Newbie Part 2 -- Weapons

[Dronak]

I decided this was big enough of a change to get its own thread now. My last one, A Newbie's Intro, was already up to like 5 pages anyway. I'll be posting updates in here now at least until I feel like it's time for another thread.

We had our first summer practice session yesterday and I'm sore now because I didn't practice while on break. We did our usual warmup routines, stretching and stances, but we did less than usual so that we can sort of ease back into things. I think our teacher figures very few people practiced during the break. There were also a few new people who needed some basic instruction and don't have the same level of stamina as the rest of us who have been there all along. After that, the teacher took over and started us on our weapons.

We're going to be doing two weapons during the summer, staff and broadsword/knife. He wants all of us to learn a couple of basic moves for each so that we have a sense of how to use both long and short weapons. We only get to do a form in one weapon though. The basic staff moves were stepping forward in Half Horse Stance and rotating the staff around your waist to strike either up from below or laterally, directly from the side and spinning the staff in a vertical plane on the sides of the body, switching it back and forth. The spinning move took a lot of slow repetitions to figure out. The basic broadsword moves were basically starting in a left Mountain Climbing Stance / Bow and Arrow Stance (LF fwd with most of the body weight), sword in the right hand, make 1/2 turn R slicing the sword in a horizontal plane, making 1/2 back L while bringing the sword behind your back then circling it in front of you ending with it behind your body pointed forward and essentially the reverse but without the 1/2 turns to get back to the starting position. I'm sure these descriptions aren't great, but I just wanted to give you an idea of what they were.

When it was time to split up into groups for learning weapon forms the teacher asked us to split ourselves up, picking the form we wanted to do first and then he would switch you if he felt it was better for you to start with the other weapon. Since the groups weren't too even at that point (more people were in the staff group), he switched a couple more people over to even them out. I was able to stay in the staff group like I wanted to. The teacher also asked me and another student to sort of take care of the group, be the training leader for it when we split up. Same sort of thing he asked me to do before with the tai chi group. He probably did the same for the broadsword group. Since we don't have a lot of time for the summer session, he started right in on the forms in the first class. Our staff group is learning Monk Staff and given the syllabus we got back in the fall, I'm guessing the broadsword group is doing Seven Stars Knife. We started off with the first, oh, six moves the way the teacher calls them off and next time we'll have a couple of those basic Half Horse Stance striking moves to continue with. One guy from the broadsword group was showing us their starting moves and how similar they were to a couple of moves from other forms, just kind of one handed since a sword's in one hand. As we reached about the three hour point, the teacher talked to us a bit and said that the last hour will be sort of general practice, chances to ask him questions and get help, stuff like that. He wants everyone to stay and practice, obviously, but if we can't it's not a huge problem. So that's what we did until about the end of the night.

It was a long practice, almost the full scheduled four hours, and it's just going to get harder as we continue. Oh well, most of us knew how things were going to go since we've been here for a while. We'll have to see what happens to the new people who only started fairly recently. Oh yeah, I need to cut my staff down a bit, it's too long. I'm going to try to do that before tomorrow's class and ask the teacher to check the length for me, see if I need to cut a little more off. Actually, they're too long for almost everybody in the class. Anyway, that's the new update on my training. Learning weapons should certainly be interesting, but tough, too. I'll let you know how things go.

 

[theneuhauser]

ive always been told that the staff should be longer than your reach. when i cut mine, ileave a fist's length on either end.

basicallywrap your fist around one end, then grab the staff inside that space and reach as far across the staff as your reach will allow, then add another fist's-width to the other end and cut anything else off.
you would want to add or subtract inches if your wingspan is different from your height.

staff is my favorite weapon-its really versatile
hope you like it too.

 

[Dronak]

The way our teacher explained it, if we raise our hand (like in class ), not too slack, not super extended as far as possible, the staff should reach to about our wrist. I asked him about where to cut the staff before I left, so he checked it for me and told me what he thought. I think it was a bit less than I expected it would be, but it's obviously better to take off too little than too much. I'll check it with him again tomorrow and see if he says it's the right height for me. If I need to take a little more off, I can do that then. I suppose you could use staffs of different lengths for different purposes, but I'll just go with what our teacher is telling us right now.

