Training in the Time of a Pandemic

So, you may have heard, we've had this pandemic going on. And, despite the lockdown greatly shortening my commute, I've been busier than ever throughout. Including Tai Chi - lots and lots of Tai Chi.

At the school, when the lockdown was enacted in March of 2020, we moved all of our classes online and did our best to support and preserve our Tai Chi community in those early days. Since then, we've been able to expand our online community and, additionally, now offer some of our classes as a hybrid of in-person & online students. The in-person portions of classes are still very limited in size as we adhere to our local covid policies but our students have been really appreciated the option.

More personally, during the first year of the pandemic I used Tai Chi as a way to keep myself healthy both physically and emotionally. That year, I didn't try to expand into anything new, I just focused on practicing what I already knew through a lot of solo training and attending/helping with the online classes - that turned out to be a pretty solid approach and I learned a lot despite myself.

In the second year, I finally started training some Tai Chi weapons and, over the last year, I've studied Tai Chi Stick, Tai Chi Fan, and Tai Chi Sword (in that order). As I discussed in my previous post, weapons training has opened up a whole new dimension of Tai Chi to me and there's a lot more there for me to work on. The Tai Chi Stick has been my favorite weapon so far and I continue to train it regularly but each of the weapons have their unique challenges and insights. I hope to discuss my experiences with the individual weapons in future posts because there's a lot worth going over.

As we enter the third year of the pandemic, I've started leading some partner training (push hands) with a very small number of advanced students (with covid protocols in place to make the training as safe as possible). Sifu Wu is not involved in the ongoing sessions but she is guiding me on leading the practice, which gives us a good balance of training and instruction. We've only had a few sessions so far but they've gone really well, which has been an auspicious start. Having good/dedicated students makes a huge difference. I'll try to discuss more about the partner training as things progress.

And that's it for today - stay healthy and keep training!

Weapons Training Redux

I've done some weapons training in the past (as described in this post) but eventually stopped because I didn't feel like I was getting much benefit from it.

Sifu Amin Wu teaches a number of weapons and related forms but, since joining her school, I've focused only on the chuan (empty hand) forms. Recently she suggested that I consider some weapons training so I told her about my previous experiences and that I didn't understand the point of it.

She explained that weapons training is a step towards partner training on the Tai Chi path. When you train the chuan forms you are, of course, training the hand forms for applications but they're difficult to refine without feedback from a partner. Weapons training provides an intermediate step because you have to grasp and move the weapon around in ways that harmonize the body's movements with the weapon's momentum, which provides the feedback you need to understand and improve the hand forms.

She went on to say that, traditionally, you start with shorter weapons (e.g. the Tai Chi Dao) and work your way up through longer ones (e.g. the Tai Chi Jian, Tai Chi Staff, and Tai Chi Spear), which requires better and better control. She also mentioned that many schools these days don't teach the staff or spear because it's difficult to find the necessary space.

Sifu Wu finally noted that weapons training will improve your chuan forms but you need to have a solid foundation before taking it on. When I learned weapons previously, I wasn't ready - I still had a lot to learn/refine with the chuan forms - I knew that at the time but tried them anyway because I was impatient/eager and, in retrospect, this cost me time.

I'm not sure when I'll take up weapons training again - I need to have the right class available - but, when I do, I'll know that I'm ready.

Stretching Muscles Stretches Time

When I first started training with Sifu Amin Wu, I asked her if there was any stretching that I should work on but she advised me to concentrate on zhan zhuang and stepping first to build up my strength and balance.

After about a year, Sifu Wu said that my strength and balance had improved to the point that it was time that I start working on stretching because flexibility was becoming a limiting factor in my progress.

She said I needed to focus on three particular areas - ankles, hamstrings, and hips (kua) - because I needed to improve flexibility in those areas for lower stances and higher kicks. She showed me some basic stretches to incorporate at the end of my solo training when the muscles/tendons are the most warm:

• Ankle Stretch: Flex the foot at an incline by putting the ball of the foot on a higher surface (e.g. a step) with the heel on the ground. 
• Hamstring Stretch: Stand on one leg and put the foot of the other leg up on a higher surface (e.g. a chair or a stair step), keeping that leg straight and lean into the stretch (originally, I did this stretch seated on but Sifu Wu says that standing is more effective - it certainly hurts more).
• Hip Stretch: Put the middle of the front foot on a raised surface (e.g. a chair or a stair) with the front knee bent while keeping the back foot on the floor with the leg mostly straight, like an inclined bow stance.

Sifu Wu warned me that effective stretching is uncomfortable - to improve, you have to push yourself and it's not going to be pleasant. She was too right, it was downright unpleasant. Moreover, I didn't believe that a couple of minutes of stretching would make any difference - I've always been inflexible and that's just the way it is - so I skipped stretching at any excuse and, over time, didn't see any improvement.

Eventually, I realized that I had to commit to stretching as much as the other parts of my training. I incorporated a timer to ensure that I 'd do each stretch long enough - one and a half minutes each for a total of nine minutes. That's when I learned about stretching time because those few minutes stretch on, particularly with the hamstring stretch where the last eight seconds can feel like an eternity of their own.

Stretching consistently, I slowly started to notice some improvements and I'm now the most flexible I've been in my adult life (probably my entire life). I still have a lot of room for improvement but the progress has been noticeable and encouraging.

