gongfu

Learning Cheng Man Ching Tai chi, I am forced to look at my footwork all over again. Lining up the hips, the feet, etc. with the opponent is deeply explored in CMC tai qi. Looking at my own footwork, I am starting the really appreciate the brilliance of xing yi, long fist and Baji. I never really looked at footwork in the way that these guys do, and looking at my own footwork, with this new information is really shedding new light on old gong fu.

 I think this blog post will mainly be some comments on hsing yi’s centerline strategy.

 Tonight, I was practicing a small part of a very long two man set. The person I was practicing with is a long term higher level student of our teacher. He’s quite small and shaky. Near the end of the loop, before it starts over, there is a place where you exchange the feet. Basically, the feet line up, as they would in xing yi, but the technique itself, wouldn’t call for a lining up of the feet if it was xing yi, the feet would actually cross the center, since the strike is off at the diagonal. The guy I was working with would just keep pointing at where to put my feet, and as graceful, neatly and quick I could move my feet in 8 or 9 possible ways, I just couldn’t seem to position them in the required tai qi manner. Finally I said, “man look, just hold on a second” and just stepped into the right pattern, which felt incredibly wrong, and went about the form. Everytime we would get back the that spot, there was no way I could do it. Xing yi conditioning just wouldn’t let it happen. He started to explain how the feet are actually shoulder width apart, in a back stance and the hips face the opponent. I quickly, turned my hips to 45 degrees and stepped the front heel in line with the rear and explained that this is xing yi. Xing yi, really has nothing to do with Cheng Man Ching Tai Chi, but this particular form, is just a collection of various xing yi, bagua and tai chi movements from many styles of the three pillar schools. I think it is very important however, to learn every little thing you can from everyone else, then compare and contrast methods and approaches in your own training time. So I shut up, emptied my cup, and took in what I could, which I’ve been busting at for the past three hours now at home.

 This is where, I will mention, that if you do hsing yi, you have a slight advantage to students of tai chi at a higher level from you. The reason, is that, tai chi’s strategy, is to get out of the way and neutralize your attacks, plucking and trying to lead etc… while leaving the center exposed for bait. The problem is, if you do xing yi, your hand techniques mutate upon contact, and you’re still pressing the center, since your line up is narrow, and theirs is wide, when they start to retreat, your advances cover too much ground for their techniques to hold up after two steps. After two steps, they are open somewhere in the center, and you’re close enough to strike them in the face with your elbow, or shoulder strike the sternum, let alone just irradicate the center with beng quan or more likely pao quan.

 The whole thing is, when longfist, shaolin or tai qi advance or retreat, they will first move the leg up to the static leg, then out away from the body. When you advance or retreat in xing yi or baji, your movement is on a straight line. Therefore, if they advance a foot, you only need to retreat an inch, so to speak. If they retreat a foot, and you advance an inch, your in close enough to attack before provoking a response.

 Now both xing yi and good tai qi are in-fighting systems. Tai qi will make use of the long range, xing yi will rush in, sometimes with long range attacks but always to the center, on the center line, and finishing in close.

 The other thing I noticed, and bear in mind I was practicing with a student not a teacher, is that when I locked his leg, he really didn’t seem to grasp why I naturally wanted to wrap my foot around his, and turn my body to a side facing horse stance.

 Here is the thing. While the obvious application of trapping the foot this way is getting the inside of your knee around the back of theirs, locking it, taking out the knee and thus grounding the opponent, there is a lesser known, incredibly effective hidden application, this is it:

 We’ll forget about the hands, and what is going on with the torso for the sake of illustration. Say a person steps there right foot towards you, and puts weight on it. If you simply lift the toes of your left foot (same side) and push your foot out, sliding on the heel with no weight on it, until the heel is lined up with the outside of their heel, then turn your foot in, and set the toes down to “lock” their foot, you can press your ankle up against theirs and start shifting weight onto your left foot, keeping firm contact, until all of your weight is on that leg and it is deeply bent at the knee. By the time your weight is 50/50, they will be heading for the ground, when you reach 100 percent, they should be lying painfully on the ground. This is a leg locking qin na technique.

 Anyway, long live xing yi. Attack the center and advance continuosly left and right as if you were against a wall.

 Peace.

 Dave.

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