Learning the fan..Please help

[tommarker]

Then you have all spring and summer to work on the bo with A COMPETENT INSTRUCTOR!!

 

Seriously, don't give up on the bo so quickly. You have to practice your weapons as much as your empty hand if you want to make progress with them.

[XUechiGirlX]

It's not that I wasn't good at the bo. I was in the middle of the second kata when I "retired". I just really really didn't like it...I like more appealing weapons like ones with blades or the "delicate" fan.

[searcher]

tommarker is right on giving up the bo so soon. I have learned a very large number of weapons and kata for them. If you give it more time you might be suprised with it. It may grow on you.

 

Now for your fan question. If you want to learn it and you want to have someone teach it to you. Go to a seminar and learn it. There are seminars all over the U.S. and I am sure there has to be one in your neck of the woods.

 

My wife trains with the fan along with her Kenjutsu. She works very hard and is quite good IMHO. If you try learning it from a video it would take forever, no matter how good you are. Besides, it would most likely look aweful. I would suggest that you either go back to the bo or pick up the sai, as you suggested you might.

[tommarker]

If you're naturally athletic, have goes aesthetic movement, and just happen to be very talented at mimicking physical movements, yeah, you might learn the fan from a video well.

 

But people tend to be a rather poor judge of their own abilities. They either think they are good, when in actuality, they aren't, or they are TOO hard on themselves.

 

I don't know a lot about Uechi, but I don't think of Fan when I think of Uechi. Unless you have a gymnastic or dance background you can call on, I just don't know how well you'll be able to do.

 

However, taking the time to learn the BO correctly will teach you a lot about yourself, how you move, how to move with a weapon, etc. You have a good instructor who can guide you through these things. THEN, maybe you can start to learn the fan on your own.

 

But with no base, I'm sorry... but it has a 99.9% chance of sucking

 

And that goes for ANY weapon.

[tommarker]

However, since I think you're going to do it anyways, try to track down this book:

 

"Choy Lay Fut Kung Fu: Dragon Fan - Foundamental Fist Form." by Lee Koon-Hung

 

Yes, I know it's spelled 'fundamental' but that's how they published it. I imagine it was translated in China.

[XUechiGirlX]

Thanks for the info. I guess you could say I'm a quitter of the bo..i Really Really don't like it. IT was like that for aido too..excuse the spelling. IT seemed pretty cool before I started, but it didn't grow on me. Karate on the other hand, is totally different. I'm only 15 but it's such a big part of my life. It clicked with me I guess. About the fan, my mom's going to get it for me for my birthday, with a tape I found online teaching the kata. I've downloaded a video of the fan kata, and it looks really pretty. If the fan doesnt work out, I will get the sais. Thanks for the input!

[Sauzin]

I remember when I first picked up a bo. I was a yellow belt in Okinawan Goju-Ryu and we had a guest instructor visiting for about a month. Our style didn't work weapons. I was under the belief that my time was better spent on working empty handed techniques, since the chances of having a bo or a sai when you got into a fight were slim to nil. But our instructor wanted us to have a diverse background in Okinawan arts so for about a month we worked the bo.

 

I hated every moment of it. Not only did it not "click" with me but it felt like I was waving a broom stick around for a musical audition of "The Wizard of Oz" and I was playing the wicked witch of the west. It had no real grace and it felt very awkward, even embracing.

 

About a year later I moved to Boise, ID and there wasn't much in the way of Okinawan martial arts to choose from. I met an instructor who was a senior to the guest instructor who tried to teach me the bo previously. I told him I knew some of the kata I tried to learn and he offered to show me the rest. For about 2 months my new instructor and I worked out with nothing but the bo. And it finally started to click. Not only did it start to click but I started to see things in my empty hand motions that I could not have seen before. I figured that anyone that could help me make something as awkward as the bo "click" could do wonders for the rest of my art. So I soon asked to become his student in both empty hand and weapons and the rest is history.

 

The moral of the story is two fold. If you can commit to work through something that you don't like and find the value in it (making it "click”) then you will have an easy time finding value in everything else your instructor teaches. The second moral is that the bo can show you more things about body movement then any other weapon. These things will apply both to your empty handed techniques as well as other weapons you may learn later. Take the time to consider the value of what you learn vs. the value of how it looks or feels. In the end it's the principles that you learn that will matter since it is very unlikely you will ever have the weapon itself in a fight.

[XUechiGirlX]

Very good story. Maybe I will go back to it one day..nicely written also.

[cathal]

I have seen these Shotokan katas adapted for the fan, they all look quite good, but imho Chinte looks the best with the fan adaptations.

 

Chinte

 

Ji'in

 

Jitte

 

Have fun with them.

[phi-long]

hey im new to the site.

the fan is a beautiful weapon.

if u want the tai chi style video for the fan i can get u a very nice lenght one. i am currently trying to learn fan but i have a very predominat tai chi teacher out here in colorado that teaches a lot of chinese based arts. let me know if u are still around and want the vid.

oh yeah also check out the plumb-blossum and mulan style fan.