Cross-training

Both of my daughters are preparing for their ballet exams at the moment, so this week I have been to watch both of them training - the teacher's idea being that the pressure of having a few parents watching helps to prepare them for the experience of performing for the examiner.

I was struck, particularly in my elder daughter's class, which is relatively advanced, of how similar many of the warm-up routines and drills are to the kind of thing we do in kung fu - the same muscle groups need strengthening and the same kind of balance and flexibility is useful.

Obviously the intent of the two arts is quite different, but I guess that this kind of "formal" dance with prescribed movements, and the wushu routines we practice in our kids kung fu classes, are both really just learning body co-ordination and control.

And the two seem to compliment each other well - certainly when I observe my girls in kung fu it is apparent to me that they can understand the instructions, and remember lengthy routines much more easily than some of the other kids, who's other hobbies run more to football/basketball. And from the remarks of their ballet teacher, the same is true in their dance lessons. So it looks like this bit of cross-training is paying off.

Punchbag

Songs like this distract me when I'm supposed to be being fierce...

Bodhidharma

Bodhidharma was a Buddhist Monk who is attributed with bringing Zen (or Ch'an) Buddhism to China, and with introducing the monks of the Shaolin Temple to Kung Fu. So something of a pin-up for me.

Remind you of anyone?

David Blandy The Way of the Barefoot Lone Pilgrim - Samurai Story (extract)

In it for the money?

So this week saw the start of my new Kung Fu class in Derby. Having failed to get the advertising sorted in a timely manner it was a small start, but mighty oaks etc....

Having taught classes on numerous occasions now it was no big deal to be in charge and at the front - what was weird was the end of the class when people paid me - very strange to be given money for doing something that I enjoy (and that until only a few weeks ago I was paying someone else for the privilege of doing).

Which means now I could be called a professional...

I will try to do better...

I promise to start blogging more frequently again once I'm back from my hols - not least because it will be the start of a new era, with no more Nottingham training (except the kids classes) but much more Derby focus.

In the meantime, thanks to BI for this, which made me smile;

More reasons for healthy eating

Montana Woman Fends Off Bear Attack With Zucchini

You can call me Al

After last week's trip, I'm now officially recognised as an instructor.

But no, really, there's no need to call me Sifu or Laoshi - Snafu is probably more appropriate

Not quite Million Dollar Baby...

...but a million kopeks maybe?

My birthday pressie to myself is now installed, and I ran it through a commissioning test this morning...shouldn't really use it "in anger" until it's my birthday though, should I?

Crazy Legs

Learning a new bit in the ground-fighting set at the moment. It involves starting from the floor and windmilling the legs in a break-dance stylee until you can use your momentum to spring to your feet.

Looks really impressive when T does it. I'm struggling with it a bit so far though, and it's not exactly the sort of move you can practice at the drop of a hat.

Wishlist

It's not long 'til my birthday, and I am pondering asking the other half to get me what I've always wanted - a heavy-weight punchbag.

The problem is where to install it - I don't have a garage or anywhere inside with enough space to do proper kicking, so it's going to have to go outside, and therefore be freestanding. This means a possible choice is a BOB (Body Opponent Bag).

The problem is, Bob is ugly. Fugly. And would probably scare the kids/neighbours/cat. Any ideas how to beautify him a little?

The Reviews Are In...

We all enjoyed the Karate Kid. J liked the plot, S liked the athletics and I liked the fighting - except there wasn't enough of Jackie Chan doing his thing...

I suspect we were the family you don't want to sit next to at the movies. All the sequences in the kung fu school the kids were spotting forms that they know and shouting out their names, all the location shots in China I was saying "I've been there" and in all the fight scenes we were debating whether we could beat them or not - something for all the family.

The Karate Kid

Combined kids class this morning was fun, not least because N was here on a visit and that always livens things up a bit. My youngest is completely taken with him and his flashy Wushu stylings ... perhaps it will inspire her to great things?

