CJ Some illustrations toa$$ist with the discussion

My movements are just about identical to LGH. I would only add that as the fists rise up I breath in, as the palms push down I breath out. The focus here is more internal and energetic than martial in nature during these movements. Though, as seen in the middle picture, the joint alignments for internal work do create effective defensible

bridges.

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Here is where my lineage is different from most LSW lineages. We start the kiu sau extensions. These are done with tension only on the extending movements. These are done three times on the final full extension you cross the left wrist over the right wrist.

You then circle out into a double rising elbow strike, your arms drop back into kiu sau, drawn to the chest. You extend again and repeat the sequence. This is done three times as well. On the final rising elbow.

You drop your arms forward with a double wrist block, the finger strike to eye level.

AndyT aamc,

What is the footwork for this please.

I am having trouble visualizing the 'circling out' portion.

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okay, you are still in horse stance. The hands cross over in front of you. The hands then circle outwards in to rising elbows. Imagine doing a double bong sau, with both wrists touching and then changing to taun sau.That is sort of the motion.Only your arms are out in kiu sau, and circle outwards, straight into double rising elbows.

TenTigers

We open a little differently; we first open the toes, then the heels into Kim Yeung Ma, then the toes, then straighten the heels and sink into the horse. The hands are brought in front of your dan tien and brought up to the chest, while inhaling and opening up the chest (Like drinking from a stream)then pressed down and forward in a double inward palm push-about rib height. The hands are then brought together in a prayer position,and circled in a semi-circle clockwise to the left outer pectoral and back to center, where they are pressed together and thrust out, separated and form the kiu-sao.Then they are brought down to the hips(palms down)brought back and up tothe chest (outer pecs) and pushed foward, elbows down, with tension while exhaling.(3x)

AndyT

Heel, Toe, Heel, Toe, Sink into horse. Bring both arms upward from chamber in a

circular motion bringing them in to the waist, palms open and facing down. From there, A 'prayer' hands into double tiger claw. Change hands to Kiu Sao and do 3 times.

Applications anyone?

HaSayFu

Andy has it closest to our stepping. LGH is missing one more pivot on toes with heels out. Andy didn't explictly state it but I know he meant to say the last toe it is a 1/2 step to parallel. This is called the 3 and a half opening.

For us, after the "prayer" it opens to fun kiu. The hand should have fingers pointing up, thumb pointing straight ahead. Everything else is as Andy stated.

While you can find applications, I'm with CJ. When playing Gung Gi, it's good to do everything up to and including the 3 kiu saus for Qi building. I tell students to use the longest breathing they can and match the movements to the breath. There's plenty of time to do apps later.

I should note that this is my personal preference. None of the LSW books say to do this and talk about all the various applications. They only mention the three kiu saus as Qi building.

LGH

When we move to the 'prayer' there is a slight pause once the "prayer" is made.

As to the applications, we do practice applications for these movements out of the form, but while doing the form we concentrate on the internal as was already mentioned.

Raising the hands to "prayer" is inhale and extending the hands circularly outward is exhale.

When I do the extended hands my thumb is not pointing to the front but at the sides...I was once shown that the thumbs pointing to the front (by Tung Gwok Wah's school) was to strengthen the push energy to the front.

Can someone explain this one a little more to me. It definitely has a nice feel to the push when done with the thumbs forward...

AndyT

HaSayFu is correct. I simply forgot to put the last half twist in. It's purpose is to line the feet up facing forward.

I'm going to play this with Fun Kiu instead of Tiger claw and see how the power flows.

CJ

Here are the next two pictures since we're already discussing the que sao and breathing. In case I haven't mentioned it before, I am reversing the order of the pictures from how they are shown on the poster. These pictures read from left to right as it's easier for many westerners to work with.

LGH mentioned the thumb position in breathing with the que sao. IMHO the subtle, and sometimes personal, relationship between the extended fore finger and the thumb are

only the motivating force to stimulate proper chi flow to the Laogong point (acupoint - Pericardium 8 - nearly center of the palm). In Hung we often walk a fine line between tension that creates constraint (stagnating chi flow) and alignments that stimulate proper chi flow. In this case, with the previous two moves that brought the chi up from the dan tien, we are now extending it to the palms by way of advantageous alignments and breathing. These alignments being the sinking of the shoulders and elbows, the opening and stretching of the Laogong by the fore finger and thumb, and of course the breath and the mind to do the driving.

BTW, I was taught with my hand position very close to how you see the picture. Fore finger slightly separated from the other three, thumb curled and slightly in front.

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Regarding breathing, I've been watching Frank Yee sifu's Gung Gee video and noticed that he inhales and exhales through the nose (well that's what it looks and sounds like) throughout Gung Gee. It seems like he only exhales through the mouth when making a sound. Is this true for most of you? I've always inhaled through the nose and exhaled through the mouth. Does it make a difference?

