Tonight in Chin Na class there were two new observers. They came to watch the chin na and kung fu which comes after my class. Apparently they both have some background in judo and taekwondo but I’m not sure to what extent. I really did not talk to them and who knows if they’ll come back. Chin na and Mantis have a much higher learning curve than judo or taekwondo in my humble opinion. I’ll leave that for another post but it’s been something I’ve been meaning to write about. Right now I’m too tired.
Anyhow, we did are usual basic warm-ups then rolled into walking finger tip push-ups. Basically we all get in a walking circle and one person yells out 15 in Cantonese. Then we all drop for 15. Then we walk in a circle again until the next person yells out 14 and so on. The push-ups I love. Counting in Cantonese needs some work!
During the water break before we started locks I happened to be walking by Scary. They finally partnered me with him in the warm-ups. Scary retired from Isshinryu Karate and has been doing chin na and Mantis for at least four or five years. I’m suspecting being partnered with him is some sort of right of passage because he is very intense. This guy rarely smiles, is hardcore, and really knows his stuff. I’ve worked locks with him before and have learned much. I can also say I’d not want to ever have to fight him and would think twice even if it was just a sports setting.
Anyhow, Scary half smiled at me with a nod and stuck his hand out. The bad news? I fell for it! What I thought was a hand shake turned into my introduction to the thumb press. Needless to say I was kissing the ground and it was so unexpected I did not tap as soon as I should have. There’s a basic rule in chin na: The tap indicates you have the technique correctly and the other person should stop. If no tap we keep cranking. Let’s just say my thumb STILL hurts!
Bob to Scary: “Remind me to never shake your hand again!”
Scary to Bob: “No, never shake the hand of someone who knows chin na!”
Oh and yes, one of the senior instructors yelled out: “Newbie mistake!” This was followed by laughter. After that I had Scary show me the thumb press. It’s from material higher than level one but it worked so damn well I had to learn. Plus I still have my pride!
After class and before Mantis Scary chatted with me. I think he’s wondering if I might like to try Mantis. Long story short: I’m very interested but still have concerns and not have fully retired from taekwondo yet.
Anyhow, I think I passed part of the test.
Aside from working some old and new level one material Smiley used me to demonstrate flow and something called “send the devil to heaven” or some damn thing. Anyhow, the devil goes there with what would be a shattered wrist. The visual image I had as this was being done to my wrist was taking a stock of celery and twisting. That’s probably what my wrist would have looked like if he was serious. Oh, and like most of this stuff, it hurt like the devil.
Past that it was a really good class and I’m glad to be back in the swing of things. Tommorow night I meet with Tornado to review chin sa. Since we are freestyling it I may teach him how to jab and cross. We shall see.
I’ll close with the thumb press. At 2:00 you can see it. This is not exactly how he did it. Regardless, it does not look like much until you have it done to you. This too is a dominant theme in many of the chin na techniques I’m learning: Subterfuge. You don’t want to tip your hat to what you are going to do or you might not have a chance to pull it off. This is vastly different from taekwondo’s step sparring where you go into a classical stance and end up giving yourself away.
(HT to YMAA. BTW, follow that link and check out their Taiji wrestling video at the top right of the YMAA page. Cool stuff!)
Sneaky is good!
~BCP