I thought that, as my flexibility improved, my Tai Chi would improve naturally as a result - that my stances would become lower and my kicks higher - but it doesn't work that way. As my flexibility improved, my Tai Chi remained the same. To see any improvements, I've had to intentionally incorporate the improved flexibility into my movements.

For stepping, I have to take longer steps, lowering my stance and challenging my flexibility. For kicks, I have to raise my knee higher before I kick again challenging my flexibility. For weighted pivots, where I've always struggled due to limited range-of-motion in my ankles, I've had to realize that I can sink further and actually do the movement correctly. More generally, as my flexibility improves bit-by-bit, I have to continually discover what more I can do.

Sifu Wu has modified my training routine, shortening the amount of time I spend on zhan zhuang and extending the amount of time I spend on form training. She says that, as my form has improved through flexibility, it's become challenging enough to provide the muscle training that I could only get previously through zhan zhuang. But, not to worry, the zhan zhuang isn't going anywhere - it is, and always will be, a big part of my training.

A(nother) Tai Chi Workshop with Adam Mizner

This summer, Sifu Wu was away once again for an extended visit to China so I decided to take the opportunity to find a Tai Chi workshop focused on push hands.

I figured I'd go anywhere I could find something interesting and, after looking around for a while, I found that the folks at Santa Cruz Tai Chi were hosting Sifu Adam Mizner for a four day workshop (July 14th-17th) just an hour away in Santa Cruz.

Some time ago, I happened into a workshop with Adam Mizner in New York City (described in this post) and, even though I was only there for a day, it was a great experience so I signed up for the workshop (which was good because it filled up quickly).

The workshop was 5 hours of training per day, split into 3 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the afternoon. The morning sessions focused on solo training with emphasis on loosening, qigong, and zhan zhuang. The afternoon sessions (after the first day) focused on partner training based on the secondary four energies: cai (pluck), lie (split), zhou (elbow), and kao (shoulder).

I got a lot out of the workshop - it's given me a lot to think about - but I think the most interesting part of the experience had to do with the solo training.

On the first morning, Sifu Mizner started with some loosening drills, including squatting down. Flexibility has never been my strong suit and squatting down is particularly challenging - after squatting for what seemed an eternity but was probably about 5 minutes, I eventually had to stand up and my legs felt like they were made of lead. It struck me that burning out my legs in the first few minutes of the first day was probably not a good way to start a 4 day workshop but I took a breath and squatted back down for another eternity.

We then went through much of the loosening sequence in this video, which involves standing still while being bent over for long periods of time and this effectively burned out what was left of my legs.

After that we did 5 postures of zhan zhuang:

1. open stance, arms at side
2. open stance, cross-wrists
3. commencing stance (heels together, feet in V), arms at the side
4. empty stance on left leg, strum lute
5. empty stance on right leg, white crane

Sifu Mizner suggested that, in general, you should only practice zhan zhuang a maximum of 30 minutes a day and he recommended holding each of the 5 posture for 5 minutes. For the workshop, we held them a bit longer.

By the time we got to the zhan zhuang training, my legs were so fried that in the first posture they were burning and shaking but I somehow managed to hold the position. And I managed to do this for the next two postures as well but, when we got to the one-legged postures, that was it for me - I could only hold them for a short time before needing to take a break and move.

After the solo exercises of the first morning session, Sifu Mizner explained that the point when things are getting difficult and the mind is telling you that you need to move is exactly the point when the training really begins. He went on to say that the body can usually do more than the mind thinks and, at the time when you want to give up, if you can instead hold the posture and release the tension, that's when you get the real benefit of the training.

After the first day, I figured my legs would get more and more tired throughout the rest of the 3 days (which they did) and I didn't know how I'd be able to get through the stance training but, amazingly, each day I got a bit better and, on the last day, I managed to hold all of postures without taking a break. I hadn't expected that at all.

Since the workshop, I've been pushing myself more in my own zhan zhuang training. I'm not doing half an hour a day and I'm not working towards that at the moment but I think it may be worth extending my zhan zhuang practice over time.

The Pretzel Conundrum

This post is a little different from my normal blog posts but I think it's in line with the spirit of it.

Last Christmas Mindy and I went back to Florida to visit my family for 2 weeks (as we usually do). While we were there we took my mom to see Darkest Hour. After taking her to find seats, I told her I was going to the concession stand and asked if she wanted anything. She said she wanted a hot pretzel, which confused my because I couldn't remember her ever asking for one but I told her I'd see what they had.

So I went to the concession stand and asked the girl behind the counter for a hot pretzel. She give me a strange look then went on to explain that they had 2 pretzel options - either a box of "pretzel bites" or a made-to-order custom pretzel that weighed 1.5 lbs and cost $15. It occurred to me that $15 sounded like a lot of dough for a pretzel but, after a moments consideration, I told the girl I'd have to go with the 1.5 lb option. I felt a little bad because she had to go and prepare it herself, which took quite a bit of time (another cashier came in and took her place while she was gone) - when she finally came back she had a box about the size and shape of a pizza box with a very hot and fresh pretzel along with assorted dipping sauces.

When I returned with this monstrosity, my mom got a big laugh out of it but she also really enjoyed the pretzel. So I got to watch Darkest Hour with a pizza-box-sized pretzel box on my lap - I'd open it from time to time and give another hunk of pretzel to my mom and she put a pretty good dent in the pretzel by the end of the movie (which didn't stop her from eating a steak at The Outback afterwards, her favorite restaurant).