DF

The breathing is important, if not done right it can lead to harm. At yee's, depend on what level you are at, the form is done different. The breathing is different, the sound is different,etc. What is shown on the tape is the most basic.

HaSayFu

On breathing, in the beginning, it should be natural. The hardest thing for beginners/intermediate to do is to do the set at full power and not be breathing heavy at the end.

This is not taichi. With the exception of the early movements, don't time the breath with the movements. Breath to the dan tien. After you achieve that, you can play with breathing on different parts.

No general rules. Different breathing for different results. And as DF said, bad breathing can be bad for you.

AndyT

I will have a sample of the database for Gung Ji online soon. It will only be a sample, so please do not expect too much from it. Feel free to post any comments you may have about it.

AndyT Next move;

After the Kiu Saos', we have three repititions of a double elbow strike followed by a double crane beak block at the waist and finally a double palm strike.

LGH

-Double upward elbow strikes (exhale)are high over the head. the hands are loose on the way up so that the elbows can "whip" up faster. It is like whipping the loose hands in behind the ears.

- Application: obvious one is an elbow strike (or two)

Another would be deflecting block that redirects a blow by the head.

Two "crane blocks" (inhale)hooking downward to the hips...you coil the body by drawing in your energy as you pull down the hands.

Double push (exhale): once you have drawn in your energy let it explode forward directly to the target. you are bringing your energy right from the tan tien up through to the palms.

TenTigers

we do it similarly, but we use tiger claws. Elbows go up,tiger claws are bent back-then rip down, and hook, not in crane hooks, but tiger claws,maintaining tension in the claws.

You can feel this throughout the tendons on the back of the hands, wrists,forearms, fingers.When coming forward, they slowly squeeze into tighter claws,pulling the hand back and (this is the only time)the forearm is locked-purely for extra tension) rather than palm strikes, a real forearm burner!

Then double jut, or gum sao, biu sao, deng kiu, and circle up into scissors while pulling into yee ji kim yeung ma. Then we open back into sei ping ma, while preforming double jai-kiew to sides, then sup ji fun gum, and re-chamber.

LGH

I wasn't thinking about it actually when I referred to "crane hooks" but we do these in a tiger claw as well, with tension in the fingers, but the pushes are palm strikes.

This is repeated three times and then it is up with high double elbows, then drop both elbows to the front, followed continuously by the forearms and wrists, and then straight double finger strikes to the front.

the dropping of the elbows, forearms, and wrists is a dropping block that almost bouces off of the top of the incoming attack, then the finger strike almost skips in off of these.

I was lost on the Cantonese terminology for the next few movements, if you could give

both English and the Cantonese version if you please. Please include the Cantonese though, I for one love learning the names to the techniques, even if i will have to be corrected for the next few months before I get them right.

AndyT

I'm afraid I'm quite ignorant of the correct names of 90% of the movements myself, but here goes....

Next Movement

After the third double palm strike,

1. Double stabbing knife hand forward, palms down.

2. Draw the elbows down into a sinking bridge while the handsa$$ume the Fun Kiu position. (Like catching a baseball bat being swung at you).

3. Then (Tricky part here) twisting the forearms over to face the palms backward while raising the arms to bring the upper arm parallel with the floor. I call this double upper forearm block with knife hands. Someone please give me a better name if you know it.

4. Double back fist down and out to the sides. Finally bringing your fists back into chamber.

I see a bunch of blocking apps here myself. Of course, blocks are also strikes.

CJ

My movements are fairly similar to the ones discussed so far.

After the series of three elbow / palm strikes I we do the final raised elbow followed by the linking slap block into the two spear hand strikes. As LGH said, like you skip of the top of the hit, redirecting it while continuing on to strike with the finger tips.

Then Fingers Support Heaven as you drop the elbows and pull the wrist back a bit as you sink the arms. I look at the next Four throws of Lance Pierce Hand as a quick series of clearing moves for the wrists. It’s a little difficult to describe the exact movements but suffice to say that the crossing of the wrists set up the next clearing motion using the backhand hook of the tiger claw. The hands come back to the waist, then up to the chest in fists to set up the double Fun Gum Kiu / Golden Hammer Fist.

Applications are pretty straight forward. The two spear hand strikes should be directed to soft body and vital targets (try to avoid hitting bones with your finger tips) and can be used either singularly or together. The Fingers Support Heaven can be applied as a response to a grab, drop your arm and suck you opponent in. Also it should be noted that the alignment and slight tension are a highly energetic posture both when you do it in front or earlier when you did it to the sides, breath out while doing it and sink the chi.

The Fan Gam Kiu / Golden Hammer Fist can be looked at as a break to a bear hug when done together or when it’s used with a single arm it strikes to the neck/face/clavicle. It can also be used singularly in conjunction with a grapple as you tie up an arm then strike the same arm or as you pull the arm you expose the neck and head. Using the Metal Element metaphor, it just hammers through what ever you put in the way.

CJ, What translation of the Gung Ji book do you have? I have not seen it before.