 

[Tachi]

My instructor must have a telekinetic attachment to Dronak's -

I have been told the same thing, almost in the same wording!

I long staff that is about 6 inches above my head, and also a short staff that comes under the armpit when touching the floor.

I agree that every staff is going to be different to accommodate different Artists, forms and styles.


Cheers -

Tachi

 

[theneuhauser]

youll notice that our parameters are also about the same.
because your reach roughly equals your height, than one fist width on either side of your reach on the staff would give you an additional six to eight inches above your head! neat huh?
its a little more technical because your arms' length plays a more important role in the orbital relationship of the staff to the ground, as well as in switching ends. your reach plays a huge part in the act of "stretching" along the staff when you go to switch the ends. if too short for your reach, your hand will obviously tend to slip off the end, and if its too long, then you will find that the tail gets in your way on certain maneuvers. so its very important to consider you reach because the staff is a perfectly balance two-sided weapon. your height is a small part of the equation because you will probably perform staff maneuvers in everything from a bow stance to a twist to a butterfly kick, so have alot of fun with it.

dronak, you will naturally want to talk to your instructor about this stuff, his/her word always comes first!

 

[Dronak]

I think you're right that your armspan, finger tip to finger tip with arms outstretched is about the same as your height. If you take hold of the staff though, you're going to be losing a few inches because you have to use your finger to wrap around the staff. It might give you about the same result as reaching your hand up and cutting the staff to wrist height. For what it's worth, my staff is almost 6'6" long and I'm about 5'8" tall. I may not have measured it exactly right, but it extends about 10" above my head. I asked our teacher if it was OK and he said it looked good. If I need to take another couple inches off later, I can do so, but I'm going to leave it for now.

The form we're learning is interesting. As our teacher said, the combat applications are more obvious with a weapon, so we should really try to keep them in mind when we practice the form. We haven't hit any especially difficult moves yet, but I bet they're coming. I kind of wonder how the new people are going to hold up. A bunch of us have at least been practicing since the fall and so have some experience. We have some really new people in the class though and they're doing weapons just like we are. It must be even harder for them. We'll see what happens, I guess.

 

[theneuhauser]

by the way, what style are you practicing with stick?

 

[arnisador]

I can see why he might want you to learn only one or the other but not both simultaneously--but what's the reason for splitting the group and teaching two weapons, I wonder?

It's still interesting to hear how kung fu practitioners train! Four hours is a long class--I find it hard to keep absorbing new material after much more than an hour.

 

[Dronak]

theneuhauser, the style we're learning was called "northern Shaolin long fist style kung fu" on a sort of syllabus we received. I don't think he ever gave us the Chinese name for it. Since a lot of us in the class don't speak Chinese, he tends to use English names almost all the time.

arnisador, I think part of the reason for doing both is so that we get some experience in handling both long and short weapons. While we only get to learn a form for one, we are all practicing some of the basic moves for both. He also wants to teach us as much as he can and he moves quickly. It allows different people to know some different forms from each other. I think he wants us to have some differences. I also think part of it is that we'll be able to teach each other later on. So for example, the people who learned the staff form directly from him could teach it to the broadsword people and vice versa. I suspect this is part of the way he can give us as much as possible, by teaching different things to different groups and then allowing us to teach it to each other when we learn them well enough.

 

[theneuhauser]

northern long fist is called changquan in china. im thinking that its probably the competition form that is taught first to most wushu students. i like it alot, its got the pure traditional shaolin stances. that form is actually a new composition of various old techniques.

i might be wrong, there are other styles called "long fist" but i dont think we call them northern long fist unless its changquan. maybe next you will learn southern long fist-nanchuan-very cool too!