A few days after I returned from my holiday in Florida, I got a call from my sister saying that mom was in the hospital and that I should consider coming back. Mindy and I flew back the next day and I'm glad we did - I got to spend a day with her before she fell into a catatonic state and passed away a few days later on January 10th.

My mom's sudden, unexpected passing was  a shock to me and something I've been coming to terms with ever since. One of the (many) things I've thought about is that two of my mom's favorite things in the world were movies and anything related to WWII - so I'm really happy that I got to take her see her last movie she and it was one about WWII that she really loved.

I'm also really happy that at that instant of the pretzel conundrum - the choice of going the easy route and just buying the pretzel bites or getting the $15 pain-in-the-ass mega-pretzel - I made the right call. From my current perspective, I see that paying $15 to make my mother so happy was a real bargain.

2017 In Summary

I didn't blog much in 2017 -  just too much going on - but it wasn't because I wasn't training (on the contrary, training took precedence over writing).

I can't pack all of the year's experiences into one post so instead I'll do my best to summarize what I worked on and some of the highlights from the year.

Wu-Style Training

Last winter and spring, I learned the Wu 45 Form as a follow up to the Wu 13 Form I learned the previous fall (described here).

Sifu Amin Wu spent two months in the summer visiting Beijing and during that time I practiced the form and prepared to participate in a group competition with some other students from the school. At the end of the summer, Sifu Wu helped the group polish the form and we won for both the 45 Form and best group overall.

In the fall, Sifu Wu taught a class on refining the Wu 45 Form, which clarified a number of details in the form for me. She also taught a Wu 13 Form class at Google that helped me improve many of the fundamental Wu-style moves.

I'm still not as comfortable with Wu-style as I am with Yang-style but recently I've experienced having the form flow, so that's progress. This year, I'll continue to work on improving the 45 Form.

Wu 45 Group Competition Medal

Yang-Style Training

For Yang-style, in 2017 I focused on improving the 32 Form. In the winter and spring, I took Sifu Wu's Tai Chi Flow (Yang-style fundamentals) and Yang 24 Form classes. While these classes are not directly the 32 Form, they form the basis of many of the moves in the 32 Form and helped me to improve my form.

In the spring, Sifu Wu gave a 2-day workshop on Refinement and Applications of the 24 Form, which was fantastic - having 2 days of focused instruction on the advanced parts of the form gave me the opportunity to pick up a lot of details that I hadn't seen before (particularly the applications).

In the fall, Sifu Wu taught a 32 Form class, which was great opportunity for me to understand the form deeper now that I've been practicing it for almost 2 years - it was certainly a much different experience than when I learned the form in the winter/spring of 2016.

With Yang-style, over the last year the movements of my upper and lower body have become more coordinated and flow a lot better, which makes doing the Yang-style forms a lot of fun and I particularly enjoy the 32 Form now. I've also been working on stretching to increase my flexibility so that I can lower my stance - progress is slow but I have made improvements.

This year, I'll learn the 48 Form and, once I've learned enough of it, I'll stop practicing the 32 Form on a regular basis. I'm going to miss the 32 Form, I've really came to enjoy it, but I've been told that the 48 Form is even more fun.

2017 Amin Wu Spring Workshop

I Liq Chuan

Between Yang-style and Wu-style training, it's been difficult to find time to train I Liq Chuan as much as I'd like to, particularly solo-training. Still, I've been able to meet up with my ILC training partners fairly regularly and to continue my Student Level 4 training with them and by attending workshops with both Ashe and Katya Shestakova. In December, Sifu Chin came to Oakland for a workshop and I successfully graded Student Level 4.

This year I will start training Student Level 5 (fixed-step spinning hands). I'm not sure how well that will go, trying to train both Tai Chi and ILC. I've been able to manage it so far but push hands and spinning hands training emphasize different things, so I'm just going to have to see how things work out.

ILC Student Level 4 Sash

Teaching Tai Chi

Last summer, Sifu Amin Wu went to China for an extended visit and, before leaving, asked if I'd be willing to teach a beginner Yang-Style 24 Form class in the fall. While I appreciated the offer, I told her I'd have to think about it.

I'd never intended to be an instructor when I started taking Tai Chi but, after having taken Tai Chi for a while, I thought I knew enough that I would have offered unsolicited instruction to other students if TToPA hadn't had a strict policy against it - at the school, only the instructors teach, you only help another student if they explicitly ask you to.

I got over that impulse once I improved enough to realize that I wasn't ready to teach. Since then, I've noticed this tendency in other beginner students - once they've taken Tai Chi for a while, they start trying to instruct other students, which is bad for them and the other students.

That's why, when Sifu Wu asked me if I was willing to teach, I had to think it over. While I had improved since since training with her, I still wasn't sure it was a good idea but, since she felt I was ready, I decided to give it a try.

In the fall, I taught a Yang-Style 24 Form class on Tuesday evenings. Sifu Wu arranged it so that I would teach an earlier class and then she would teach an advanced class afterwards, which allowed her to see how my students were doing and allowed me to take the advanced class.

