[QUOTE=htowndragon;816875]thats interesting, im from ng yim mings line, and everything seems very unique compared to the shaolin and shaolin influenced arts i used to study.[/QUOTE]
Oh, I agree that Hop Ga has a unique flavor and I don’t mean to say that it looks like any style other than the lama systems. By emphasising close range grappling techniques interspersed with chyun-paau-kahp in our very first set it shows a different strategy for teaching than Baahk Hok–long and short hands together rather than first long- then short-hands. Many of these short hand techniques are found in other systems and it’s impossible to determine the source. I was merely speculating that, since we know that Wong Yan Lum had knowledge of Hung Ga and other systems and since he was away from home for many years as a professional guard, he may have developed a system based on his own preferences and was not particularly concerned with teaching lama as he first learned it. It was all Chinese gung fu, anyway.
Wong Lum Hoi trained uder Sing Lung and also under his si-hing Chiu Chi-Yiu and Wong Yan Lum. There was probably a strong “Hop Ga” influence on his later development of the lama (pre-White Crane) style, but we don’t know that Lum Hoi learned anything other than Lama and an early version of Hop Ga.
Our very first Hop Ga set uses a double gam gong jih immediately after the three-way salute. Could be Iron Wire influence–or maybe they came from the same source. Do you do this set? I’d love to see it done by someone from Chin Dai-Wei’s lineage.
the only set i learned so far is “pok yik sau” wing flip hand, a short fighting set emphasizing the wing flip hand technique. everything else has been line drills, chyuun pao cup, gwa, ko, mok, chaap, etc. etc.
its interesting on your take on wang lam hoi. my sifu goes with the theory that wang lam hoi was actually wong yan lum’s STUDENT rather than hing-dai. if this were the case, it would totally change the perspective of what was learned, and who had the “original” lama. i would love to see your sets as well!
[QUOTE=cjurakpt;816889]I’m not sure that I buy it; biomechanically speaking, brachioradialis is intrinsically strongest as an elbow flexor when the forearm is in neutral, and stronger relative to biceps when the forearm is fully pronated, because biceps is at a relatively less advantageous position leveragewise; it also assists in pronation from full supination to neutral…[/QUOTE]
Ah, this is good stuff!
Yes, I did mean innervation. I should never try to write after a 13 hour shift at work.
Again, I’m not talking about specific muscle agonist/antagonist pairings nor am I trying to argue that punching with a supinated forearm is inefficient. To keep things in layman’s terms (which is all I am) I’m trying to reconcile a traditional method for learning muscle control with something I learned from a friend who is a physical therapist who got it from her neuroanatomy professor. It goes something like this: the more complex a motion or the more motions involved in an action means more dedicated neural pathways during the event. These links between the brain and the functioning limb tend to dissipate the signals to the limb in general as if putting all the muscles in the area on alert. This is a good thing because it allows one to adapt quickly to changes and allows many muscles to stabilize the limb for the intended action. I’ts also a bad thing because it means that it becomes very difficult to use only the muscles needed for the action. This “isolation” improves with training but never becomes fully realized during complex movement.
I know a yiquan teacher who tries to solve this problem by working the muscles to failure and then trying to do the move anyway–a traditional approach based on experience but is there any scientific study of the method? Any sports physiologists out there care to comment?
If you don’t do lama style punches the subject is unimportant. The emphasis for us is on what we don’t do. We don’t push the fist into the target. As Cheuk sifu put it we “throw the bones.” I like to think of our style as a “gross motor skills method.” The ideal is to throw the arm and then relax the muscles with only the fist tightening momentarily upon impact, an improbably difficult series of events. I’d like to think that after nearly 35 years of practice I’m getting pretty good at it. What I would like to know is whether this tradition’s emphasis on relaxing the arm produces any greater speed than systems that don’t worry about it. My guess would be that all good fighters become more efficient as they progress and the different schools of thought approach the same answers.
I’m afraid this is tangential to the original thread. Time to start a new one on Lama style power generation?
The ideal is to throw the arm and then relax the muscles with only the fist tightening momentarily upon impact, an improbably difficult series of events.
Pretty much how everyone is taught to punch eventually or from the beginning.
[QUOTE=jdhowland;817048]Ah, this is good stuff![/QUOTE]
yep!
[QUOTE=jdhowland;817048]I’m afraid this is tangential to the original thread. Time to start a new one on Lama style power generation?[/QUOTE]
sounds good - I’ll paste this stuff on there and comment when time permits
[QUOTE=jdhowland;817048]Thanks, cjurakpt. I appreciate your input.[/QUOTE]
likewise - always happy to talk nuts and bolts intelligently with others (we should get Knifefighter in on this - he’s no slouch when it comes to this sort of thing…)