Feicha, roughly translated into “flying fork” or “flying trident”. At first glance, Feicha looks a lot like contact staff. In fact, when I first saw it, I thought that it was a restrictive and boring form of contact staff.
I am unable to find much information on the history of Feicha online. But I have been told that it was once a skill demonstration that the guards at the Forbidden City would perform every morning for the emperor. Another variation that I heard of was that Feicha was a skill learned by the Shaolin monks to show mastery with the trident and scare off attackers. Not sure what is true, but I intend to find out as much as I can about it’s history.
The biggest difference between Feicha and contact staff is that the Feicha is constantly spinning along its axis. The Feicha head has 2 lose fitting washers that bang together when spun to create a loud ringing noise that is characteristic to the prop.
But as I begin to learn more about the techniques, I begin to realise that it’s an entire system for staff manipulation that’s very different from contact staffing. What I love about it is the very quick and clean plane changes. You don’t aim for just the centre of the staff, but catching it way off centred is sometimes required to pull off some of the moves.
Liu 老师 (Laoshi)
This is Liu Laushi. He is a master of Feicha and a treasure to the art form. And he’s an awesome character to boot. Almost everyone who has come here before me has said nothing but good things about Liu Laushi, and I’m glad that it’s all true and not exaggerated at all. The other cool thing about his is his expression whenever he plays with the Feicha, he’s just positively glowing!
It’s a shame that I’m only here for 2 more weeks. I would definitely love to learn more about this spinning form and incorporate it into my contact repertoire.