Six strengths form

Okay having met a bunch of White Crane people from San Francisco and New York... and not mentioned or talked too much about the fact that I also practice White Crane it might sound strange that I am now going to write a post about this form. The reason why I didn't want to tell everyone I do White Crane per se is because I am pretty sure the forms we do with the exception of one or maybe two are different, and that can lead to all sorts of arguments and this or that which I would just rather not get into.

Interestingly, my Si Hing that I learned form is no longer teaching this form, the basic form when I learned to the young lion dance children.

And to tell the truth, I had dropped this form from my curriculum for a long time as well because Adults tend to hurt their knees, teens tend to hurt their shoulders, I can't even do the frog stance properly, and while small children don't hurt themselves even if they do the form wrong... they also can't necessarily fight with it that quickly, which used to bother me.

However recently after taking a month of BJJ ((really only 4 classes, or 3.5 cause I twisted my ankle on the last class) I saw a lot of the techniques in this form employed in grappling, where I had originally thought of these moves as strikes that went into grappling... but I had focused on the striking aspect of that move.

A while ago I had said I would reintroduce this form into my class. It is a fantasy to think I will have the kids doing the moves as grappling drills or push hands drills (Well maybe not) but in My mind I will do that. The main reason I wanted to bring the form back was because I realized it is easier to remember, and some of the moves help with the foundation stances that the kids are now having trouble with in terms of spacing for the fighting forms I have already taught them, and which they enjoy doing much more than hand forms.

Since I am going to start teaching it again I figured I should start practicing it again, and so I started doing that tonight. And I decided I would do this form as an internal form... because I also figured that if it is taught that way, like Tai Chi, there will be less chance of injury. Plus again, it is easier to remember than our MLJ Tai Chi form. (And yes this is different than other White Crane Schools but its the nomenclature we use for a particular form which may be unique to our Boston School. (Now being taught in NJ lol)

I didn't do much... but getting real low and doing the form real slow felt good. Like I should do more of this, and stretch out my hips more, and I did some Yoga stuff in between and could see some potential Drills with the opening that would focus on pushing instead of striking. We'll see.