JCVD

Guilty secrets revealed - but it seems I wasn't the only one to watch Kickboxer when it was on Channel 5 the other night! The whole class at Kung Fu had a bit of a discussion about it yesterday. The consensus of opinion is that his reverse spinning hook kick looks pretty good (if you can get past the whole eighties/trousers pulled up to the armpits thing), but he over uses it.

Got down business after that, working on the real deal rather than that showy film stuff. Chum ku, kwok sau thay and li pi.

Staggered down to Tai Chi loaded up with all the pads and sticks, since T is away for a couple of weeks I'm taking the classes which means I have to lug the kit about.

First off we went out into the garden and did the Yang style long form. The pub next door to the training hall was having a seventies karaoke evening outside, which was more than a little bit off-putting, but I did manage to block out "Dancing Queen" and "I Believe in Miracles" etc enough to get through the form, actually better than I normally do. Maybe a sound track is what I need.

Then I used the last of the light outside to teach the final bit of the pole set, before we retreated indoors and went through the 2-person sword - one of my favorites. Might have gone better to a bit of "Firestarter" or something though....

Green Shoots

Managed to haul myself off for a run at lunchtime today, the second time in less than a week which is pretty remarkable at the moment.

Managed around 2 miles, then a bit of stretching.

Perhaps the start of a renaissance in my running?

Flipping Out

Throws with the grown-ups on Monday night, at both kickboxing and kung fu. T tried a throw on me that was like something out of aikido, getting a lock on my elbow and flipping me over forwards. Terrifying. I'm afraid to say I let out a girly shriek, which isn't good for my image.

I read in my trade magazine today that Engineering is supposed to be, generally speaking, the happiest profession. In the same article it gave some general tips for how to be happy, one of which was to study martial arts. No wonder I'm such a bundle of joy...

The Wonderful Thing about Tiggers

For the last couple of sessions before the summer break we've condensed the kids classes down into 1 class for all ages and abilities. So this Saturday's class was barely-controlled chaos, with the little ones franticly showing off to the big ones. Towards the end we got out the crash mats and the trampette for them to practise some jumping/falling and generally burn off some energy. Then, to get them off it at the end of the session, no amount of instructions from me or T were going to work - I had to physically intervene and turn the trampette upside-down to stop them bouncing!

Saturday afternoon was my department's summer barbecue, and with some trepidation I agreed to teach the assembled offspring a few stick fighting moves (mainly because of the Star Wars/Light Saber obsession of one of them). To my surprise we managed to avoid any injuries to anything other than the nearby sycamore tree which took a bit of a pounding, and I think the kids all enjoyed it. Hope I haven't unleashed too many demons though - I can foresee angry parents when they start breaking the fixtures and fittings whilst practising at home.

Bo and Pi

Arrived early to Kung Fu to make sure I got chance to go through a bit of the Wing Chun Pole, for some reason I felt nervous about teaching it to the Tai Chi guys even though I think I could probably do that particular form in my sleep. Incredibly hot and sticky in the training hall as it was warm but rainy, everyone was fading fast, but still a good lesson. Plenty of Choy Li Fut and then a little work on Sui Lim Tao with a beginner, finishing off with some double stick work. I've been finding that much easier since doing the butterfly knives set.

After a little more Char Chuan, down to Tai Chi. Since D was away, he had asked R to take the class and me to help out by continuing with the pole set that the class are learning. Having dug a couple of make-shift poles out of my shed (including one that's actually a piece of electrical conduit - bringing traditional Wing Chun into the 21st century!), we had quite a room full and struggled a bit for space, but I think it went well generally. Then P took us through some Hsing I, practising the "metal, splitting" pi move. I think I made some progress on it, as by the end when we were paired up I was fairly effectively driving my partner back, which given the height/size difference is not too shoddy....

ER visit

Today marks the first time for ages that I've actually been for a run! Went out with A at lunchtime for a fairly sedate 2.5 miles - luckily for me he is still nursing a bit of an achilles injury so he was happy to go a bit slower than usual. My legs felt fine, feet very wet from the deluge earlier this morning, but my chest was hurting a bit by the end.

On returning to my desk I found 3 missed calls from my other half...uh oh.... turns out my youngest had just done some spectacular falling over and was on her way to casualty. So instead of gently cooling down from my run whilst getting wound up by work stuff it was leap straight in to the car and drive like crazy to the hospital.

Now she has her arm in a cast up to the armpit, it's broken in two places. Looks like gymnastics and kung fu are going to be off her agenda for a while. Although she was musing on the way back that her cast would be good for blocking strikes with a stick - that's my girl!

After a brief sojourn....

Didn't get much activity in whilst in Wales. A couple of minor bike rides, one of which was ended a bit prematurely by my eldest having a spectacular accident, and one session of kung fu practice in the grass in a meadow on the farm.

(Looked something like this, but replace the crane/heron/whatever it is with a goose and it's a bit closer).

So training Monday night felt like the first for ages, and was pretty tiring, especially the "station" pad work during kick-boxing. Luckily lots of siu lim tao during the kung fu, which doesn't have to be too energetic.

T was enthusing about the kick-boxing after the class and showing me some of the stuff from higher up the syllabus which looks fairly impressive in a full-throttle kind of way. Also we revised some of the char chuan which I hadn't quite got solid yet.

For some reason I didn't wear my gloves last night, and this morning both hands hurt with swollen knuckles....stupid, stupid, stupid.