This time the master had two of his sons with him. The third son was here last year as well, but the oldest son was in Europe last time five years ago.
Before master’s my own teacher had classes in Helsinki and my home town. We prepared like how to focus on different aspects while practicing slow set, push hands and applications, and some pick-ups would be the leading mind, continuous turning, connecting elbows and hips, and the filling of empty space all around.
With master we practiced slow set, fast set, tung jia, ying chieh kuai quan, push hands, three steps and slow set duilian, and on the second evening we did some knife. We were also talking about doing some lance in Helsinki like next time, but now we did more push hands with master showing some advancing techiques with me. Advancing or attacking is still my weak point, but every time I get pushed by master I see something new in there. In home I do not really have any push hands partners, so I have to look for new opportunities to practice more with the people.
Master also talked about good ways to practice, and one main thing was, that less is more. It’s good to focus on things you know, and you should know what you know. Practice what you’ve learned, and always start from the beginning in case of a doubt. The good, solid foundation should be easy to apply in any practice.
In Palermo we practiced a lot about the velocity and timing of slow set. If you’ve used to practice only slow, you should learn to practice faster, and if you’d only used to practice fast, you should learn to practice slower. Also it’s important to always focus on something in practicing, like you could focus on relaxing the shoulders, or keeping posture straight, or doing every movement bigger and bigger, or just doing all the applications during the form, but the main thing also was to variate the doing. If you always do the same, you do not progress, but the learning happens outside the comfort zone.
After the trip I tried to count how many people I practiced push hands with, that turned to be well over ten different people, which I’d count as a nice repertoire within a week or a little longer. Also I was able to practice push hands and three steps with both of master’s sons. They are already skilled and I’m looking forward to see how they’ll do when they grow up. I’d bet they’d be quite extraordinary.