Off to see the remake of the Karate Kid with my little'uns later today. I've high hopes of it being better than the original - not least because it's Kung Fu, not Karate, and it doesn't feature Ralph Macchio (although young Jaden seems capable of similar "smouldering" (!) postures)

Extreme Ping Pong

Doubt this is real...but love it anyway;

End of Term Feeling

This weekend was a grading for the kids and some of the beginner grades adults, and it had a real end-of-term feeling - not least because T had prepared a "report" on each of the kids for their parents. J and S both got high praise...

And then I got a pressie as a thanks for my help during the year - a hand-printed T-shirt with the Chang Quan foundation set on it. Bit of a limited edition, only 3 in existance as far as we know.

Neato!

This sounds like what it feels like

...to learn a tai chi form. Lots of separate things going on that initially seem out of kilter but then all come together to make something fantastic.

(For some reason I can't seem to embed vids properly today...so you have to click on the picture...)

Human Pyramid

This Wednesday's class featured D (who is not exactly a small guy - at least 6 foot and circa 15 stone he says) demonstrating the strength of my Tai Chi square stance by standing on one of my legs. To my surprise, it actually took no effort at all to stay in position - as he had been explaining what he was going to do I had been having visions of my knees buckling and ending up in an injured heap on the floor.

He then got me to go around the room and do the same thing to anyone in the class who dared have a try. Obviously I'm more of a beginner's model.

Totally Rad, Dude!

T is learning a Sai set. Which means I'll get to learn it soon too. I've been wanting to learn a double sword type of set since watching the Water Margin as a child (the coolest female character always used two short swords at once). Then that was reinforced by Elektra (and, if I'm honest, by the Ninja Turtles also). Bring it on!

Invincible

I've been cutting back on blogging lately as I was afraid that the blog was just becoming a litany of my injuries. But I have to mention this one 'cos it's an injury I accidentally inflicted on someone else...my teacher to be precise! I wasn't even really aware of doing it but apparently I blocked a knee strike of his and managed to hit him right above his knee cap with my elbow. Within a few minutes it was swelling and turning a dodgy shade of blue-black, and despite me taking over the class while he went to get some ice for it, before too long he was having a bit of trouble weight-bearing. It's made me realise that I had built up the idea in my mind that T was some kind of indestructible superman when it came to fighting, and the fact that in fact he's as vulnerable to a (un)lucky strike as the rest of us is a sobering thought. However much you train, the body still has some weak points.

Han's Martial Arts Tournament 1973

New T-shirt has arrived! (strictly for my lone training - I have to present the appropriate image when I'm instructing by wearing something at least vaguely like the school "uniform", although we're pretty relaxed about that)

The cognoscenti amongst you will, of course, immediately recognise the symbology and the geeky reference to the tournament Bruce Lee's character is competing in in Enter the Dragon. But what I really like about it is it matches my shoes...

Jack Sprat

My other half is underweight. Since he started running more seriously a year or so ago he has lost quite a bit of weight. He's not the type to build up bulky muscle, since he's an ectomorph (although he does have quite a six-pack since I taught him how to do sit-ups and crunches properly) and since he now has next to no body fat he looks like he's just skin and bone. Anyway, the doctor has told him he needs to gain some weight, so he has embarked on a weightlifter / bodybuilder diet, including taking some high calorie supplements.

I've never really cared for that kind of thing, although I know a lot of fighters do use them (I believe Bruce Lee went in for the high-calorie milk shake kind of thing in his prime). For me if your kung fu technique is good enough, strength and weight aren't important - you can use your opponents momentum against them without needing to apply much effort. And most of the martial artists I'm most impressed by are pretty skinny. So I don't think I'll be trying to bulk up any time soon.

It's pretty tough watching him scarf down 5 meals a day while I'm cutting down on carbs though...

Traditional Sun Style

Pretty much like the Sun-style Taiji I've been taught :

And the moral of this story is....

...do not practise pole forms in your living room when it's raining out.

