The Thing About Blades
Ever since we were preparing for the Canada Day Demo I have been trying to increase the speed on my form. This was challenging for me because I wanted the form to stay crisp and the techniques to not become mushed together, but I figured it would come with practice. But now I think there is an underlying ... thing that might also be contributing to it.
I think a sword slash has no transfer of power.
What I mean is I think the nature of a blade and the slash of a sword has no one single direct point of impact.
I think a slash is like a rotational technique or stance.
Where the energy comes back to you rather than being transferred along a linear path into something.
So because there is no endpoint, no single apex/crescendo of power, I can't feel the release of the technique that is meant to come at the end. In my form many of my slash techniques are followed up by a reverse in direction so I am fighting the flow of energy, trying to slow down the forward momentum so that I can reverse the direction of energy to begin a new technique, bending it to my will rather than using the already generated momentum which is why it's so hard to speed up! The faster I go the more time/energy it takes to slow things down to move on to the next technique.
That's all fine and dandy, I have started to understand a problem I've been having with where I want to progress my sword form, which will help me to make a plan to fix it, and it would stay fine and dandy if my brain didn't decide to take this idea one step further and ask a question which has shattered my understanding of the entire concept of Flow:
In a sword slash, the apex of power does not come at the end of the motion (like in a punch). If the transfer of power, which defines the "end"->(energy) of a technique does not come at the "end"->(temporally) then what does??? My whole concept of flow revolves around the idea that the release of energy is what defines the end of a technique and the beginning of the flow between. If there are things that happen after the apex but before the start of the next move where does that fall into my diagram of events? What does this mean for how I am defining Flow Within and Between???
Frantically I started lookin for other places in my kung fu where this might be happening, to try to get a clearer picture of what what going on. I asked the Bjorquist's (Don/Cody) if they could think of any instances where a technique "strike" happened before the solidification of a stance (because that would check the box of "things happening after the apex") and Cody found the retreating strike near the end of DMS 5. I talked a bit with Sidai Csillag after class one day because I wanted to know if nun-chucks felt like they might have this problem of non-liner power transfer, and they mentioned the idea of a moment of rigidity, of tightness in the muscles that happened during a "strike". In our most recent I Ho Chuan class I was thinking about how a cyclone kick might be close enough to hold some answers. I think all of these things are important pieces of the puzzle I wasn't considering, but everything needs to sit with me for a while before I continue. I am so very confused, but so incredibly excited.
This makes me think of a kick and a punch; and part of the technique is the retreating that can be so devastating from the rebound of impact. Punch, kick, sword, there is still a point of impact and transfer of power, but part of the technique is also the retreat or rebound. The way I see it, the point of impact or release of power in the sword is the initial strike, almost like a chop. The slash is part of the retreating/rebounding action which is then devastating.
ReplyDeleteHope that helps.
(Adding Sifu Hayes comment here so I don’t lose it)
ReplyDelete“If there is no exhilaration, transfer, release of power. A sword slash, a punch, a kick, or block. Is just a swinging action.”