Chi Sau

Sifu was away today, so one of the seniors took the class. We did a lot of chi sau and as he was walking around he must have noticed something that many of us were doing – i.e. giving up (or not giving regard to) the centre line.

Another Way Of Looking At The Centre Line

He stopped us and asked us to gather round while he tried to give an analogy to give us another way of looking at the centre line. He asked us to imagine that we were given a bomb, held it in one of our hands, and that we were going to blow somebody up with it. It’s only an analogy, we are not an extremist group. What would we do with ‘the bomb’. Would we put it down qhile we searched for the person we wanted to blow up? No – it might not be there when we return. Somebody else might then be using it. You would want to keep it with you, controlling it at all times. Until the moment you need to use it.

You can see where this is going. The centre line is the bomb. You need to have it at all times. Obviously, we wouldn’t actually treating the centre lin like a bomb, it was just another useful way of looking at the importance of the centre line.

We then resumed our chi sau but with more focus on the bomb/centre line. With something additional to think about of course everything went to pieces for a while. But… it felt like we were going in the right direction. We all know about the centre line, but it helps to be reminded every now and then.

Sneaky Chum Kiu Addition

Although sifu wasn’t around, at the end of the class I got one of the seniors to show me the next bit of Chum Kiu. You have to take your chances when you can. I seemed to have got the first bit down ok (disregarding the finer points) so I thought nothing wrong in adding just a smidgeon to my incomplete form. The additional bit was just the first bar arm, kick and 3 consecutive bong saus so it shouldn’t be a problem for my memory to stitch that on the end.