Last night I resumed classes with Master Zhou. To be honest, I really wasn’t in the mood; I’d had a gruelling week at work, and my energy levels were really low. Black clouds were hanging low, and I half-wished for the rain to come so I couldn’t train.
What a pity it would have been if my wish had been granted! It turned out to be one of the best training sessions yet. Perhaps it was because I was so mentally tired, and so unable to over-analyse what I was trying to do, but I actually seemed to make quite a lot of progress on getting the movements of the single palm change. There’s no doubt that the way ahead here will involve lots of painful practice; the change ends by sinking into a low twisting squat, with the weight on the back foot – but the heel of the back foot is raised off the ground. The muscles and tendons that bear the weight in the stance are pretty weak in my case; my balance needs some work as well. Still, I was pretty pleased with the progress I’m making, small and slow though it is.
Hehehe, speaking of practice, Master Zhou mentioned that when he was learning, he spent years of training martial arts all day, eating, and going to sleep; years of the same thing. It sounds very similar to how my friend Xiaoyan describes his 20 years of training at the Shaolin Temple! (I met Xiaoyan again in Beijing, by the way; I must write about that some other time).
On the topic of Shaolin, I was using too much force when I performed the strike at the end of the palm change; Master Zhou kept on picking upon that, saying no, that’s not the neijia way – be soft, don’t use overt force… and then proceeded to demonstrate how completely devastating the neijia way can be. Wow, he really knows how to apply bagua! Oh, and as another aside, the big bruise that developed on my arm after our previous session took two weeks to vanish. It went a striking black and yellow not long after I went to Beijing, started fading to purple and yellow, made a sudden comeback in bright red, and then gradually faded…. and that was when he was just doing a light demonstration…
Some insights:
- when turning during the palm change, the arms are in contact. The upper arm gently presses down ; the lower arm gently presses up, so that as the body rotates, the arms are grinding against each other. Is this why I often see this position called “grinding palms”? (I’ve never found the explanation that it’s because “it’s as if pushing a millstone” explanation to be very convincing).
- circle walking: I’ve usually been told that the inner foot moves forward in a straight line, and the outer foot turns inward in kou bu to drive the turning motion. Master Zhou says that this works for the “demonstration” forms of bagua, which use long steps, but is no good for application; in the form I’m learning, the steps are small, and both feet step in kou bu.
- An explanation for mud stepping! I’ve wondered about this before. Master Zhou’s explanation is simple – it stops too much pressure being put on the knees during practice from the stepping and turning…. (Of course, I need to put a very clear disclaimer here – Master Zhou and I have very little language in common and so I very possibly misunderstood him; even if I understood him properly, it’s very likely he wasn’t telling me everything! That goes for absolutely everything I write here about my training with him, too!)
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