1. Brush knee and step
2. Strum the lute
3. Advance and deflect, parry and punch
4. As if sealing
5. Embrace the tiger, push the mountain
6. Opening hands
7. Closing hands

2. Strum the lute (or “Play the pipa”)

The lute in this case is a Chinese lute or “pipa,” not a renaissance lute. An important distinction being that the pipa is played with the instrument in a vertical position so that the strumming happens with the hand also in a vertical orientation. The feeling in the hand at the punctuation point of this movement is that of the opening of the pipa player’s hand when performing a mini-tremolo or arpeggio consisting of five forward plucks in rapid succession, one with each finger.