put my hands on the floor, and then walk my feet up the wall, straightening my legs and body.helwen commented afterward that it was interesting watching me walk my toes up the wall. Then, doing basically the same thing, I also walked my hands closer to the wall. This was surprisingly not as difficult as I had expected it to be, and is something that I can practice at home in the apartment (washing the footprints off the wall will be a necessary adjunct to the practice). So I can practice getting the feel of a handstand, and I can practice getting into a [braced] handstand. Eventually, I’ll work up to a “free-standing” [sic] handstand.
The cartwheels were more … interesting. I think that if it weren’t for Gongfu classes, I would never have tried to do a cartwheel; it’s not something that I learned when I was young. One of the instructors on Monday described one my attempts in that class as a “cartroll”, rather than a cartwheel. It’s awkward, and I don’t think that a verbal description would do it justice (no, I’m not going to video it and put it on YouTube). My hip flexibility, while improving, is still fairly limited, especially in the direction that you legs are supposed to open during a cartwheel, so we were experimenting (even Sijie was experimenting) trying to figure out a way for me to approach doing a cartwheel that would at least get me to the point where there was at least some hope.
After doing that for a while, we decided that there was, indeed, some hope, and we left it where it was so that my arms would recover. I’ll be continuing to practice that out of class, and hopefully the next time that we do that in class, I’ll do a more creditable job.
The next skill that I will need to work on is (or can be) based on a handstand (it’s called “front breakfall with worm” — I’ll leave the full description to your imagination), so we skipped that for tonight. Instead, we worked on the “East-West kick”, which involves jumping, twirling, and doing an outside crescent kick (waibaitui) and slapping your feet (or shins, in my case), all pretty much at the same time. Then, when Sijie felt that I had enough of the basic idea, she added the opening moves that lead into the East-West kick, which involving vertical rising sweeps of the arms, stepping, skipping, palm strikes, and then jumping, twirling, and doing an outside crescent kick and slapping your feet/shins.
After that, we cut the session short so that we could all get home before the snow buried our houses.
helwen is having difficulty with her knee).So, that meant that I had the instructor, Sijie Jess, all to myself.
Sijie asked me what I wanted to focus on, so I asked about the things that I felt that I needed at this point: Cannon Fist (Pao Chuan) form ending, handstands, and cartwheels.
I went through the entire Cannon Fist form (felt a little like taking one of the rank tests, being the only one doing the form), and she said that she felt that the ending appeared to be what I had the most confidence and surety in. We then went over some fine points of the form, including but not limited to my habit of not always looking at where my “target” is (bad habit). She also explained some applications of part of the form, which will help my focus.
Then, on to handstands and cartwheels.
(Those who know me are probably snickering just a little bit — OK, perhaps more than a little bit — at the mental image of me doing a handstand or cartwheel. That’s OK, I do, too.)
We went over different approaches to getting into the handstand position (facing a wall, so that I won’t go over once I actually manage to get upright), which I will have to work on, and then spent time where I could actually be in a handstand, to get used to what it felt like. The way that we did this was for me to stand in front of a wall, facing away from it, put my hands on the floor, and then walk my feet up the wall, straightening my legs and body.
helwen commented afterward that it was interesting watching me walk my toes up the wall. Then, doing basically the same thing, I also walked my hands closer to the wall. This was surprisingly not as difficult as I had expected it to be, and is something that I can practice at home in the apartment (washing the footprints off the wall will be a necessary adjunct to the practice). So I can practice getting the feel of a handstand, and I can practice getting into a [braced] handstand. Eventually, I’ll work up to a “free-standing” [sic] handstand.The cartwheels were more … interesting. I think that if it weren’t for Gongfu classes, I would never have tried to do a cartwheel; it’s not something that I learned when I was young. One of the instructors on Monday described one my attempts in that class as a “cartroll”, rather than a cartwheel. It’s awkward, and I don’t think that a verbal description would do it justice (no, I’m not going to video it and put it on YouTube). My hip flexibility, while improving, is still fairly limited, especially in the direction that you legs are supposed to open during a cartwheel, so we were experimenting (even Sijie was experimenting) trying to figure out a way for me to approach doing a cartwheel that would at least get me to the point where there was at least some hope.
After doing that for a while, we decided that there was, indeed, some hope, and we left it where it was so that my arms would recover. I’ll be continuing to practice that out of class, and hopefully the next time that we do that in class, I’ll do a more creditable job.
The next skill that I will need to work on is (or can be) based on a handstand (it’s called “front breakfall with worm” — I’ll leave the full description to your imagination), so we skipped that for tonight. Instead, we worked on the “East-West kick”, which involves jumping, twirling, and doing an outside crescent kick (waibaitui) and slapping your feet (or shins, in my case), all pretty much at the same time. Then, when Sijie felt that I had enough of the basic idea, she added the opening moves that lead into the East-West kick, which involving vertical rising sweeps of the arms, stepping, skipping, palm strikes, and then jumping, twirling, and doing an outside crescent kick and slapping your feet/shins.
After that, we cut the session short so that we could all get home before the snow buried our houses.
