Monday, October 8, 2018

Learning moments during teaching 1

Yesterday, I tried to tell the student not move the shoulder but focus on opening the front kua when doing fetch water. I then asked one student to press two hands down on my shoulders, and then another student to wrap his arms around me at my upper arms, so I could not move up or sideways. I opened my left kua and the student wrapping around me was rotated to my right (like just spined around me). I did not intend to rotate, I was only trying to demonstrate fetch water, so the result surprised me. Recently, I have been feeling more strongly of using the kua as the middle point of the triangle and pressing it against the line formed by two fixed ends. I can also control the pressing angle depending on which two points I pick as the fixed ends. The thing that I focus on recently is to lock the outside and move the inside, like making the outside a jar with full of marbles, and trying to push that one extra into the rest of the marbles. Locking my structure to make that solid jar is difficult because I have to fight against my old tendency. I am trying to make my maximum resistance go against my maximum movement. That should be an instance of yin and yang. Doing these demos continuously makes me understand more as I verbalize the instructions/procedure to let the student do the same. My students are also getting better as they are starting to analyze my actions using PM concepts and terms. Constantly demonstrating what it is supposed to be along with words regardless of whether I can do it totally or not at the time has helped me improve my actions over time. In another instance, my student was pressing on me to get my upper body to go backwards, I was trying to show not to fight. My mind was on not moving a dot, and stretching into empty space. After I did it, it turned out to look like ground dragon. It gave me the experience of 动必成式. I remember, maybe in 2011 or 2012, Master Chen Zhonghua and I were at Monte Carlo Inn at breakfast time. He grabbed and locked my right forearm, then told me to separate my energy from my body movement. Of course, I could not do it at the time. He said something about the energy had to come out of the middle finger. I believe now what needs to done is to stretch, the longer the better, stretch it all the way to the rear foot. A stretch gives me the ability to handle opponent's incoming power. Another stretch gives me the ability to go around the opponent. Stretch gives me the ability to take up space without giving up what I have. A stretch by definition must have a non-moving dot. Stretching produces that magic. Swallowing is to lock the front and then stretch backwards. Spitting is to lock the back and stretch forward.