Last night in L2 Mo, Sucheela, Fu and I finished xiao hong quan! Excitement! Celebration! Now we have 2 1/2 weeks to try and clean it up for testing; sort of frightening, but definitely better than finishing it up the Friday before. Time to pound pound pound away at it.
Not minimizing the awesomeness of finishing my first L2 form, but in so doing, it brought to light how bad my mabu has gotten. (The end stance of the form is a mabu.) Now I'm the first to admit that my mabu has never been super low or very flexible; and it is not exactly my favorite move so I don't go out of my way to give it extra work. But I hadn't realized the extent of the damage. The thing is, I'm building up a lot of strength in L2, but that means the muscles around my hips are reducing my flexibility. And while I have been working on stretching my hips, (which has worked wonders for the recurring hip pain, incidentally!) I guess I'm not getting at the right muscles, because I have felt my mabu getting higher and higher. There aren't a lot of mabus in L2. You get gongbus by the truckload. Fair amount of pubus, but not a lot of ye olde horse stance.Seeing it in the mirror last night, for the first time in awhile, I was appalled. It looked even more grotesquely off because with my unfortunate long legs everything is exaggerated. (Also, it didn't help that at this point I was next to Han who can hit the floor in mabu without breaking a sweat.) So the sum of it is, the stance needs work. Lots of it. Time to overcome my hatred of mabu and focus on ways to get lower and open my hips more. I'm going to do it untill I love it. Untill when Sifu calls out mabu, I smile instead of inwardly groan. Until when I go "Huoy!" (hui, hoy, huay, how, hue, hu-ee?) at the end of xiao hong quan, it's my celebratory shout for how good my mabu has gotten.
Congratulations on finishing xiao hong quan!!
ReplyDelete:D
At the end of XHQ, I can't get my wrist not to bend!! No wrist bending!!
ReplyDeleteI loved last night's class b/c we got to work on our 5 kicks during the line drills! Awesome!!
ReplyDeleteI love these kind of translations. Sifu Shi Deyang's XHQ DVD begins with this, but it goes by so fast, it can hardly be read. So I ripped the subs. Then I thought it would be fun to share. Perfect! Xiao Hong Quan post!!
ReplyDeleteI hope this adds some meaning to the moves you've learned. I don't get it yet, but it sounds so cool! The power can shock the world and change the situation!!! Keep working hard at it.
"(Xiao Hong Quan's) rhythmic formulas are as follows:
Xiao Hong Quan is the fountainhead of all boxing.
Raise body to reach horse in the Zhaoyang style.
Raise the body and beat across with hammer.
Raise and slap a palm backward successively.
Reach the horse on both side and turn the head.
Jump forward and then use the single whip.
Just make an arhat posture on the right.
Then practice Taizu's boxing on the left.
Cross back to form four level and turn forward.
Jump up and slap foot to cover and hit with fists.
Roll the body and follow with ghost pounds mortar.
Get away and set a posture of White Tiger Boxing.
Move the body and advance to reach the horse on the left.
Punch four fists from bottom with cross-back steps.
Jump up with both feet as double swallows flying.
Dragon coil, cock kicks and the tiger turns body.
Yecha searches the sea and turn its head.
Move the mountain by lmmortal pointing out the way.
Stand steadily form a posture of leaning on the mountain.
The power can shock the world and change the situation.
The posture of the Buddha's warrior is steady in all directions.
Subdue the dragon and tame tiger and move the Tai Mountain.
Go ahead with the lmmortal pointing out the way.
Stand in the middle position after taking back cross steps.
Golden dragon coils paws form blocking posture on the well.
Reach the horse and the monkey watches the battle array."