It was an interesting experience. Overall, I'd have to say the class was decent but not great. I've taught academic classes and group fitness classes in the past so I don't have any qualms about getting in front of people to teach but there were a few issues with the class that I tried to learn from:

• It wasn't clear from the schedule that Sifu Wu wasn't teaching the class, so people would come in expecting her and find it was one of her students instead, which made me feel a bit awkward the entire session.
• Most of the existing students in the school weren't all that familiar with me. Up to that point, I had primarily worked one-on-one with Sifu Wu and, in the classes that I had taken, tended to keep to myself. I came to realize that, in order to be an instructor at the school, I also needed to be a part of the community.
• Teaching Tai Chi is a skill in-and-of itself that takes time to learn. Instructing while doing the form is tricky, particularly if you're trying to watch students at the same time.
• Sifu Wu would come in at the end of class to check how things were going and give corrections - this was good for the students but it set up a contrast with my teaching that didn't work in my favor.

My class ended up with 4 students who attended regularly. Partway through the session, Sifu Wu offered to let me cancel the class since she knew getting there on time to teach was a bit of a hardship for me but, even though I didn't have a huge class, my students were dedicated so I decided I'd stick with it as long as they did. And they stuck around for the rest of the session, which ended just before the Christmas holiday season.

For the winter session, Sifu Wu decided not to hold any early evening classes again because they hadn't worked out that well in the fall. She instead decided to open a new Yang 24 Form class on Saturday mornings. We discussed my teaching that class but ultimately agreed that she would teach and I would assist her.

The class started in early January. Initially, I just stood in front and she'd have me help demo postures and moves. As the class progressed, she had me take point so the students could follow my moves and timing while she led them through the form (up to where they'd learned). Later on, she started having me warm up the class, going through the basic loosening drills and zhan zhuang (stance training), which allowed her to observe the class and give individual corrections. Eventually Sifu Wu started having me lead the class through the form as well, which gave her the opportunity to observe the class and see where they were having difficulty (which is hard to do when you're teaching) and to observe me leading/teaching and work with me on that.

We finished teaching the form at the end of June and Sifu Wu went to China again for the summer. I took over teaching the class, focused on refining the form. Teaching on my own this time around was much different experience. I had 8 students in the class and they all knew me and knew it was going to be me teaching. I also felt a lot more comfortable with instructing and was able to start incorporating some of my own things into class to give the students a different perspective rather than just repeating what Sifu Wu teaches.

Sifu Wu will be returning from China soon and will start a new session of classes in September. She's asked me to continue teaching at the school and I plan to - I've found that I enjoy teaching and I feel like I'm helping people and making a positive contribution to our community.

Impressions of Wu-Style Tai Chi

Last fall Sifu Amin Wu suggested that I take her Wu 13 Form class as a first step in training Wu-Style Tai Chi. In my last post, I went into great detail about how I feel that learning too many forms can be a bad idea so I wasn't at all convinced about the idea of taking on an entirely new style.

Sifu Wu is best known for Wu-Style so I was interested in giving it a try and asked her why she suggested I take it up. Sifu Wu is a master of 5 different styles of Tai Chi (Wu, Hao, Chen, Yang, & Sun) and explained that different styles of Tai Chi suit different people and, from her experience, she felt that Wu-Style would suit me best. She also told me that she didn't want me to stop training Yang-Style but rather wanted me to train both and assured me that Wu-Style and Yang-Style training are compatible.

While still unsure whether it was a good idea, I started taking the 13 Form class last fall and split my solo training time with half the time spent on Yang-Style and half spent on Wu-Style.

Wu-Style is derived from Yang-Style small frame but there are a number of differences between training the two styles. The most obvious differences show up in the Bow stance.

In Yang-Style, the Bow stance has the forward leg with the toes pointed straight forward, the back leg with the toes pointed at 45 degrees, and the torso upright (perpendicular to the ground) with about 70% of the weight on the front leg.

In Wu-Style, the Bow stance also has the front leg with the toes pointed forward but the back leg also has the toes pointed forward, which requires a lot more flexibility with the back ankle. Instead of being upright, the torso is inclined in line with the back leg. In the stance, the front toes, knee, and nose all form a vertical line with 80+% of the weight on the front leg.

Stepping is also much different due to the difference in posture/weight distribution. In Wu-Style, you do not shift back and turn out the front leg but instead you pivot on the front hip/kua to bring the torso upright while simultaneously bringing the back leg in beside the front leg. Once you are fully upright on the front leg, you step the (formerly) back leg out forward and shift your weight forming a new Bow stance.

The difference in weight distribution makes holding the Bow stance in Wu-Style more challenging for the front leg than in Yang-Style and taking the step requires holding the weight on that leg, making things even more difficult for the front leg.

The 13 Form class finished in mid-December and, after 3 months of training it, I do really like Wu-Style. The movements are similar to how I trained Yang-Style previously at TToPA and the movements came pretty naturally to me.

As for training the two styles simultaneously, that also worked out pretty well. The Wu-Style training improved my leg strength and Sifu Wu had me use that strength to go lower in Yang-Style.

The inclined posture in the Wu-Style Bow stance was different from what I've done before (i.e. with TToPA's Yang-Style, the front shin never goes past perpendicular to the floor whereas Wu-Style the knee goes out to the toes) and getting the weight in the center of the front foot rather than in the toes required relaxing the lower back.

Over time, I realized that in my Yang-Style Bow stance I was carrying that same tension in my lower back and relaxing the lower back in the same way made my stance more dynamic.

