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.