Robyn's Travels

Kung Fu: Improvements Achieved and Improvements Needed

In the last couple of weeks, I have been drilling into my Kung Fu classes.  Despite it being tax season, I am still trying to budget my time accordingly  so that I can go to class 3-4 times a week.

In the last two weeks, my Shi-Fu complimented me on two things I haven’t been able to achieve in my 1.5 years of training.  Last week, I was doing side kicks on the heavy bags.  Shi-fu stated that it was the first time I actually executed good side kicks, from chambering to striking. That made me feel good, especially since I’m been trying to overcome muscle strain in my right side above my hips.  

Tonight, I was doing back fist/spinning back fist floor drills.  Last week,  I finally realized the proper way to transition foot-wise from the initial back fist into the spinning back fist.  Performing it tonight, Shi-fu was actually impressed and stated that I’ve really improved on it.  That made my night, especially since I had such a rough day earlier at work.

So what do I need to focus on for this week?  Well, two weeks ago, I learned more of my orange belt form, Ng Lun Choy.  But certain parts need cleaning up and better execution before I can learn more of the form.  Last week, it was the butterfly palm into cover stance.  This week, it was my transitioning from horse stance to leaning stance back to horse stance while doing chuen na (a Choy Lay Fut arm strike).  My Shi-fu was having the hardest time trying to determine how I was doing it wrong, and during the second of my classes tonight, he figured out that:

1) I’m not opening my foot wide enough from horse stance to leaning stance to propel the motion, and

2) my head is not turning at the right moments, which surprisingly limits my movement. In other words, I’m delaying looking in the direction of my strike when I should be turning my head as I’m starting to switch hands to execute the next chuen na.  

Now that I understand how I’m doing it wrong, now I need LOTS of practice to get it right! I’ll just be right back at it again tomorrow, of course!