Lowering my stance and relaxing my lower back combined to improve the overall flow my Yang-Style form - in the stance, I feel a lot more ready (and able) to move.

Sifu Wu wants me to take her Wu 45 Form class this winter as a follow-up to the 13 Form class. I still have my reservations about learning too many new forms and styles but I trust her judgement and will see how continuing to train Wu-Style works out.

Training the 32 Form

Last January I started learning the 32 Form as the next step in my Tai Chi practice. Sifu Wu's approach to teaching Tai Chi is to start with a basic form and progress through a series of forms that get more challenging and incorporate more advanced moves (by contrast, some schools will teach one form and focus on refining that form over time).

The 32 Form is an intermediate form that is the follow-up to the Yang 24 Form. While it is composed mostly of Yang-Style movements, it is a combination form that incorporates Chen, Sun, and Wu-Style movements.

I wasn't all that interested in learning the 32 Form initially. I know students who want to continually learn new forms (form junkies :) but I've always been the opposite - learning a new form takes time and effort that I feel could be better spent on refining a form you already know. Since I already knew the Yang-Style Long Form, I didn't see much point in learning an intermediate form that I would eventually stop practicing but Sifu Wu recommended that I study it so I did.

One emphasis of the 32 Form is lowering the stance in order to train flexibility and strength. As I was learning the form, Sifu Wu had me work on longer/lower steps during my stepping training and added in some stretching exercises to loosen up my ankles, hips, and hamstrings. Once I learned the form, Sifu Wu cut back my Zhan Zhuang training because the form training provides some of that training benefit (don't worry, I still do plenty of stance training).

While I still think that learning a lot of new forms is not a good use of valuable training time, I must admit that the effort I put into learning the 32 Form has been well worth it. I've come to really enjoy the form and it has provided a good venue to incrementally increase to my training level. Eventually I'll learn the 48 Form and move on from the 32 Form but I think it's going to be a while - I still have a lot to learn from this form.

Technically, now that I've learned the 32 Form, I should move on from the 24 Form but Sifu Wu has recommended against that. The 24 Form is ubiquitous (classes, competitions, demonstrations, ...) so it's useful to keep in practice. I now use it as a warm-up, going through it few times in a higher stance and then moving on to the 32 Form.

As a final note, Sifu Wu has just released a 32 Form DVD and you can check out a demo of the full form from the DVD on her YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKilyW_awUo

From 9 to 5 - Preparing for Kung Fu Tai Chi Day

It's been a while since my last post (I had a busy summer and fall hasn't been much better) and I have so many things I'd like to write about that it's hard to know where to start but I decided to pick up from where I left off in my last post with the Kung Fu Tai Chi Day event.

Early last spring, Sifu Wu told me that she had decided to have her school participate in the the Kung Fu Tai Chi Day event and asked if I'd be interested/willing to compete in the event. After looking over the event details, I decided to compete in the Yang 24 Form competition.

Due to time constraints, the competition only allowed 5 minutes per participant. The standard pace of the 24 Form is 6 to 6.5 minutes and it was left up to the individual competitor to decide whether to do the form at a faster pace (completing the entire form) or to do the it at the standard pace (ending the form early) - either was acceptable.

I had never trained for a particular pace. When I practiced the traditional Yang Form, I aimed for around 30 minutes but my main concern was doing the form slowly - if it took longer than 30 minutes, that was a win.

In our first session preparing for the competition, Sifu Wu had me go through the form at the pace I go on my own and it turned out I was going at a 9 minute pace or about 50% slower than standard pace. Sifu Wu said that the first thing I needed to do was to get the pace down to 6.5 minutes.

For my solo training, I use an interval timer app on my phone (seconds) so I set up a timer to break the 24 Form into 4 parts of 1 minute and 40 seconds each. The first time I went through the form, I felt like I was racing through it and felt like I was missing all of the details. Over time though, I came to be able to do the form at that pace and realized that there were several benefits to the faster pace.

The first benefit was that the faster pace forced my concentration to be more focused - in my previous training, if my attention wandered, I was going slowly enough that I could catch myself. While I still can't keep my attention from wandering completely, I now have to catch it a lot quicker.

The second benefit of the faster pace was that it prevented me from doing continuous-correction. Before, when I would go through the form, when I noticed myself doing something wrong, I would pause to correct it (e.g. if I hadn't turned my foot out far enough, I would adjust my position before moving on). I hadn't even realized I was doing this but it had the effect that I would never actually fix certain mistakes because I would always just readjust myself - going through the form at the faster pace meant I couldn't adjust around these errors any longer so I was forced to fix them.

The final benefit of doing the form at the faster pace was that it allowed me to link the movements together, making the form more continuous. While I was still moving at a pace where I could do the form properly (i.e. not rushing through it and skipping details), moving faster allowed everything to flow more smoothly, something Sifu Wu has been working on with me (as a side note, Sifu Wu told me that the pace for the traditional Yang form is about 20 minutes - training at the 30+ minute pace I used to do isn't wrong per-se - there are other training benefits with a slower pace - but it makes it difficult to do the form in a continuous manner).

Training for pace, I was able to get the 24 Form down from 9 minutes to 6.5 minutes and, eventually, 5 minutes, which is what I did at the competition. As I progressed, I went from having the interval timer track 4 sections down to 2 sections, and finally, just to alert me to the last 30 seconds of the form.

