Yang Long Form (Week 6, more or less)

No one at all made it to class last week. Most of this week was spent refreshing and reviewing the beginning third of the long form, and then I got reminders/refinements on the next bit, while Mark and Melissa were seeing it for the first time.

I'd completely forgotten a weird transition right before Great Roc spread wings. You start in single whip to the corner, then withdraw the weight to the back foot, turn the front foot in 45 degrees, and sweep the hands across to the right. Then you pick of the front (left) foot, put it down turned back towards the side wall, and the hands spread for Great Roc. Then fist under elbow is NOT a spear strike to the throat. It's a distractional flick, to hide the fist. So the hand comes up crooked and funky-like, and then straightens to flick at the opponent's eyes.

I also had Step Back to Repel Monkey wrong. There are NO waist turns. Instead, there's this bizarre bobbing gait. You stand up completely in the posture, then sink down and lean forward for the transition. No waist turn. *sighs* Or, no major waist turn. It does seem to wander a little bit. But no waist turn means that you're just waving your hands around, from a CMC perspective. The body movements up and down mitigate that a little bit, but, see, as soon as you start to stand up, that's a cue for your opponent to help you along. "Oh? You want to go up, eh? Here! Let me help with that!"

I think once I have the choreography down, I'm going to try and put some CMC into it. I don't want to lose all of the long form variants, since some of them I think are valuable, but there are some moves that are just insane from an applications standpoint. I don't want to mess with it so much that I lose the different energy flow, though. It's very distinct from that of the CMC form. The CMC form's energy flow is almost colorless for me, with maybe some hints of brilliant gold (and maybe when I get it down better, the gold will be there throughout). The yang long form is a screaming crimson. Very, very different feel.