Jianghu :: 2.0

Hmm, interesting. I’ve wanted to learn a bagua staff/pole form for a few years now.

Another washout. Got to the school, no-one there. Another morning wasted. That’s time I could have spent preparing for next semester, or drumming up freelance work.

Oh well. To adapt the saying that became famous when Dubya got it wrong, “Waste my time once, shame on you; waste my time twice, shame on me”. Guess I’ll have to start calling ahead to see if there will be class.

Half a day really; I turned up this morning to find the door locked and nobody home. Master Yao wasn’t answering his phone and basically my morning was wasted. Not a happy bunny.

I eventually made contact, and it turned out they were doing some filming for Chinese television. Master Yao apologised, but they have my phone number, so I hope that if they’re going to be busy again, they’ll let me know so that I don’t have to trek all the way across Beijing for no purpose!

Trying again at 4pm, I found one student practising. He was around last week, but only revealed today that he speaks English! He remembers Tabbycat, and it seems they’re still in contact. He has his own (Chinese-only) yiquan websites at:

• http://www.yqworld168.com/
• http://blog.sina.com.cn/yqworld
• http://www.56.com/h27/u_yqworld.html

Other students gradually emerged from the dorms, where they had been sleeping. A little later, somebody new arrived - from what I could understand, he’d seen an advertisment in a newspaper. He was put into practising the very basic standing position, and clearly found it hard going to keep his arms raised for more than a few minutes. At last, someone worse than me!

I spent the first hour or so revising the 浑元桩 Universal Combat Post, all three varieties, until the senior student (whose name is Li Xin) was satisfied. I find that my arms, shoulders and back don’t get very tired now during the standing postures; the stress is almost entirely on my ankles and feet - and, especially, on the arch of my right foot, for some reason. I suspect it’s because my right kua doesn’t open enough, and has gotten into the habit of collapsing inwards somewhat. It’s this kind of insight into body mechanics that I was hoping for from yiquan, and it’s certainly delivering.

After that, I progressed very quickly through various different punching sequences; we’ve suddenly switched from very static, or very slow-moving qiqong-like practises to something very similar to basic Western boxing techniques. I’m finding this very difficult. My weighting is all wrong, and my foot-positioning is totally awry. I’m going to have to call a halt to any further learning until I’ve got this down - it’s way too important to skip or rush. That reminds me of something H.said when she came here for a while - that she felt rushed, and pushed through the modules faster than she was comfortable with; she didn’t feel she had time to really absorb everything. I can see exactly what she meant; Master Yao and Li Xin do try to introduce several new moves in every lesson. I’m already onto module three from the complete list (this is the page I should have been looking at, btw, not the basic course - I just realised that today) and I’m only on day 5! However, whenever I’ve said I want to slow down and revise, which I’ve done a couple of times, they’ve been absolutely fine about it - so the responsibility here is on the student to take control of the learning pace.

While I think of it, I just want to clarify something about the pricing of the course, which perhaps didn’t come over clearly when I said something about it before. The price of the lessons themselves is extremely reasonable for Beijing - especially so because Master Yao charges by progress through the modules, not by the hour. It’s very, very fairly priced. The real big expense comes from the peripherals - the boks and DVDs, which I can’t really afford. However, if I was earning in a Western currency, rather than in RMB, the price of these would also be quite reasonable…

Ok, back to today. I now seem to be transitioning to the more combat-oriented side of Yiquan, which is great. It’s hard work, I have major obstacles to overcome in terms of understanding the body dynamics, but I will do it. My number 1 priority at the moment, though, is to understand why my foot is hurting so much; if I can’t do that, I’m not going to make much progress.

Today’s moves:

定步左右直拳发力 FIXED STEP LEFT-RIGHT STRAIGHT PUNCHES
定步连续三拳发力 FIXED STEP THREE CONTINUOUS PUNCHES
走步单直拳发力 SINGLE STRAIGHT PUNCH WITH STEPS
走步左右拳发力 LEFT-TIGHT PUNCHES WITH STEPS
走一步三拳发力 THREE PUNCHES WITH ONE STEP

As so often happens, I was Googling for something else, and happened across something interesting - the website of the Beijing-based Ba Gua Zhang Research Institute. It seems to be pretty new, and is still under development, but it will definitely be worth keeping an eye on. In particular, it has pictures of the new statue of Dong Hai Chuan, and also has some photographs I’ve never seen before of baguazhang masters from different generations. Check it out!

Not much to write today, but the lesson was mindblowing.

After training baguazhang with Sun Ru Xian from 6am till 7:45am, I headed to Lush at Wudaokou for breakfast. Afterwards I took the subway, and got to the Yiquan Academy at 10 sharp, rather wet from the torrential rain that started while I was changing lines at Xizhimen, and carried on for a couple of hours…..

Master Yao wasn’t there for most of the lesson; the senior student (must get his name) took charge, with occasional help from Huang Shan, the older guy who speaks some English.

I worked on three variations of the same exercise. The only one I can cut and paste from the website is this:
浑元桩 ( 前后摸劲 ) UNIVERSAL COMBAT POST (SEEKING FORCE FORWARDS-BACKWARDS)

The other two were (according to my printed syllabus):

UNIVERSAL COMBAT POST (SEEKING FORCE IN LEFT-RIGHT DIRECTION)
UNIVERSAL COMBAT POST (SEEKING FORCE UPWARDS-DOWNWARDS)

These three exercises only confirmed what I felt yesterday. In themselves, they’re very, very simple but - according to the book - in these three movements, the whole power of yiquan is contained. The movements are very subtle; I was repeatedly reprimanded for doing them too large, and over-doing the concepts of the movements. These are going to take me a while to get right; I think I’ll push for next Monday’s class to be simply a review of these three - I don’t think I can really progress until I’ve cracked these. It was very, very painful; my feet were bearing a lot more weight than they’re accustomed to taking, and I could hold each stance for about 45 seconds before I had to switch directions. Lots of potential for improvement, let’s put it that way!

Master Yao arrived around 11:30, and corrected me on many small and large errors. He demonstrated the usage of these three moves - much of it involved breaking through an opponent’s defences to deliver a finishing blow. My arms feel OK now, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re bruised tomorrow…

I had to get back to the office in the afternoon, so I couldn’t attend the afternoon session. No matter, I’ll try to practice over the weekend, and I’ve warned Master Yao I will probably turn up on Monday with lots of questions.

…….

OK, some context: I work for a Chinese university, and I’m paid local rates in RMB. The Yiquan Academy charges foreigners like me in USD which, even with the dollar falling in value, means that this course is painfully expensive for me.

It’s worth it. This stuff is gold. I’ve never been so impressed with a systemized martial arts system, but you’ll have wait for the Huge Post About Where I’m Going In Martial Arts (HPAWIGIMA) for more about that.

Man, yiquan rocks.