Now that the competition is over, I practice the 24 Form at a 6 minute pace and still use the interval timer to make sure that I'm staying at the right pace. As I train the 32 Form these days, I also use the interval timer to stay on pace.

Kung Fu Tai Chi Day

The good folks at Kung Fu Tai Chi Magazine published this photo of me at Kung Fu Tai Chi Day on their Facebook page (along with lots of other pictures):

The event took place in San Jose on May 22nd 2016 - I'm planning to write a blog entry about it (and my preparation for it) in the near future but I think the picture stands on its own.

One of my push-hands training partners described the photo as showing my 'unwavering focus and martial intent' - qualities I can really only aspire to.

Sifu Amin Wu @ Google - The Yang 24 Form (Part 2)

Last winter, I arranged to have Sifu Amin Wu come to Google and teach the first part of the Yang-Style 24 Form (discussed previously). In the spring, I was able to arrange to have her come back and teach the second part of the form.

I had been concerned about splitting the form across two sessions, particularly for new students who hadn't been in the first session. I was hoping that the class would consist mostly of returning students but about half of the students were new.

Sifu Wu gave a really nice comprehensive review of the first half of the form over the first 3 weeks, which was good for both the new and returning students, and then taught the second half of the form over the remaining 5 weeks.

As I expected, the attrition rate with the new students was higher than with the returning students but a higher percentage of students (both new and returning) got through the form than I'd expected. The class finished yesterday and, as with the previous sessions, I took a group photo:

While the results were pretty good, both Sifu Wu and I felt that splitting the class across two sessions was difficult both on her and the students - she just didn't have time to go into the details about the form that she would have liked to.

Sifu Wu will be away for the summer but I'm working with her to set up a fall session. We're trying to arrange a 12 week session rather than 8 week one, which should give her the (minimum) time necessary to get through a basic short form (Sifu Wu wants to teach the Chen 18 Form - she thinks the students at Google will enjoy it and I think it should be a lot of fun).

Hosting My First Martial Arts (Mini) Workshop

Last Saturday (March 26th), I co-hosted my first ever martial arts (mini) workshop along with my long-time I Liq Chuan training partner Rod McChesney.

Rod and I have been working on spinning hands training for Student Level 5 and looked into doing some distance learning on the subject with Ashe Higgs but it turns out that training spinning hands really needs to be hands-on.

Eventually we started discussing with Ashe the possibility of coming out and teaching a workshop focused on basic Student Level 5 spinning hands training. Since we wanted the training to be focused and hands-on, we decided to limit the number of attendees, making it a semi-private session rather than a workshop.

For some context, I should mention that a bit over a year ago (January 2015), Rod established I Liq Chuan of Redwood City and started holding classes regularly. Our initial plan was to hold the session only for folks training with the group, limiting the size to 4 participants.

As we started setting things up, we decided we wanted to be more inclusive so we opened it up to the other I Liq Chuan students in the Bay area working on Student Level 5 and ended up with 8 students registering for the session/mini-workshop:

It was a great session. Ashe explained the points that Student Level 5 training is concerned with (e.g. circle-with-center, 1st section) and some of the things that it's not. We did a number of partner drills and focused a lot on slicing in order to maintain the point of contact (Ashe always has great partner-drills). Our group got a lot out of the day and the other folks seemed to enjoy (and benefit from) the session too. And dinner afterwards was a lot of fun.

As an added bonus, Sifu Wu dropped in for the last hour or so and Ashe showed her some of the principles behind I Liq Chuan's spinning hands training.

In retrospect, I'm glad we kept the session relatively small - there were a number of logistical issues that we had to work out and it was a lot easier with a small group.

We plan to arrange more of these kinds of focused workshops with Ashe in the (near) future and plan to open them up to the I Liq Chuan community in the Bay Area - we just have to figure out how to do that in way that preserves the hands-on aspect.

Sifu Amin Wu @ Google - The Yang 24 Form (Part 1)

In a previous post, I mentioned that last fall I arranged to have Sifu Amin Wu come to Google and teach an 8-week Tai Chi session. The class went so well that I was able to arrange to have her to come back and give another 8-week session in the winter. The class filled up within a day of being announced - even faster than the previous session (which was really cool to see).

The winter session focused on the Yang-Style 24 Form. While 8 weeks is not enough time to teach the entire 24 Form, Sifu Wu was able to get through the first half of the form without overwhelming the students. As with the fall session, I once again took a group photo after the final class:

Sifu Wu will return to Google in the spring to hold a third session that will review the first half of the 24 Form and teach the second half of form.

I wasn't sure how well splitting the form across two sessions would work out and, honestly, I still don't know - this is all new territory for me and I'm figuring it out as I go - but I have confidence that Sifu Wu will teach a great class no matter the circumstances.

That First Step is a Doozy

After working on basic stance training (i.e. open stance, empty stance, bow stance, and standing on one leg) for a while, Sifu Wu eventually reckoned that I'd developed enough strength and balance to take a step.

The forward step is comprised of the basic stances. Starting from a bow stance with the left foot in front, the step occurs in 4 stages.