CJ Andy T,

The translations that I’m offering here are from a poster that I put together a few years ago. At the time some colleagues from different Hung lineage’s and I were working on a translation of the Chu Yu Tsai and Leung Daht Gung Ji books. There are a few people on this board that have this combined translation but for the most part it was not widely distributed. The book that I believe you may be most familiar with is the Hamby/Jessica Lee translation of Chu Yu Tsai’s Gung Ji book. In some cases Leung Daht went into more, or different, detail. In some cases the two books are almost the same. The poster that I made is an amalgamation of the two translations. Based on other discussions that are going on right now, I have no doubt that this translation is not "perfect", but it tends to get the point across.

AndyT

Yes, I have the Jessica Lee / Hamby version, but I would love a copy of the one you have if possible.

CJ Andy T,

I may do some distribution of the book and the other posters in the near future. I have some logistics to work out before I commit to anything concrete, probably some time after the new year I will know more. I’ll make an announcement on the boards when it’s all set up.

LGH

After the finger strikes we appear to do it a little different than the ones described.

1) Double finger strike

2) draw back the shoulders, elbows and wrists, pointing the fingers to the sky 3) then cross the hands in front of the body

4) then they return as middle blocks with the palms facing inward 5) then cross the hands, with palms inward, infront of the body

6) then the hands form grabs and pull back to the hips (right grab to the right wrist, left

to the left)

7) then grabs cross low infront of the body at about groin level, your shoulders will roll forward a bit here as you draw in your energy

8) then Fun gum kui to the sides

CJ

Okay, I’ll go ahead and intro the next few moves. After the Seung Fan Kiu / double golden hammers:

1. Hands return to the waist (chambered).

2. Left foot a circular advancing step (one toe/heal position forward), stance is in a Sai Pi Mah / horse.

3. Keeping the hands on the waist the right foot pulls back to Tu Li Mah / cat stance.

4. Keeping the hands on the waist the right foot pulls all the way back to Ng Ji Mah / arrow stance.

5. The right foot does a circular block to finish in front of the knee then a Tek Gek / groin snap kick which leads into an advancing Sai Pi Mah / horse stance.

6. The stance rotates from Sai Pi Mah / horse to Ng Ji Mah / arrow stance with a left hand Bong Sao / single bridge, right hand covering at the chest position.

Applications: 2 is practicing circular stepping from horse which is how you counter someone tying up your stance, turn it around and break their knee and or stance with your re-position. 3 is also concerned with trapping legs, the pull back from horse to cat stance can be a trap to uproot or stretch out your opponents stance. Also, to pull back from horse to cat stance is retreating blocking technique, blocking kicks with changing stance positions using the lightness of the forward foot to raise in needed and rotated inward (in my training) as an additional groin protection. Again, a potential stance trap with 4, notice 2,3,4 don’t engage the hands, we are purely working stance evading, trapping, and breaking. 5 is a typical way to shut down the opponents snap, front, or low round kick by attacking his knee or calf from the side and following through with a snap kick to the groin. Advancing horse (sliding step horse) is to break his stance with a trap and a press. 6, the Bong Sao is really versatile, it can be used inside or outside on mid height kicks or hits. The "guard hand" can be a counter break to trap and break when you impact the Bong Sao at the knee or elbow.

Below are the moves as seen in the Lam Sai Wing books, 17,18,19

AndyT

CJ, thanks for that intro, it was great. we do things a bit differently I think, but how, I'm going to leave for a bit.

When this thread started, it was flying along at an amazing pace. I've tried to keep a lid on how fast it gets doled out, but maybe that is the wrong approach.

Let's try this;

Write up your lineages version of Gung Ji if you want and post it in a new thread called (Your lineage name here) Gung Ji Step by Step.

I realize it may sound like a lot of work, but think of it like this, you will only have to write it out once.

The name tells you right off that it's a Step-by-step listing and detailed enough to use as training notes.

Your lineage is shown and shared to the rest of the world so that your style does not fade, but grow and flourish.

It will be a complete list, top to bottom.

You can take your time and type it out in Word or any other word processor, save it, and then cut and paste the whole perfect listing in one feel swoop. then discussions can continue on under the individual threads as it relates to each one.

Since some lineages are represented more than once by many members, possibly some discussion should be had on who should write it? For example, I study Sifu Wing Lam's teachings, but HaSayFu teaches directly under Sifu and has a much better understanding and grasp of it than I do.

Any ideas? Comments?

HaSayFu Hi Andy,

I've said this before but I find the current method to hard to follow and have meaningful discussion, so I'm glad you are considering changing.

I still think that we should use the LSW books as a base and have a thread for every page. Someone (CJ? since he has pictures) starts the thread and people can discuss everything from that page up to but not including the next page.

I still think that we should use the LSW books as a base and have a thread for every page. Someone (CJ? since he has pictures) starts the thread and people can discuss everything from that page up to but not including the next page.