Tom wrote:Was there any time to work in the techniques demonstrated by Sonny into any of the Gao Yisheng bagua progressions (i.e., the Houtian forms)?
I was just trying to pick up on drills I might add to my routine. Wasn't really thinking about doing Bagua in the middle of the seminar. Also I feel some of the shuaijiao drills conflict with the emphasis of houtian. A lot of those drills are aiming to train smoothness in movement while most of houtian emphasizes on maintaining structure through movement. Those drills would share more similarity with pre-heaven.
One of the drill he did I first saw from Luo before, which was the one involving 2 people kind of vying to get in front of the other for hip throw. Luo's version focus on actual usage while Sonny's has an emphasis on the training aspect, though I believe he did mention something similar anyway. I really like Sonny's version especially with the detail he gave on how to increase the effectiveness of the throw and the "licking" aspect is pretty novel and clearly useful.