Ba Duan Jin: Second Four

Continuing with the instructional video, which Pan Huai is interpreting from the Chinese. The second four exercises are described in an earlier post. We are adding details and corrections.

bdj5-1

Yao Tou Bai Wei (#5): Having just finished Wu Lau Qi Shang, he has both hands down at the sides, palms parallel to the ground, fingers pointing forward. Swing the arms up and step out to ma-bu-width, as shown in the picture above. He then presses down and braces the hands on the thighs.

bdj5-2

We notice that he does not lunge right and left; that is, he does not straighten the leg he is leaning away from. Instead he (mostly) leaves his hips in place to bend over, as shown above. When bending over, he is looking at the toe of the foot he’s leaning over. As he swings to the side, he looks at the heel of that same foot. See what that does to his head below.

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Looking from above you can see how he rolls his head at the end to come back up:

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Liang Shou Pan Jiao (#6): At the end of Yao Tou Bai Wei, he raises up to the starting position and closes the feet. He begins #6 by pressing down with the hand. At chest height, he turns them palm-up. Notice how high up he does this; he will draw the hands around to the back as high under the arms as he can:

bdj6-1

Then, starting as high up on the back as possible, he presses the fingers along the spine and firmly massages downward. He remains upright until the hand have traveled all the way down to the tail bone, pressing firmly on either side of the spine.

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Bending over he massages down the backs of the legs down to the feet. This part is a stretch for the backs of the legs. He then reaches forward and stretches the upper body upon rising.

bdj6-3

Wo Quan Nu Mu (#7): Sit in horse stance and extend the fist, turning at the waist. Look at the fist. You can see below that his shoulders are well turned aside, which means he is twisting both at the waist and at the neck.

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The hand movement is a little complicated. First open the fist, so the palm faces in (in the grab below, I was a bit late; he starts with the palm perpendicular to the ground):

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Rotate, so the palm faces all the way out:

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Circle the hand as if flat on a wall in front of you, until the fingers point down and the palm faces out.

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Then close the fingers over the thumb. This is quite a stretch in the forearm, wrist and fingers.

Bei Hou Qi Dian Bai Bing Xiao (#8): I have nothing special to add to this one except that you stand up as high on the toes as you can.

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