Wet

2 miles this lunchtime, then the skies opened and I got really very wet. Scarcely needed to have a shower afterwards! And now I have a runny nose, just in time for the weekend.

Role Model?

No kung fu this Thursday, so I decided to do

some extra tai chi and turned up for the beginners class. It was good to just do some of the basics for a change, we went through the Yang short form quite a few times, which I haven't done in a class for quite a while - usually we either do the long form or the short form to the left. D took the opportunity of having me there to demonstrate how correct posture/form gives significant mechanical advantage - although I was between 6 inches and a foot shorter than everyone else in the class, he got me to stand in square stance and then hold up the combined weight of all 6 of them leaning onto me trying to push me over.

In the advanced class afterwards we did long form - each section is getting better, but I still have no idea what order the sections are going to arrive in. Then some Chen-style pushing hands, D getting us to warm up for this by pretending to be (should that be aping?) monkeys and getting us one by one to show the class our best monkey-style walks. Cue channeling Helena Bonham-Carter from Planet of the Apes, and remembering some info I learned from an old boy-friend of mine who was a monkey-handler at a zoo (no, really)

Return to form

Running again at lunchtime today, about 2.5 miles. I think after 5 outings I'm starting to get

some of my previous form back. I must resolve to go out a couple of times a week even when my full kung fu schedule is back in force, because it does do me good (I really need to believe that that's the case, anyway, otherwise it's just masochism)

Student Teacher

Last night was my first time teaching the mixed (well, mostly men's) kickboxing and the kung fu by myself. I was a little bit stressed out about it beforehand, but I think it went pretty well.

I was determined to make them work hard and not take the opportunity to slack off like kids do when they have a student teacher, so I set my stall out by making the kickboxing warm up fairly grueling. One guy in particular looked like he was struggling so I backed off a little - don't want anyone collapsing on my "watch"!

Other than that I stuck fairly well to my hurriedly drawn up lesson plans for both classes although I did run a bit short of time in kickboxing so next week I'll set my sights a bit lower there.

A bit of positive feedback from a couple of the students at the end so I must have done something right. Another step towards teaching more seriously....

Down To The Water

Three miles this morning, down to the Trent, along a bit and back. Along with plenty of rowers and canoeists, there was a dragon boat team training on the river. Just like Hong Kong Harbour. The running is gradually getting easier, thankfully.

International Yin/Yang Wig Kicking Competition

Spotted this on cake wrecks (the second one down, obviously). I particularly liked the comment from "Josh (the DMT)" (also the second one down). It's going to be hard to take sparring seriously next week.

What's The Alternative?

Since there's no kids kung fu this Saturday I felt obliged to go for a run on Friday at work, just a couple of miles but it felt like hard work all the way. Unfortunately through the next couple of weeks I'm going to have to do a lot of running because there aren't many classes I can do, and I can't think of another alternative that doesn't involve just vegetating on the sofa - I'm not really disciplined enough to train by myself and there's a limit to how often I can force the kids to join in, especially since one of them has her arm in a cast.