Notes for Practical Method Ottawa Workshop Nov. 12-13, 2016

This is the first time I attended the Ottawa Workshop. Great group! Thanks Rachelle, James, and Daniel for organizing the workshop, and Rachelle for my stay at her place. Here are my notes:

1. Move the feet. When we train, we fix the feet. When you push hands, we move the feet. Our feet are often not mobile enough, we must force ourselves to move them, e.g. getting in changes the pivot.
2. The only way to connect is not to connect.  Connection means moving and non-moving parts have a relationship.
3. We need to resolve change without change. When A moves to B or B moves to C due to a rotation of the circle, there is really no change from taiji's perspective.
   
4. Twisting the towel, both hands are on the same line, palm faces down close to the body, palm faces up when the arm is extended. Line up the two dots (front hand and rear elbow). My eyes were not right, I couldn't line up the two dots. 
5. Learning must be direct, progress must be indirect.
6. In with elbow, turn with waist. I am not starting the waist turn with the kua.
7. Instructions must be obeyed.
8. Every person has restrictions put on him by himself.
9. Push hands: don't let you opponent test you. When the opponent charges, you must charge as well, never back off.
10. Exercises:
    1) You grab the opponent by the wrist, the opponent tries to shake it off by going up and down. In order to not getting shaken off and not let the shoulder take all the force, you need to resolve the shaking by stretching the rear kua.
    2) You grab the opponent by the wrist, the opponent tries to move the hand back and forth. You must stay with the opponent.
    3) You grab the opponent by the wrist, the opponent walks back and forth. You must stay with the opponent.
11. Saying: Stick to your opponent and die together, who does not want to die will get out.
12. As you create space, you must fill it immediately.
13. Don't push your opponent, pushing is a release and creates space.
14. Rear foot to front kua is a stick that keeps poking into the opponent.
15. Don't let your opponent fight the battle on your turf. Invade your opponent's homeland - Go over.
16. Relate two dots with a non-moving third dot.
17. 挨着哪儿哪儿打 - Wherever that is touched, that's where is used to hit
    全身不处不是拳 - Any body part can be used as the fist (Literal translation: No body part is not the fist)
18. Switching - Use your hand to make your opponent feel strong, once engaged, switch to use power somewhere else.
    Exercise: You had an arm bar on the opponent, your front foot is in front of the opponent's front foot. Once engaged, switch to a different pivot, and stretch your front foot back under the opponent's leg. At the end, step on the heel. Before stepping on the heel, all space must be taken out.
19. Tension and compression are the same, but the difference is in the perspective. Tension is going away from the non-moving point, while the compression is going towards the non-moving point on the same line.
20. Fetch water - lock front knee or front hand, front shoulder down to find the front kua coming up.
21. Converting the vertical to horizontal: Compress the front shoulder to front kua, and then rotate the waist from front kua to rear kua (this elongates the horizontal)
22. Converting horizontal to vertical: Opponent comes in and pushes into the abdomen, compressing the opponent's elbow into his hand (which touches your abdomen), the stretch vertically to the head.
23. 50,000 yilus is the new goal given to me. Go make the actions automatic for me.
24. Gong vs Fa: Gong is the principle expressed in the action. Fa is the ability to do a technique. An old master has gong but not necessarily fa anymore. It is like a short blade knife. If you are stabbed with it, you will feel hurt, but you won't die. An old master can let the student feel the principle, and that's why he can still teach.
25. Go voluntarily to where your opponent want you to go, and at the end add something to it.
26. Shifu adjusted my fetch water, the rear shoulder needed to be much higher than I expected to line up with my front hand. He made me realize that once the front hand and the rear shoulder line up, there was power. Of course, the rear cannot be floating.
27. Shifu asked me to train flexibility, move anything else except the dantian by stretching, especially move the feet. When someone pushes me, move some body part (do something) away from the contact point to buffer it. Keep the power constant like I am in the elbow in position.
28. Keep the elbow in, and yet stretch the hand towards the opponent's centre.

