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At the base of Kung Fu’s flexible weapons: the rope

After a first intuitive approach with the rope (read Learn to use basic weapons), we pass to the basic exercises.

Note – This article has been asked by one of our Core Course practitioners on Patreon (see how to attend our home study classes here Learn Kung Fu online: a beginner-to-expert course).

The elastic rope (read The basic equipment for training in 6DKF) is one of the founding training tools of the 6 Dragons Kung Fu, it is used:

As a conditioning for the mobility of the body
As an intermediate step to learn more complex flexible weapons
As a weapon itself (but only at a more advanced level)

A note by Master Kongling – No matter if our intention is to follow steps 2 and 3: in our school even (and especially) to learn the basic combat mobility with bare hands, the training weapons are fundamental.

The basic stance with the elastic rope

The first things to become familiar with are the simple rotations; let’s start from the stance:

Let’s assume the same guard stance that we use for the short stick (read The basics of short sticks: base strokes and stance)
The only difference that is allowed (especially in the initial stage) is to put the unarmed hand in protection of the side of the face where the rope rotates
The rope (about 150cm) should first be folded in half and holded on its two ends (we can practice a node on both ends to make it more difficult to get out of our hand)
Contrary to the short stick, the rope should be holded almost at its end, without leaving too much “tail” (for now we will not talk about special bands and windings)
The part that strikes our targets is, trivially, the point of fold (that is at the opposite end of the handle)

The first rotations

The conceptual starting point

Before starting, it is important to understand that the rope must move in harmony with:

Our entire body
Our breathing

This means that the flow of our weapon must:

Be precise and contextual to the dynamic context
Never make unstable our barycentre

The rotations on the faces of the cube

With what we said in mind, let’s now see the exercise of the rotations inscribed in the cube:

Let’s imagine being inside a cube (A little more taller than us)
We have to describe complete circles with our elastic rope (for each face of the cube)
Let’s start from the front one, then the right one, the left one, and then top one (below and behind are more advanced rotations that we will see later)
On the Y-axis, Let’s try to maintain the center of our head inside our gravity line (read How to improve balance: tricks and exercises); in simple terms this substantially means to do not shake our shoulders, torso and / or head while moving the rope
For each face of the cube, let’s first rotate clockwise and then counterclockwise (eg. 25 times forward and 25 backward)
The goal is to rotate the rope by tracing perpendicular or parallel circles in relation to the ground (let’s check the quality of the angles in front of a mirror)
For now, let’s focus on avoiding any type of contact (with the surrounding and especially our body)
Let’s start slow but with the time, let’s try to increase the speed (so as to start conditioning our wrist to continuous and prolonged traction)
Let’s insist until the rotations become stable and accurate (the duration of each session is typically 10 minutes)

A note by Master Kongling – This practice may appear too simple or useless but it underlies everything else.

Final notes

A few conclusive thoughts:

Let’s always train in safe areas (open and unobstructed spaces), we never have to forget that the rope is fast and unpredictable
As with the sticks, whatever happens, the rope should never leave our hand beyond our will
It is very hard to get hurt seriously with a simple elastic rope but if we do not feel in control with its trajectories, let’s slow down our pace
We are not learning to fight with a weapon, we are performing a conditioning and therefore the more we go step by step (aiming for quality) the better it is
To get used to pay attention to safety even with a simple rope will be incredibly useful when we will study more complex flexible weapons (eg. the 9 sections metal chain, the kusarigama, etc.)
…

In the next article of this series, we will see the next steps of the rope study (read Loop rotations of the rope).

In-depth video courses

Basic 6 Dragons Kung Fu’s weapons – Learn step by step the basics of the 6 Dragons Kung Fu’s martial weapons
Basic 6 Dragons Kung Fu Exercises – The development path of the fundamental skills for combat

In-depth articles

Learning the use of real weapons – All the steps to truly learn to fight with the martial weapons
The Shaolin 9 Section Chain Whip – An advanced Kung Fu flexible weapon

Questions

Reply in the comments and share your experience:

Are you able to maintain the rope perpendicular / parallel to the ground?

Author: Master Kongling

Founder of 6 Dragons Kung Fu.

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