 

[Dronak]

I've asked and looked around before to try to find out exactly what style this is. As I may have mentioned, we don't usually get Chinese names for things since a fair portion of the class doesn't know Chinese. I bought a couple books on "long-style boxing" I think it said which descriptions said were chang quan. The basic routine wasn't the same as any of the three basic level forms we've done. Perhaps there are various sub-divisions of chang quan and what we're learning is one of those. I don't really know. If you want to know more about what I've learned so far, look at the thread A Newbie's Intro (pretty sure that's the title). If you have more comments about the style in general, you can post them here or there. I just don't want to repeat the same things I've written up already in more detail elsewhere. I think somewhere in there is the basic long term syllabus we got. We're moving faster than that though and in some cases people are skipping some forms in the list.

BTW, I got my wooden broadsword yesterday. It's nice to have both weapons now so I can do a little more practicing on my own. I just have to be careful when practicing with the broadsword inside -- I broke the light in my room yesterday. Luckily it didn't explode in pieces, but I had to replace it.

 

[theneuhauser]

:ninja: + :idea: = :redeme:


no more "bright" ideas ok?

 

[Dronak]

Earlier today I realized that I had another injury and I'm not completely sure where it came from. That's a total of four now in the two weeks we've been practicing weapons. Two I do remember happening -- I hit myself with the staff in my right kneecap and low on my left shin. Both left bruises, but the one on my shin drew a little blood, too. I don't remember exactly how I got the bruise under my right knee and the cut on the outside of right calf. The other bruise was probably from the staff, but the cut could be either the staff or the wooden broadsword if I accidentally scraped the very tip of it along my leg. I hope I get better control of the weapons more quickly before people start wondering why my legs are so beat up. No one's asked yet, but if I'm black and blue all over with some cuts, someone's bound to notice at some point. I'm not surprised at getting injuries, I think that's to be expected when you start learning weapons. I just didn't expect to get quite so many so soon.

 

[arnisador]

Yup--if you play with weapons, sooner or later you're gonna get hurt. Sounds like you're having an especially bad run o fluck though.

 

[Matt Stone]

by example.

When studying with weapons, sometimes it is best to spend a little time "getting to know" your weapon before trying to blow, full speed, through your workout/self defense routines/combinations/etc.

Spend some time carrying the weapon(s) around with you, get used to the way they feel, their reach, their particular characteristics... Gradually work into playing with the weapon(s) with their respective techniques, but again do so at something less than full speed.

Eventually, the weapon will be second nature to you in terms of how it "extends" from your body. You will find injuries far less common.

Of course, when training the broadsword (or any bladed weapon), the additional threat of injury by practicing with a REAL weapon instead of a wooden toy is far more intimidating...

Just a thought. Hope you keep all your toes!

Best of luck.

:samurai: :tank:

 

[Dronak]

You have a point, Yiliquan1. With the weapon moves we're learning, I always start out slowly so I can get the hang of them. Sometimes it takes a while before I think I've gotten it and that's all slow speed learning. Once I basically know how it's supposed to work, I try to speed it up a little bit. All the bruises must be from the staff spinning move we learned. When I go to pass it from one side to the other, if I don't leave enough space and/or don't turn my body enough/properly, I can end up hitting myself. I'm not really sure where the cut came from. I'm sure I'll get better the more I practice. The class is moving so fast though that we always have new things to learn. It's a little hard to practice the basic things enough to get them down fairly well when each class the teacher's at we get another like 4-6 movements in the form to learn. Oh well, the summer session is short, only like 6 weeks or so, so I guess he's trying to finish it all in that time. Once that's done, we'll still have half the summer to practice on our, maybe still in group practices. That's when I'll be able to spend the time working on everything without worrying about getting new moves to learn every week.

 

[theneuhauser]

hey

are you the only one thats feeling a little rushed? if some of the others already know the stuff or if they are soaking it up a little quicker(no dishonor) then, you can have them commit to helping you after class is out. if nobody else is having an easy time with it, you should defenitely say something to the instructor, im sure he will make adjustments.

(it seems like you guys are rushing, though, because that would be one very plausible explanation as to why you are hacking yourself to pieces with those weapons)

 

[Hu Ren Qianzai Long]

I think that it's much easier to taern Hand-To-Hand before using weaponry. This way, you are more farmiliar with the techniques of whichever martial arts you're taking.