Holiday Cover

I've been too busy to blog this week as I have been teaching all the kung fu lessons in Derby and Nottingham - both T and D have gone away on their holidays, leaving me (who hasn't been away, nor have I got anything planned which is a bit of a downer) as the holiday cover. I still get slightly nervous before taking a class single-handedly, but I think they've all gone pretty well, even the kids this morning which is always tough for one adult to do. Fortunately my eldest helped me out with the tinies, and then A came to help out with the older ones He's got a good way with the kids and if I ever started up a kids class of my own he'd be my first pick for assistant.

Not sure how much kung fu was learned (especially in the first class), but everyone had fun, no injuries and plenty enough running about to tire them all out, for which, if it gives them a quieter kid for the rest of the day, their parent's should thank me...

Den Mother

Smaller classes than of late this Saturday, presumably because of the school holidays. Much more enjoyable than last week because I could give each of them a bit more individual attention and so they behaved a bit better. The new kid in the small one's class also seems to have taken to me and only mentioned going to find his mum once this week and was quickly distracted and forgot about it. Think I'm becoming some kind of Den Mother to the little pack of wild things...

Next week I have to look after them all solo 'cos T is away, so let's hope it's another holiday weekend.

Muscle Memory

Called on at short notice (about 30 seconds of notice in fact) to perform the Yang style tai chi set in full in front of an audience. Nothing quite like that for making your mind go completely blank. But is that the mental state I should be striving for when doing tai chi anyway, since it is really supposed to be a "moving meditation"?

Fortunately my body remembered it even if my mind didn't.

Odd Legs

Hard impact shin-on-shin on Monday at kickboxing. Didn't think too much about it after the initial swearing had stopped, busy looking after a couple of new people then working on bokken at kung fu (in a confined space with people swinging bokkens it pays to be focussed on where they all are or something worse than a bruised shin may result). Went through the stick set with T and N afterwards, I think my Sunday solo training in my garden has paid off.

Tuesday morning however I woke up noticing that my leg was hurting thanks to the weight of the covers, which seemed like a bad sign, and indeed on inspection the whole of my lower leg was quite badly swollen - although strangely there isn't much discolouration. Fortunately load bearing doesn't seem to be a problem so I was able to carry on pretty much as normal (to the extent that I went training at lunchtime again - stick, biu jeet, char chuan) but I think it will be a couple of weeks before I can wear anything but trousers or boots without getting odd looks.

Stick Together

More solo practice on Friday lunchtime, it was pretty warm and by the end of an hour I was regretting wearing all black - trouble is I don't really have anything else. Spent some good time on li pi, choy li fut and biu jeet. Then, since I had risked the wrath of the security guards by smuggling my sticks in to work, I tried to work on the stick set I'm learning, but realised fairly quickly that halfway through I was morphing into a straight-sword form I know, and that I wouldn't be able to go any further without checking with T - practicing it wrong would probably be worse than not practising it at all.

On Saturday the little ones kids class was completely manic and it seemed like one of those lessons where all we do is tell the kids off for various types of messing around. It got a little better right at the end when we got the beams out for some balancing/footwork practice though, so I think most of them went home happy - just me and T felt emotionally drained! The next class went a lot better, more work on the Baby Tiger set which I'm quite enjoying.

A pleasant change afterwards, instead of just me and T, A and J came along too, so we spent some quality time going over the higher grade stuff together - biu jeet again, and the 2-person stuff, along with some revision of the first part of the char chuan that A and J are starting to learn. Then T helped me with the stick I had forgotten and added a bit more, so that I now have the complete form. I must try to practice it later today just to check I have it in memory at least, if not in my muscles yet.

Kicks like a mule

Another good night for the Derby classes, the people we have coming at the moment are a real pleasure to teach - and some of them have obviously been practising between lessons which is a very good sign.

We also had a mother and daughter turn up to check out the kung fu with an eye to joining next week - I hope they liked what they saw, as we could do with a few more girls in the classes.

