Sets for Specializing in Open Palms

[understanding]

Dear Family,

What are the best sets for specializing in open palms, in terms of techiques, skills, and combat applications? I see that there are Butterfly Palms featured in many Shaolin Kungfu sets, but making a sound comparison of these sets is probably too hard for my limited beginner's knowledge.

Please exclude Baguazhang from your consideration for being an obvious choice.

With sincere respect,
Olli

[understanding]

A dear friend of mine PM'd me with a suggestion that Sigung has also offered for us: Xingyiquan's hardness and fists complement the softness of palms.

Here are some interesting points he shared:

• The strong training of the tendons in Xingyiquan will lay the foundation of a very strong Palm.
• Xingyiquan also has the ability the train a short force palm striking force without the needing of moving the feet.
• What most people do not know is that a good Xingyiquan teacher will teach you how to convert a fist form so you can use it with palms and vice versa.

Somewhat unconventional advice, but still important to keep in mind:

• The depth of instruction is often more important than the personal preference.

I greatly value your input! Thank you for sharing your experience.

With sincere respect,
Olli

[Andrea]

Tai Chi Chuan would be excellent and possibly any set specializing in dragon patterns.
May I ask why you are interested in palm patterns?

Best regards
Andrea

[understanding]

Hi Andrea Sije!

Tai Chi Chuan would be excellent and possibly any set specializing in dragon patterns.
May I ask why you are interested in palm patterns?

Thank you for your kind advice and asking my about my motivations.

First of all I wish to become an expert in open palms. I am trying to figure out what might be the wisest way towards that goal, and asking this publicly may benefit others. There are two things that motivate me:

Opening the palms feels like a right thing to do. I've held my hands in fist enough already, and because of my internal injury I've experienced such complete rigidity and inability to unwind myself that now it's a relief to keep myself open and express it so, even in martial arts.

Quite a while ago there was a thought out of blue I should specialize in open palms. This is probably not so good reason, but it has kept delivering me delight regardless.

With sincere respect,
Olli

[Anton S.]

Depending on the progress it is in most cases rather wise to prostrate specialization to some extent and to specialize on the basics.
It is also a way to keep yourself open and express it in the martial arts.

[Andrea]

Dear Olli

From your profile I see you have started in 2015 in Shaolin Wahnam. Thus I would follow Anton's advice and spend some time on the fundamentals either in Wahnam Tai Chi Chuan or in Shaolin Kungfu. You can still have a fancy for open palm techniques, but missing the rest will limit your progress significantly. After 2-3 years when you master the fundamentals you may then ask your Sifu about specializations....

This might or might not be the case for you, but I see many students fail to achieve the results they could achieve, because they believe they know what is best for them. By doing so they are actually "trying to be smarter than the Master", even if most of them do not realize it. By following their own path, they miss the opportunity to follow a path that has much more depth and wisdom than they might anticipate and learn beyond what they would have thought possible.

Best regards
Andrea

[understanding]

Hi Anton Siheng and Andrea Sije!

I really appreciate that both of you have come forward with the same wisdom: first master the basics and only after a few years later consider specializing. My Sifu had already adviced the same thing to me: first 2-3 years concentrate on basic Wahnam Taijiquan, and there will be a solid foundation to build on. I agreed with her wholeheartedly. Cutting corners would be a bad move and certainly "being smarter than the Master", but I don't wish to be a disrespectful student.

For the time being this thread serves only to satisfy my curiosity about advanced training. Maybe I should've made it more clear in the beginning that my inquiry is academic? Undoubtedly I might utilize the insights here in a few years, but I'm not in any kind of hurry. I am far too engaged with enjoying the basics right now.

With sincere respect,
Olli

[understanding]

"being smarter than the Master"

Well that was a bad and embarassing typo. Of course I meant to type "trying to be smarter than the Master". Please forgive my obtuness and take it with extra good humor!

With sincere respect,
Olli

[Charles David]

Wuzu Quan has a number of very powerful open hand palm techniques.

[Grimlock]

Fun Question

One interesting thing about open palm techniques is that there are several open palm patterns that are "ultimate" in the sense that they can be used in virtually any combat situation by a skilled master (Green Dragon Shoots Pearl, Butterfly Palms, Z-character Palms to name a few). Because of that, there are many sets in our curriculum that could be used to develop your skill with open palm techniques.

Oh, and in case someone reading this doesn't know, open palm techniques include hitting with any part of the hand while the hand is in a palm hand form. For example, finger jabs like Dark Dragon Enters Well, hand sweeps like False Leg Hand Sweep, and chops like Chop Hua Mountain are all considered open palm techniques.

In my opinion based on what I know so far, the best sets/styles (in no particular order) for developing open palm techniques/skills are the following because they are rich in patterns as well as skill development that is particularly beneficial for open palms:

- Dragon Strength Chi Circulation Set
- Wahnam Baguazhang (sorry, leaving it in )
- Wudang Set
- Wahnam Taijiquan

The next best (because they have good open palms but don't necessarily emphasize them) would be:

- Flower Set
- Wing Chun
- Dragon-Tiger Set
- Triple Stretch Set
- Shaolin Pakua Set
- Wuzuquan
- Xingyi
- Drunken 8 Immortals
- The 16 basic combat sequences of Shaolin

I'm sure I'm missing some, so I look forward to the corrections/additions