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Patterns: The Devil Is In The Details - Part 4
by Stuart Anslow
Page 2/3
Kwang-Gaes Backwards Shift Into Forearm Low Reverse Block
While on Kwang-Gae we`ll take a look at moves just mentioned; moves #25 and #29. These moves see us shifting backwards whilst retaining our Walking Stance and at the same time executing a Forearm Low Reverse Block from the previous Double Forearm Block.
If we take the first one as an example, we are in a Right Walking Stance with a Right Double Forearm Block ready to shift into the next move. What I often see is students bringing the right arm down in order to chamber for the next move, which when executed, sees them performing a scissor type motion as we see near the end of Hwa-rang tul, following the Rear Elbow Strike or at the start of Choong-Moo tul.
However, as far as I`m aware, you do not chamber this block in this way, instead there should be no movement of the non-blocking arm, so in this example, the Left arm is the only arm that moves. The same is true when executing it on the opposite side, except obviously things are reversed.
Moves 24 to 25 - Showing the hand positions & slide backwards
Po-Eun’s Head Movements
Pattern Po-Eun has a lot of head movements or facing positions that can often be confusing. The reason is that usually, most patterns see the student simply looking in the direction of the technique they are performing, however, in Po-Eun tul this is often not the case. It can be especially confusing when a number of head turns are performed in a sequence of moves that happen one after the other, so I though it would be a good idea to look at these in more detail and I will use the first half of the pattern for this.
The first one we come across is move #2, where we perform the One Leg Stance and throw our hands/arms upwards. As we do this we turn and look in the opposite direction to where our arms are.
As we continue through the pattern, our head faces forwards or in the direction of the techniques we are performing until we get to move #15. Here we will look at the sequence of moves before and after move #15. We start with the U-Shape Grasp (#14) where we face the direction of the Grasp and the way we travelled into it. Following this, we continue travelling in the same direction, bringing our left foot to our right to form a Closed Stance while executing a slow motion Twin Horizontal Side Elbow Thrust (#15) and it is at the point our head should turn sharply in the opposite direction to which we were travelling, many simply look forwards, possibly due to the twin technique.
As a side note, other patterns that have this technique do require us to look forwards, not sideways. Anyway, as we continue on through the pattern to move #16 (the Backfist Side Strike) we once again turn our head to face forwards. On the second half of the pattern, everything is reversed of course.