 

[Dronak]

Well, I'm not sure. I think other people may feel like they're pushing fast, too, but may have an easier time handling it. I know that at least a few people in the class have studied some form of martial arts before. Some people also learn by "copy what I do" more easily than others. I really need some verbal descriptions sometimes, but they're not always there so it makes it harder for me to learn things quickly. I'm cool with that. I know it's going to take me some more effort to learn it. I mainly joined the club because the teacher said he'd do tai chi a little later on. I really wanted the tai chi part. I do like the Shaolin stuff we're doing, but that wasn't my main interest in joining. I'd have been fairly happy with just learning the basic level Shaolin forms and then focusing on tai chi. BTW, The teacher will sometimes hold back on new moves if it looks like we're having too much trouble remembering what he did last time or if we're having trouble getting the first few moves he taught in a class, so he does make some adjustments. But overall the class is pretty fast paced.

Hu Ren Qianzai Long, I believe you're new here so you probably didn't see and/or read my other primary thread here. I started training in fall 2001 and have been learning barehand forms since then -- five of ten tan tuie routines, two of three basic level forms, an intermediate form which we started in the spring and are planning to finish now in the summer, as well as starting to learn some tai chi. So I've learned say 2.5 Shaolin routines and about 1/3 of the tai chi form we're doing. I do have some prior experience with the style's barehand forms. But this is what I mean about how fast we're moving -- the five tan tuie were taught over the first 3 months (about) and the first basic routine over the same period, the second basic form was taught over about 1 month, the intermediate form started a little later in the spring and in about 2.5 months we got something like halfway through it. Our teacher has said that traditionally we wouldn't touch weapons for at least two years and here we are working on them with only about 9 months of training at the most. Some people in the class are new and didn't start in the fall at the very beginning. He knows he's moving quickly as does everyone else. I think that as long as most people are able to keep up, he'll stay at that pace though. He wants to give us as much as he can and I think to some extent he's not sure how long he'll be able to teach us and that's why he's moving so quickly.

 

[Dronak]

Let's start off with a little good news, bad news trade off. Bad news: someone apparently took my wooden broadsword at Monday's class. Good news: I found another one lying around that no one present at the end claimed; chances are it belongs to the person who has mine. Bad news: the one I found isn't as good as the one I lost; the guard is loose on this one. Good news: I'm not doing the broadsword form, so I'm not in dire need of having a broadsword. Bad news: no one replied to my e-mail asking if someone had my broadsword to let me know and return it at the next class and it's been three days or so now. Good news: at least I'm not without one completely, I have the one I found at the end of that class so I can still practice on my own. I just don't want to bring it in to class because then whoever has mine may think, "oh, he's got another one already, so I can keep this one" and won't be inclined to give it back to me. This is the second missing sword -- another person in the class couldn't find his and it hasn't been returned either. Not everyone who was at the Monday class came on Thursday, so I'm hoping that whoever has my broadsword will be honest enough to return it to me the next time they do come to class.

In other news, we got a little more information about the staff form we're doing. First, we're roughly halfway through the form already. The way I count it, we have 25 moves right now. Hopefully then we will be able to finish the whole thing before the end of our summer training classes. Our teacher also said that this particular form isn't really one designed for power. Some moves he said look like they're meant to be powerful strikes, but that's not the primary intent of the form. This form is supposed to get us used to the sorts of movements we'll need later on, get us used to handling the staff in different ways. He said that if we get around to other staff forms later, we'll see moves with very big circles, such as swinging the staff in a big horizontal circle, giving you a much larger radius of attack. The moves we have now are generally smaller. So far it hasn't been too difficult to get the basic idea of the moves down, but it will naturally require quite a bit of practice before I can make everything nice and flowing. My main problem, once I get the idea down, is getting my hands in a good position on the staff. Sometimes they're too high or too low for the following move, so I'll need to learn how to adjust my grip smoothly. We'll have to see how complicated later moves get though and our teacher did say something about them getting more difficult. No big surprise; forms usually seem to start out with some simpler moves to warm you up before getting into the more complex moves. I suppose that's about it for now. I was kind of surprised that we've done about half of the staff form already. And as far as I can tell, no more injuries lately.