the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

I like this guy's super casual video.



He just gets the point across in a direct, economical way.

Very cool

Pretty much how I do them apart from fire

Very good presentation of the 5 elements spear and the way it corresponds to the fists. Anyone know who this guy's teacher is?

Liked the guy, nice casual attitude.

Before turning drills into spear play, you should first know something about basic Chinese spear play. IMO. The “Five elements spear” in the other thread about Santi showed a better understanding about how the Chinese spear is actually supposed to be used.

Don't mean to rain on his parade, but I'm not particularly fond of this "textbook" version of 5 element spear. Too much arms and not enough body.

IMO, doing Xingyi spear this way is only suitable for either beginners (who do not have proper shenfa and rely on the arms to wield the spear) OR really advanced practitioners (whose shenfa is so refined that it looks like they are just using their arms).

yeah I'm a beginner just looking for a quick demo, but those critiques make sense to me.

Yes, on the upside, those with honed skill in internal and empty hand disciplines, the simplicity of his demo will make it quite easy to imbue each technique with the proper body method while practicing.

Not Xingyi spear, but this is sort of body mechanics I was referring too.

Properly excuted spear work should also have good structure and be able to overcome resistance -- just like in emptyhand movements.

[youtube] https://youtu.be/gxhxDzilPcI [/youtube]

ah gotcha that makes sense, thanks.

Got that clip in my archives, love it.

C.J.W. wrote:Not Xingyi spear, but this is sort of body mechanics I was referring too.

Properly excuted spear work should also have good structure and be able to overcome resistance -- just like in emptyhand movements.

[youtube] https://youtu.be/gxhxDzilPcI [/youtube]

Yes, she is very good. But not only body mechanics are better, she has a better understanding of the weapon as well. You can see that her hand in front is almost always still, it moves very little, it's the rear hand does most of the work. When you use the spear, it's always the rear hand that does the work. But as a spear has a sharp point, so compared with a staff, the body doesn't need to do as much work.So her body work is more for the staff than for the spear. The guy in the OP vid has not practiced this kind of basic spear drills. You need to know the basic drills and understand basic spear play first. Then you can better understand how the XY fists were derived from real spear play.

Interesting how xingyi spear's 5 elements seems to vary a bit from school to school - or is it my imagination?

Because some of them understand real Chinese spear play, some others just make up things.