Reaching 20,000 yilus

On Oct. 23 , 2016, I reach 20,000 yilus. From 19,000 yilus to 20,000 yilus, I have noticed the following:

1. I am moving less of my hands, and using the rotation on the joints to propel the movements. This allows me to engage my waist more.
2. The triangle formed by the two kuas and dantien is becoming more prominent during the form. I think that this helps the engagement of the core in all actions.
3. I am able to locate my students' centres faster during demos, but not fast enough during push hands.
4. During push hands, I need to get my opponent to commit to his actions, then I find the lines more solid and maintainable.
5. My stance when doing the form is now lower than before. This seems to allow me to stretch out the kuas more. However, I also notice I sweat a lot more than before doing just a couple of yilus, and I need to take a break.  I am only doing 5 yilus a day right now, and I already feel very tired at night.

Observations

Today, when I felt that I wanted to throw up near the end of the 7th yilu. I didn't know why, but I wanted to record the incident. I didn't eat breakfast, and slept for about 6 hours the previous night. The stomach was not doing so well after that.

Practical Method Characteristics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hstkDJCjE9A

1. Rotation (Spin like a wheel, Be like a gyroscope)
2. Withdraw is to issue
3. Eye on the opponent
4. Revolution and rotation combined
5. 45 degree angles

Reaching 19,000 yilus

On Jun. 14, 2016, I reach 19,000 yilus. From 18,000, to 19,000 yilus, I have noticed the following:

1. I am able to more clearly see a dot that can be used for rotation. That can be in the opponent's body, my body or in the space. See this article for more detail. When I watch Master Chen Zhonghua push hands videos, I can see this dot in his actions.
2. I am able to engage my waist more. During push hands, the setup I previously talked about must include the engagement of the waist.  Unless the setup is there, don't do the actual move. However, the process of learning this does require repeated attempts to locate the moment when the setup is done, since I don't know what it means to be "the setup is there" previously.
3. During push hands, I need to remind myself about maintaining a fixed dot in my body during the setup process. Recently, I notice that I am not doing that as much as I focus on point 1 above.

https://youtu.be/-cJO0BsmCSM

Dot in space

Master Chen Zhonghua has demonstrated numerous times of having a fixed point (dot) for rotation in his action. Recently, I start to understand the pair of contacting points which can be used to create a stick/lever. I have been able to rotate an opponent using a dot in the middle of the stick. Today, I realize this dot can, in fact, be in space, and not necessarily in the opponent's body. It depends on how I contact the opponent, e.g. which body parts I use to create the stick. This kind of rotation is vertical, and can take the bottom support out from the opponent.

Update on June 18, 2016:
Today, related to this idea, I found myself using a stick created by my opponent on my body trying to do a move on me. The move he was trying was with his right arm across my chest and his right leg behind my left leg to flip me backwards. Between the contact point on my chest and the contact point behind my left thigh, a stick was formed. If I considered this stick with a third point on his body where he powered up, a triangle (a plane) was formed. I was able to rotate the dot in the middle of the stick between the two contact points, and flipped him forward.

Update on June 20, 2016:
I discovered there was yet another triangle. With the stick being one side of the triangle, I can have a point of another triangle at my waist/dantian. When I rotate my waist, I rotate the stick. This should be the concept of a fork as documented in my notes back in 2010: http://ktaiji.blogspot.ca/2011/01/private-lesson-with-master-chen.html
Related:
What's the dot?

Experience in Pushing Hands

I was pushing hands with my taiji brother today. I always felt that this taiji brother was strong, he normally did not use it, but when he did, I had a lot of trouble dealing with it. Today, he was trying to put his front leg between my legs to do a throw. I felt a strong sweep from his leg to my front leg. I held my structure fairly upright, then he fell forward two metres away. He tried a second time with the same move, this time he fell forward since I twisted him but in the opposite direction.  I didn't know what I really did, it happened fairly quickly. Both times I was able to remain standing in the same place.  I realized for things like this to happen, he needed to be committed for his move, and used a lot of power while I spent a lot of effort maintaining my structure. Because of that, a lot of potential energy was created like pulling a bow back, and the fall was triggered by the release.