Bo Staff Techniques: Single-Handed Upward Flower

Video Transcript

"Hi my name is Dan Schmidt from the Chinese Martial Arts Center in Seminole. Today we are going to be performing the single handed upward flower. You want to start with taking the staff and you want to grip it right about in the middle and hold it about shoulder height, keep the shoulder and the wrist in a straight line, turn the body sideways and keep the left hand on the waist like that. So the upward flower looks like this. Like that. What you are doing is mainly you should focus on the very top of the staff and you want to make sure that you keep the body sideways and don't square up. So here you want the hip to go straight down in front of your body, straight back up to its starting position and now the top is going to go straight back behind you, straight back up here and when you go back your arm is going to bend naturally, a little bit to the side here which is fine, don't try to keep it completely steady. Mainly you want to use your wrist action, not your arm action. Don't go like this. Focus on the top and go back and up, that is one, two is back and straight up again. In the front, behind, practice slow and over time when you get used to it you can speed it up this way, see how the arm moves very slightly but it will move a little bit. Straight in, keep it close to the body. You want to hear the staff almost brushing your clothes. Then you can slow down and come straight over and stop. So again you are here, back, up, behind, up. That is the single handed upward flower."