Master Chen Zhonghua's Online Lesson on Oct 6, 2020

Today, shifu emphasized on how to learn. The first thing about learning is to listen to instructions and then to copy.  Some people tried to copy without listening to the full instructions, and that won't be a success copy either.

To copy, it's to do everything exactly the same by definition.

In today's main exercise, shifu used a stick to represent a line between the right shoulder and the right hand.

1. Hook the loop created by the right index finger and right thumb on the link, and move along the stick.
2. Use the elbow to push the hand out, and use the elbow to pull the hand in.
• Some may think that this is a contradiction to "Out with hand no elbow, in with elbow no hand".  That statement indicates who the leader is.  In "out with hand no elbow", the hand is the leader, nothing can compete with it.  In "in with elbow no hand", the elbow is the leader, nothing can compete with it. What is a leader?  A leader is someone who does something first.  If a number of people have to go through a tunnel that is only large enough to fit a person through at a time, the first person who goes through it is the leader. If multiple people try to go through the tunnel at the same time, there will be a jam, and no one can come out the other end.
3. If we pull the elbow straight into the ribs, the direction of the palm will not change.  If we pull the elbow across (perpendicular to the stick), the palm will start to flip up or flip down.  It is a stick between the middle finger tip and the elbow. There is no bending or twisting at the wrist. The wrist is always straight called "sitting the wrist".

To copy, we must use a stick in this example today. Shifu always emphaizes on being physical in the training.  However, we are not shifu, we can't copy exactly. What is allowed to vary, what is not allowed to vary? Here are some examples below:

1. In this case, the stick can be a broom stick, a waxwood staff, or a long steel pipe. It can be in whatever color. It must be something that you can touch and follow, it serves for the purpose of being a track. At this point, since he used something that was straight, we should use something that is straight as well.  However, he was also demonstraing that there was a specific path that the hand follows. That path eventually may not be totally striaght, it can be a curve.
2. He showed us the right hand set up, we can also train the left hand set up.
3. If he said that he trained that for 3 years, we couldn't just say that I knew why you did it, so let me just jump to the real reason.  Unless we have actually replicated it, we don't understand the real reason, we would be just imagining. We may achieve that understanding in 2 years or 5 years, the length of time it takes may vary.

Edward Liaw had a bar, which was in the shape of a larget hand drill.  If we put it vertically down on the floor, and fix the two ends, we can rotate the middle part that bends out. The bigger the part that bends out in the shape, the more power there is because the distance of that part to the axis farther, it means the lever is bigger.

Shifu also used a rubber band to demonstrate how to lock the two ends denoted as shoulder and hand, and move the middle denoted as the elbow. The power comes from the ability to lock the two ends. The elbow completes a circle longitudinally.

Master Chen asked us to post a video on youtube, and paste a link as a separate post on http://practicalmethod.com. He would make comments. Repeat it once a month.  This is another great opportunity to improve quickly. Don't worry about how good or bad you look.