Yang Qing-feng was practicing his sword form without his sword, which I found interesting to watch. I might try doing that sometime, to see if I can project my energy without the blade actually being there. It gave me some ideas, anyway.

Teacher Xu had to grab some people and tell them to practice with me. First up was Weeble, who is still resorting to the quick shove strategy. I really need to figure out a way to react better to that. He also tried some quick pulls, but I nearly balled him almost every time, so he gave that up. “Step away from me when you do that!” he told me. After that I tried pushing with a rather new guy, and got to practice my backstance for a long time, which became rather tiring.

I missed practice on Saturday due to a late gig on Friday night combined with the fact that I had to go vote in the legislative elections.

It’s been a long time between posts. I’ve been missing some classes due to various reasons lately, but I’ve still been trying to attend. I’ll try to sum up:

On the 19th, Teacher Xu was emphasizing how a connected opponent, meaning all of his components linked to each other, was easy to push, while someone who knew how to isolate the components of his body and energy, is generally harder to push. While watching him move, I wonder, as always, how he manages to keep potential energy so long before unleashing it on his opponent. It almost seems to defy the laws of motion. He’ll take a step and hold his inertia somehow for a moment and then all of the sudden it’s there again. Either that or I’m missing something. One thing you won’t see with Teacher Xu is him extending his arms; all of his energy seems to come from all of him, not his arms. That day I practiced with Not From China Guy, but it was mostly quick shoves.

On the 22nd, Little Qin was complaining about Tuishou competitions and the judges there when I arrived at CKS Hall. Teacher Xu reminded me to keep my head in line with my torso when doing forms, and expounded his “yuan kong wei” premise, i.e. “original position” vs. “relative position” in movement. He says this is something the other schools don’t really teach so much. I find it quite helpful, personally.

This last Saturday we all took Teacher Xu for dinner at the fancy restaurant under the National Opera House. Pretty much everyone was there, and it was a good time. Afterwards we took group pictures in the square, and then after everyone else had left a few of us went back up to the balcony of the concert hall to get some practice in. I went through the forms, not doing too much as I was still sore from an overly aggressive massage last Wednesday night, while the others filmed each other doing moving-step tuishou. Little Qin set up a little ring, not unlike a sumo ring, for them to see if they could push each other out of bounds.