Sweep the Lotus: Thoughts on training with limitations for martial effectiveness

Old or injured people shouldn’t have to feel bad about how they train, nor should they be trying for the impossible.  “Know yourself, Do your best, Make a little progress every day, Don’t overdo it.”  I never met Master Jou, but I see the wisdom in his training advice.  This post is about the confusion of athletic and martial/real practice.

Close to the end of most solo long empty hand Taiji forms is a movement called Sweep the Lotus.

·         Stand on your right leg and move your left leg in a clockwise circle (Outside In).

·         Turn your body in a full circle

·         Shift your weight to your left leg

·         Move your right leg in a clockwise circle (Inside Out)

·         Your arms move together in the opposite direction of the feet

Some teachers do this form full speed and full power.  Their hands loudly make contact with their feet.  As this is by far the most dramatic movement in Taiji, this group of instructors talks about “Ending the Demo with a Bang!”  The application for Sweep the Lotus for these teachers follows Dr Yang Jwing Ming's book on Taiji application:  grab the attacker's face and kick them in the back of the head.  Most students think of doing this once, Dr Yang shows kicking the attacker's skull twice. 

To my roommate’s initial amusement, I bought in to this idea.  I started to practice turning off the lights with high kicks to work on my accuracy and height.  I hit the floor many times, then started to make a mess of the wall and broke the kitchen light switch before my roommate angrily reminded me I did, in fact, still have fingers better suited for the light switch.

Most of the big name teachers do this movement slowly, fluidly, and with less height.  The Two Person San Shou that I learned shows this Inside Out crescent kick at kidney height.  A similar movement in Heian Godan shows the crescent kick moving Outside In to the solar plexus.  Ultimately, I started to practice a slower kick because it was harder practice and it did not matter so much if I changed my clothes first or warmed up.  I noticed I developed a little more range of motion in my hip while not kicking as high or as quickly.

I think another realization was when I started to train with saber and sword – I had bought myself a very heavy and sharpened saber and I genuinely nervous for my feet.  I started to see someone could just slightly deflect my blade as I swung…

I remember the elderly and injured people who loved to practice always skipped the movement altogether, or they looked embarrassed or ashamed that they could not perform the high kick.  Instead of getting this close to the end of the long form as the culmination of their practice, often times this movement seemed to prove to some people that “Taiji is too difficult to do.”  People would see this movement and decide, “I can never do Taiji for real.” 

One Chen Taiji teacher showed me a video of a Grandmaster doing his form.  "Look, Crescent Kick to the Head!"  The 80 something year old gentleman in the video (now long deceased) brought his knee up to waist height slowly and never extended his leg further as he slowly circled his hands.  "He got too old to practice his Taiji form.  He was still undefeatable though."  The student was judging the teacher by his aesthetic qualities, while admitting there was something much more going on.  I learned about the difference between pretty technique and real technique.

I mentioned Shotokan Karate forms earlier as other examples of feet and hands moving together.  Soon after passing your first test, a new student starts to learn Heian Nidan.  The fifth or so movement in, you do a side kick and a back fist at the same time to “punch and kick someone at the same time.”  Legs are longer than arms.  The higher the kick, the more I lean to one side – giving my arm even less reach and less chance of hitting a target.  I tried to strike posts like this, but I never was able to use my hands and feet simultaneously in this fashion.

This type of movement appears many times in the various Shotokan kata.  Eventually I was told I could grab an attacker’s hand and then kick while pulling them into the strike for increased damage.  Difficult to do, and easier if they are grabbing me instead.  It also requires a modification of the kata in application.

A direct student of Funakoshi was teaching a local seminar, and I went.  He was commenting on Nijushiho, but I could see the idea carried into other kata.  Today, the open hand technique was accompanied by a high side kick to the chest or head.  When he was a student, it was taught as grab an elbow, shoulder or head and stomp downward on a foot or knee.  The high chambered knee could be used to strike up before the foot struck downward.  Kata were specifically changed to be made more physically challenging when the idea became perfection physical and spiritual challenge instead of combat effectiveness.

There is nothing wrong with the variation I was made to practice.  Pull someone into a kick, and the resulting force on the target area is increased.  Another theory was that a more difficult movement when practiced makes an easier movement even more easy.  Technical drift is expected in a fight, so train for greater difficulty.  Nothing wrong with the movement, nor the method of training.  It just requires greater balance, greater flexibility and more years of training to even attempt.  Women looking for self defence need to pay attention to their footwear – stomping in heels is easier than a high thrust kick.  This exclusive high kick practice sets a reflex to attempt what maybe should not be attempted.  On slippery or uneven ground, even a senior student would find this difficult.  Maai must be perfect.  Timing must be perfect, and somehow the initial grabbing movement must not telegraph the finishing kick.

I then had a chance to study some Judo briefly.  The hand and leg coordinated work in Judo showed me how these movements can easily be throws and sweeps.  The thing is, to do these sweeping movements your feet are supposed to be close to the ground. 

So, all you people with arthritis, back pain, knee and hip replacements, challenges to your balance:  if you need a martial justification of a movement that keeps your foot closer to the ground, check out these excellent teaching bits from Windsong Dojo.  I especially found the part enlightening that trying to lift the foot higher is not only unnecessary but often weaker than keeping the foot sliding along the ground.  

Outside in

http://youtu.be/bEmHtft-CgU

Inside out

http://youtu.be/h8MCHo11JqI

I encourage people trying to train despite limitations to really think about what “martial” is.  In these days of CGI, trick photography and stuntmen on every TV and movie screen, we can become jaded and bored with real technique.  We are told the elite, improbable and impossible is the standard, and then we discourage ourselves.  We stop training because we aren’t fantastical creatures but rather merely human.  The only way to lose the benefit of training - is to stop training.  Get out there and even if your feet are just skimming the ground, or you are just raising your knee and stomping instead of kicking, remember: 

You are doing real martial art.

 Thank you again to the remarkable martial artists who have their images on line for me to find.  I am not doubting nor questioning your impressive ability - I am just wanting to show that options exist for the rest of us.