The lion model
Swallow up the opponent.
獅形 she xing
Circle-walking in lion structure
Hold the lower arm at about shoulder height, palm up. Hold the upper arm as if holding a large ball in front of the body. Don’t get carried away with the ‘ball’, though – don’t turn the upper palm down. The palm is turned away, prepared for a variety of techniques. Pull the shoulders down like in yazhang, so that when you roll, the power starts on that side, similar to yazhang. Compress the body but keep the arms open. Keep the ox-tongue palm shape.
Lion model circle-walking trains the ability to connect the body through vertical lines while keep upright and balanced, to prepare for the ability to ‘move the ball’. All techniques growing from the lion shap will be like rolling, trundling, or tossing large or small balls. The basic walk is called ‘lion opens its mouth wide’, so you also want to think of swallowing your opponent whole. All the actions of the changes, because of this ball, contain attack and defense, movement in all directions, and the ability to use either hand at any time.
For special practice, pretend to hold a huge heavy ball. You will need to use the whole body to handle the ball. This will work the arms and back, and the whole body connection even move. It will also develop the strength of spirit of the lion, as you fight exhaustion in the arms.
On the external level, lion develops the upper back, shoulders, and upper arms. Someone weak in the upper arms and shoulders should walk more in lion to develop them. The lion form moves very smoothly into chuanzhang and tanzhang attacks.
The eight mother palms of the lion
The lion changes, as well, as developing the strong arms and spirit of the lion, develop the firmly rooted stepping of a fighting lion. All stepping must come from the feet. Even when the arm actions are large, movement must not start from the arms. Throughout the lion changes you must expand in body and spirit to fill up your space. In this way, as you perfect the ball rolling, you can eventually lose the ball and still have it.
The lion changes can be applied directly to baguazhang’s big sabre. The techniques, with a little thought, can be done almost exactly the same, but applying them through the blade of the big sabre. I find that when doing the left hand in side, doing the big moves as in the changes with the left hand balances the weight of the sabre, and when doing the right hand in side, placing the left hand on the spine of the sabre keeps the power feeling the same although the actual moves are a bit altered.
1. Lion Holds The Ball 獅子抱球 shi zi bao qiu
2. Lion Rolls Over Holding The Ball 獅子抱球翻身 shi zi bao qiu fan shen
3. Lion Trundles The Ball 獅子滾球 shi zi gun qiu
4. Lion Catches The Ball 獅子抓球 shi zi zhua qiu
5. Lion Throws The Ball 獅子拋球法 shi zi pao qiu fa
6. Lion Swings Flatly 獅子雲片掌 shi zi yun pian zhang
7. Dancing Lion Palms 舞獅掌法 wu shi zhang fa
8. Lion Trundles A Ball Grandly 獅子大滾球 shi zi da gun qiu