Talking with D after we tried to dissect my side kick, which I'm still not really happy with even after all this time; while I have come to accept it will never be as impressively high as I'd like, I still think it lacks a bit of power most of the time, with the exception of my wing chun sidekick, which is more downwards than outwards in direction, and which feels, to me at least, like it could do some real damage if it connected with someone's knee or ankle. I think the problem is with the angle of my thigh/knee in the drawback before the kick, so I need to carefully observe some of the kickers that I admire to see exactly how they do it.

Happily I do have something in common with the guy doing the kicking in these pictures - I have the same sort of shoes...

Sunshine Shone Brightly

Got through kickboxing without acquiring any new bruises last night, mostly pad work and a bit of syllabus stuff. I'm still having extraordinary difficulty remembering one kickboxing 2-person set from another, a problem I never seem to have in kung fu. Fortunately at the moment we're doing the beginners part of the syllabus so I only need to be shown them once to catch on, at least in the short term.

Taught a bit of bokken/miao dao in the kung fu, then kwok sau thay again. Tried a mantis approach to the sparring with quite a lot of success. The stamping and moving forward but not stepping through seems to fox my opponent fairly successfully - I just need to be careful not to become a one trick pony.

Went through the Chen tai chi a few times after the class, and again this lunchtime at work, when I spent a good hour out in the sunshine going over a few bits and pieces. Definitely better than a desultory trip to the canteen.

Knocked this up earlier today as a gift tag for a pressie for a kung fu friend of mine. I like it quite a lot - need to think for a further use for it.

Spade Work

Some good training with T today after the kids classes, a bit more of the stick set I'm learning, then brushing up on lots of two person sets. I didn't have my pole with me, so when we got to the bokken vs pole set we had to improvise - with the handle of an old mop.

Which was strangely reminiscent of an old traditional chinese weapon known as a Monk's Spade...

Deep and Meaningful

Some solo lunchtime practice on Tuesday, then two really enjoyable classes on Wednesday evening. A few of the guys that are coming along seem to really enjoy the training, and they are also very keen to get in to the more esoteric and "internal" side of martial arts, so we had some interesting conversations in the breaks. I hope that they come along to my class when it starts...which is looking fairly certain for September now. Master Wu had some interesting things to say about controlling one's thoughts whilst doing martial arts that caught my attention. Need to work more on emptying my mind

From the Sublime...

In stark contrast to the complexity and subtlety of yesterday's Chen seminar, tonight's Chinese Kickboxing training was pretty full on, and has once again resulted in a fresh set of bruises all across my forearms and shins. Not sure why I keep doing this to myself...the fact that part of me enjoys getting completely mashed up says something deep about my psyche I expect. I did learn however that our kickboxing syllabus is drawn from 3 different chinese martial arts, the main one being Tibetan White Crane style, also sometimes called Lion's Roar

Taught a bit of Siu Lim Tao and then the Kwok Sau Thay at kung fu, then afterwards went through the Chen with those who had come along to the seminar. Between the group of us we seem to have most of it fairly well recalled.

Chen Seminar

Fantastic seminar with Master Wu on Sunday. I think I get a bit more out of it every time I get to train with him - there's so much going on in the tiniest subtleties of the way that he moves that most of it passes you by at first. Need to work hard on the Chen that we learned - the Lifting Dragon move alone is complicated enough to keep me busy for a few months...

Baby Tiger Shows its Claws

Busy kids class today. With the older ones we did some more of the new 5 animals form we're learning, which I think is called Baby Tiger Shows Its Claws. The remarkable thing was that because we were all learning it together it was really quiet, you could hear a pin drop. A refreshing change for the Saturday lessons.

Afterwards T didn't stay for long so I went through some stuff by myself for a while, did some good work on the Li Pi, a bit of Baji and then dusted off the Char Chuan...unfortunately there's a bit in the middle I seem to have forgotten.

Resting up now ready for tomorrow's exertions at the Wu seminar.

