Awakening the Lau Gar

 I have a backlog of blogs that have been floating around in my head since my trip and I want to try to finally get back on track and write them all out. I was considering making them into one massive blog but I decided that if I want to go back at any point I should have them separate so they are easier to find in the future. I don' think they will be as in-depth as if I would have written them closer to when the initial ideas popped up, but some sort of record of what I was thinking is better than none, right?


The night before I left for my trip I was up late and excited to leave the next day, but I knew I needed to go to sleep soon so I would be well rested for the 12 hour drive ahead of me. I thought about maybe doing awakening the dragon to try to clear my head, but I was on hard wood floors and I knew I would be falling behind on my forms over the trip, so I decided to try to do Lau Gar in a way that mimicked awakening the dragon, very slow, deliberate, and in some spots, softly. I wanted to do it with the intent of using the movement to clear my head and calm my body. This idea came about shortly after I had done my forms in the dark so I was interested to see what kind of insights would come from changing my intent like this again. 

The biggest difference was that it allowed me to feel the six harmonies in a different way than I'm used to in this form, focusing more on the timing and release of energy rather than utilizing the six harmonies to make each technique effective (I mean, I know you need good timing to have an effective technique, you can't really get away with detangling them, but I just mean it was able to shine a spotlight on that particular aspect and really pay attention to it)

It also forced me to focus on my breathing in the form, instead of punctuating each technique with a fast exhale as everything releases, but instead playing around with which techniques fit better with an inhale versus an exhale and why that might be, which was super interesting!

Doing it at this slower pace also gave me a better understanding of the "a blackbelt changes their intent 100 times from the beginning to end of a technique" statement. While I may not be able to make that many changes while I'm doing my forms at my regular pace, I can see how it would be possible, and what sort of changes and adjustments I could be making when I slow it way down like this. 

Before doing this I have been really trying to focus on doing my forms at a level 10 and trying to push my speed and power, but this idea that was so opposite from that, really opened my eyes to some things I would have never been able to see in my form if I only focused on power and stamina like I have been.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Or can I...?

Between it floating around in the back of my mind for almost a week, reading sifu Brinker's blog post about it today, and sifu Rybek encouraging us to write a blog after tonight's meeting, I think all three created the mental conditions that were just right for me to have a lightbulb moment about the knifehand-long punch-open roundhouse/(dragons whip)-spinning back kick section in da mu hsing II, and I'm very excited about it, I mean, jumping up and down punching the air excited.  My initial question about this sequence that kind of kickstarted this whole thing was that I was having trouble feeling any flow or power from that spinning back kick at the end of the sequence. When sifu Brinker explained that the energy flows just like it does in the knifehand-punch 1) it blew my mind that the spinning back kick was meant to be connected like that!! and 2) I thought I had an answer to my question and all it would take would be to practice with that intent in mind.  However as I ...
Read more

I don't want to write this blog

 I don't want to write this blog. Which is exactly the reason I'm forcing myself to write it. It's only the second month and I've already started to fall behind on my monthly goals (which is one of my personal) requirements for this year. I thought I would have made it a bit farther into the year before something like this happened, but lo and behold all it took was the switch from one month to another and it started to crumble. For the whole first week of March I didn't even have it on my radar until I went to input my numbers for the week and realized I made zero progress. Swallowing my disappointment, I resolved to do better next week. Still no change and another bout of shock when I put in my numbers for the week. On the 12th I wrote in my spreadsheet where the hours should have gone "doing absolute terrible with this one need to address it in a blog ASAP" next week, no hours logged, no blog and just like that mediocrity swiftly snapped it's jaws c...
Read more

Could a Robot Do Kung Fu?

During one of our discussions in the second degree brown belt class last Saturday my brain threw a question completely out of left field at me. Sifu Brinker was describing how flow and power does not come from executing a technique with overly specific instructions (i.e. "ok I'm going to move my arm 98 degrees to the left then extend my elbow in 3.5 seconds then...") and my brain grabbed that idea and ran with it, almost immediately asking "COULD YOU TEACH A ROBOT KUNG FU?????" I made a note of it then left the idea alone because I knew as soon as I started to think about it there is no way I would be able to refocus on the actual discussion (which I very much wanted to hear). Once I allowed myself to think about it my first answer was:  probably , and it would most likely be better than us at it because you could measure out the timing and distancing, all things we have to constantly adjust and practice, to a microscopic level, and the robot would be able to ex...
Read more