1. Shift back to an empty stance on the right (back) leg and turn the left (front) leg out to 45 degrees (turning from the waist).
2. Step forward onto the left (front) leg. Start by putting the left foot down (heel to toe) and shifting the weight forward until it's in the center of the foot. Continue shifting the weight onto the left leg and, as the right (back) leg becomes empty, lift the right foot (from heel to toe) by bending the knee and put the toes of the right foot down just behind and to the right of the left foot.
3. Step out into an empty stance with the the right (back) leg forward. Start by lifting the right leg (like doing a leg lift but not lifting so high), opening the left hip slightly (to about 45 degrees), and putting the right heel down in front.
4. Shift forward into a right bow stance. First put right (front) foot down (heel to toe) and expand the knee slightly without opening the hips. Start shifting to the right foot by closing the right knee further and simultaneously straightening your left (back) knee. As you shift forward, your torso should turn from 45 degrees to face front.

You end up in a bow stance on the right side where you can take another step (and another and another ...).

Now this is all very simple but it isn't easy - I keep finding (innovative) ways to do the forward step wrong.

The first problem Sifu Wu pointed out was that I was stepping out too wide in stage 3. The feet should end up about shoulder-width apart in the empty stance but I was stepping wider than that, particularly on the left side. I was also stepping out with different widths on either side so I ended up moving forward diagonally, listing to the left. With practice, I was able to adjust the steps appropriately but, if I don't pay attention, I can still start drifting again.

Narrowing my step has also had the benefit of allowing my step to lengthen naturally. My forward step has always been a bit short and now I understand why that was.

My second problem was in stage 2 of the step. While shifting onto the left (unweighted) leg, I was always unstable. Sifu Wu said that I was 'double-light' - the weight was shifting off of the right (back) leg, making it light but wasn't sinking into the center of the left (front) leg, so it was also light.

There were a couple of issues that were causing this problem. The first issue was that, as I was shifting forward, my shoulders leaned in the direction that I was turning, breaking my structure and throwing off my balance.

The second issue was that, as I was shifting onto the left (front) leg, I was bending my left hip and ankle appropriately but was keeping my left knee stiff, which made the shifting awkward and shifted my weight forward rather than letting it sink into the center of the foot.

I'm still haven't fully resolved these issues but working on them has made my stepping more stable and, as my strength and balance have continued to improve, so has my stepping.

Thoughts on Structuring Solo Training

One of the changes I've made based on working with Sifu Wu is how I structure my solo training. I've tried various approaches to solo training and have generally followed the format used by most of the classes I've attended - start with a bit of warm-up, followed by doing the form, and then practice whatever new thing I'm working on.

In August, I started taking a 24-Form class with Sifu Wu and discussed with her how to practice. She mentioned that in her classes she always starts with an extensive warm-up so that by the time she gets to the form, the students are both physically and mentally prepared to focus on the form.

She recommended that I structure my practice in a similar way - start with Zhan Zhuang training (open stance, empty stance, leg lifts), followed by basic stepping (twist step, back step, side step), and only then go on to practice the form.

My current practice schedule is shown below (updated here as it evolves). I now only spend about 30% of my time on the form as opposed to about 80% that I used to spend.

Working through the basic mechanics first gives you time to build strength, improve balance, and refine the movements. When you finally get to the form, you are warmed up and have gone through the fundamental movements, which has prepared you to do the form.

Current Solo Training

• 8 Minutes - Open Stance
• 4 minutes - hold the ball
• 2 minutes - twist while holding the ball
• 1 minute - rise and lower
• 1 minute - open and close
• 6 Minutes - Empty Stance/Bow Stance
• 3 minutes - left leg
• 3 minutes - right leg
• 6 Minutes - Standing on One Leg
• 3 minutes - raise empty leg, hold for 30 seconds, switch to other leg
• 3 minutes - raise empty leg, lower empty leg onto heel, raise empty leg, switch to other leg
• 20 Minutes - Stepping
• 5 minutes - twist-step w/hands behind back
• 5 minutes - twist-step w/brush knee and press
• 5 minutes - step-back w/hands in front
• 5 minutes - side-step w/hands behind back
• 20 Minutes - 24 Form Practice

Sifu Amin Wu @ Google

I arranged with Google to have Sifu Amin Wu come in and teach an 8-week Taiji session that ended last Wednesday (2015-11-18) - to commemorate the occasion, I took a group photo at the final class:

When I set up the class, I was hoping to get 10 people to sign up and thought I'd need to do some advertising to make that happen but it reached the cap of 20 people before I had the chance to do anything.

As I expected, Sifu Wu did a great job teaching and the class went really well - well enough that Google is working on setting up a second session starting in January.

In fact, the biggest complaint I got about the class (which I heard several times) was from people who hadn't heard about it in time to register - hopefully we'll keep having that problem.

Training the Empty Stance

Continuing with my Zhang Zhuang training, Sifu Wu recently added a new stance into the mix - the empty stance (aka the back stance).

To get into an empty stance, you start from an open stance (i.e. feet about shoulder width apart, feet pointing forward), turn one foot out by about 45 degrees, shift the weight onto that leg, lift the other leg (like in the leg lift exercise), and then put the foot down so that it is forward of the weighted foot - the heel should be on the ground, the foot flexed, and the knee (very) slightly bent. The hips should still be straight and the lateral distance between the feet still about shoulder width.

In the empty stance, all of your weight is on the back leg and your upper body should be straight upright over that leg. As with the other stances, the supporting leg should be solid and rooted while the upper body should be loose and relaxed.