Looking forward to some more time with Master Wu this weekend

Legwork

After the kids classes this Saturday went through the baji and li pi with T for an hour and a bit. Brutally hard on the legs. I need to just do the baji drills 'til I can hardly stand up every day for a couple of months I reckon. Luckily since it can be done in quite a small space and doesn't feature spectacular leg kicks I can practice it in normal clothes at any spare moment - like whilst brushing my teeth in the morning. So hopefully this is that bit in any martial arts movie where the hero goes off on his own for a bit for some serious practice (ideally whilst in solitary confinement in prison) and comes back transformed into a great fighter....

On the Horns

The Wednesday class is gaining a small core of dedicated keen attendees and is becoming quite a nice class to be part of - which helps because I'm still slightly missing the Thursday sessions. Some of them are even training in both kung fu and tai chi, which is very positive.

With the prospect of a Tuesday class looming I need to give some serious thought to which other class I'm going to give up. Don't want to drop Wednesdays because the class is still immature and I think it helps D having me there as an assistant...and also the longer term plan is that we will encourage the students in Derby to train more than once a week, so it will help if they know who I am.

On the other hand, I don't want to stop Mondays in Nottingham either - firstly I'm still learning new things at the kickboxing, which I enjoy, and also I don't want to lose touch with the Nottingham people I've been training with for ages, not to mention I think (hope?) T kind of depends on me as his assistant because the kung fu is a busy class with a wide range of abilities.

Obviously I'd love to carry on with all three nights but I would never see my kids (and my other half would be peeved) so something has to go. Hmmmmm - bit of a dilemma.

Tang Lang

Late to kickboxing last night because of work stuff, so worked extra hard once I got there, especially on the punch pads.

Then kung fu. Lots of people there, not really enough room in the small hall so it was hard to find a spot to take some of the green belts through basic bokken moves. Then over to help out with the beginners - one of whom was having extraordinary difficulty with the start of the wing chun.

Despite taking him through it really slowly about 20 times (no, I'm not exaggerating, that's probably an underestimate), he was still finding it very difficult. Never had such difficulties with an adult before, not sure if the problem was with me or him.

In the sparring, still on a buzz from the weekend, I decided to try out some mantis techniques. They seemed to work quite well so I think I'll work on that for a while.

Went through Li Pi and Pa Chi after the class, then this lunchtime put in a good 40 more minutes just going through Li Pi again, trying to bed it in properly.

Opportunity Knocks

Derby on Wednesday, then a relatively rare Nottingham Thursday. And just as well I did go - turns out P and D have hatched a plot, which they related to me in the pub after, that involves me starting a class in a month or two rather than the 6 months I had in mind. But we've been handed an opportunity to get a hall on a Tuesday night that looks too good to turn down, so it seems like I'll be giving it a go.

It's an ill wind...

Having spent the last little while at work fielding questions about volcanic ash, this weekend the flight ban meant that I didn't have to take the kids class single handed after all, which I must admit was something of a relief.

The problem with the kids class is that it is very easy, especially with the littlest ones, for them to start misbehaving and I worry that I don't yet have the authority of T to get them to settle down and behave, so there is always the vision in my mind of the class just becoming an hour of me trying to stop them hurting themselves/each other, instead of teaching. Significantly less of a problem with the adults...which is one of the reasons I can't see myself ever setting up a kids class in Derby.

Lots of practice of 5-animal related drills, which was fun but hard on the legs!

Target Audience

Bunch of guys in their early twenties (I reckon) came to the Derby kung fu class last night and seemed to enjoy it. I think it's a good sign - up till now we seem to have had either end of the age spectrum - tween/teenagers on the one hand and late thirties/forties on the other, but no-one in the middle ground that really ought to be our main constituency. If we can crack that "market" then the class should become pretty stable.

They mentioned, with no prompting from either me or D, that they'd like to train more than once a week - which is a good sign for the further class I'll be starting soon....