This stance gets uncomfortable quickly and, eventually, your leg begins to shake at which point you sink down the toes of the front foot and then shift the weight from the back leg into a bow stance, which is a more comfortable posture that allows the back leg to rest a bit.

Once the back leg has rested, you bend the back leg to shift your weight onto it, returning to the empty stance. After doing this for a while, you switch to the other leg so that it too can share in the pain and misery (and the benefits).

When I first start training this stance, Sifu Wu had me practice with my back to a wall which forced me to 1. shift all the way onto the back leg, 2. keep my hips straight, and 3. keep my upper body upright and relaxed.

Initially it was difficult to do it for more than a couple of minutes and a lot of the time was spent in the bow stance. I now do 5 minutes on each side and, while I still shift into the bow stance (particularly towards the end), I spend most of the time in the empty stance.

As with the other stance training, spending time in this stance has allowed me analyze my structure and notice when things aren't right. For example, when all of the weight is over the back leg, it is important to feel the weight in the center of the foot. I have a tendency to feel my weight in my heel and, with Sifu Wu's help, I have found that this is caused by collapsing the knee slightly - expanding the hip and knee shifts the weight to the center of the foot and takes care of the problem. It also makes the stance harder.

Again, as with other stance training, this training has helped improve my form. There are a number of postures where you need to shift fully onto the back leg (e.g. circle foot and carry the hammer forward) and I now realize that I wasn't shifting nearly far enough back, which left me off balance and created a lot of tension in my upper body - the form is now harder for my legs but easier on my upper body.

PS. At work the other day, I noticed that my pants were getting a bit tight in the legs and I subsequently realized that many of my pants/shorts are now tight in the legs. I haven't had this problem since I was a weightlifter in my 20's - sometimes it's reassuring to have a physical manifestation that training is actually having an effect.

Lifting the Hip Considered Harmful

In my last few posts, I've been describing the Zhan Zhuang training that I've incorporated into my training regime with the help of Sifu Wu. She has continued to help me refine my training and I am now incorporating some additional movements and different postures.

One new wrinkle Sifu Wu recently gave me with the leg lifts (described in my last post) was, after lifting the unweighted leg, to extend the weighted leg until it's almost straight - still keeping the hips even. Once you've held this position for a while, you bend the weighted leg to get back to it's original position and then (and only then), you lower the unweighted leg. I do this twice on one leg then shift to the other.

Doing this variation clearly showed another problem with my leg lifts. As I lift the leg, the associated hip has a tendency to come up too, which makes the hips uneven - this is bad. In order to stay balanced, you need to keep that hip down. The issue becomes particularly evident when extending the weighted leg - the other hip really wants to come up (even though it's not helping at all).

I discussed my problem with Sifu Wu and she had a couple of helpful insights.

1. You need to feel that the leg is being lifted by the lower portion of the thigh, towards the knee.
2. As the knee goes up, you need to actively push the hip down.
3. To make this all work, the supporting leg needs to keep its structure as well i.e. the foot and knee have to retain their structure - there is a tendency to collapse the knee which lets the outer edge of the foot come away from the ground.
4. As your leg strength improves, that will help improve the form (i.e. keep practicing).

Doing my best to follow Sifu Wu's advice, my leg lifts have gradually improved over time and, with effort, I am able to keep my hips a lot more even.

Once again, as I was doing the Slow form, I started noticing places where my unweighted hip was popping up (all the usual suspects, particularly any stepping or kicking). As my leg lifts have improved, I've worked these changes into the form, which has improved the form while simultaneously making it even more challenging.

Yet More Tension

In my previous post, I described starting Zhan Zhuang training after a session with Sifu Amin Wu and mentioned that one part of the training included doing leg lifts.

In that post, I didn't describe the leg lifts but they aren't complicated. You start the movement in an open stance, slowly shift the weight to one leg, then raise the other (empty) leg up to about hip level, making sure to keep the knee aligned with toes on the supporting (full) leg and to keep the hips level. You hold the leg up for about 20 seconds before slowly putting the foot down and doing the same movement on the other side.

Lifting the leg is basically the same move as 'Golden cock stands on one leg' and holding the leg up for 20 seconds trains the thigh muscle - as your strength, balance, and flexibility improve you can lift the leg higher and hold it for longer (eventually turning it into a kick but that's beyond what I'm training at this point).

After watching me go through the movements a few times, Sifu Wu mentioned that I was holding a lot of tension in my knee and lower leg and said that I should just relax the knee and let the lower leg hang. Once she pointed it out, I noticed as I lifted my leg that 1. the angle of the knee barely changed, causing tension in the knee and 2. I was forcibly pointing my toes downward, causing tension in the lower leg.

Looking back, I recall that when I was first learning the Slow Form, I started forcibly pointing my foot down in 'Golden cock stands on one leg' because I saw that the advanced people had their toes pointed down and, while it felt tight for me, I figured that once I gained enough flexibility that everything would become loose.

Training the leg lifts while concentrating on keeping the knee and foot relaxed pointed out how much tension I was actually carrying in the knee/lower leg. Bringing this refinement back into the Slow Form, I found that the tension not only occurred in 'Golden cock stands on one leg' but in any move where I had to lift a leg, including any stepping (whether it be a side step as in 'Circle hands like clouds',  a forward step as in 'Brush thighs and press forth palms', or a backwards step as in 'Step back and repulse monkey') so this refinement has applied to (and improved) practically everything in the Slow Form.

So, mind the tension.