Slippin' and Slidin'

Went out for a run on Friday lunchtime with A, the big thaw seemed to be on so we went out across the fields for about 3 miles. The roads were OK, but lots of standing water where the ice had melted then not soaked away and one part of the lane was still so icey we were reduced to a walking-pace shuffle for a hundred yards or so, slithering all over the place.

Needed a nice hot shower after, what with wet feet and cold extremities. Showers in the changing room took a very long time to run warm though - brrrrrrr!

Storyville - Cage Fighting Women

Got in from Kung Fu/Tai Chi on Thursday night to find that this was on the TV.

Really a bit too brutal for me, but an interesting watch - particularly the bit where the family of one of the women is trying to understand why she does it and persuade her to give it up. I think I can understand the urge to take part and "prove" your fighting skills - what I find less appealing is the motivations of the audience at a cage fight - I suspect it's slightly pervy, especially when it's women fighting, but also when it's men, too.

Sun style at Tai Chi for the first time in ages, it was nice to revisit it as I've always found the circling/shoulder rolling aspects of it very pleasing. Then we did quite a bit of pole, including start of the "living pole" set, which I seem to finally be able to do now without cracking myself in the ribs.

Strengthening Their Resolve

Monday night saw a host of newcomers, particularly in the kickboxing. I assume that it's a wave of people who have made themselves a new year's resolution to start getting fit. Let's just hope they keep it up....history tells me that the majority of them won't stick at it, but I hope to be proved wrong.

The decision to postpone starting the new class in Derby 'til late Feb/early March is partly to try to avoid just picking up the NYR people (and partly that we're so shockingly lackadaisical about organisational stuff that it would have been a struggle to get it sorted for a January start, anyway)

Mostly a wing chun night for me, with plenty of siu lim tao, biu jeet and 2 person work

Winter comes to Wudang Mountain

Fresh snowfall overnight meant lots of wellies in the dojo this morning at kids kung fu (and no, we didn't make them train outside bare-foot in the snow)

In my head I was here;

Metal, Water, Earth, Wood, Fire

Just a small group of us at kung fu on Thursday, and all fairly advanced, so we spent the evening going over some of the intermediate bits of the syllabus in great detail and practising the relevant applications. Having decided that this year I'm going to take training more seriously I was working really hard, and even managed to get a compliment out of T, which is rare indeed!

He and I went through the bokken vs pole at full throttle, in a kind of you'd-better-block-this-like-you're-supposed-to-or-I-will-hit-you kind of way that is really quite scary when weapons are involved - but focusses the mind very effectively. Both sides of the form are fairly well embedded for me now I'm pleased to say.

Then Tai Chi which was all Hsing-I, first the pi chuan (metal, splitting, lungs) and zu'an chuan (water, drilling, kidneys) drills and then the short two-person set we know. Good stuff, but I have very bruised forearms today. Looking forward to learning the other elements in due course.

Walking in a Winter Wonderland

No sleigh bells, but plenty of glistening virgin snow for running in this lunchtime. I went out and did a couple of miles across the fields near work and it was really beautiful - why go skiing when you can get fresh powdery snow, bright sunlight and blue skies right here?

Tough on the legs though - like running on sand

More of the Same

So it looks like I'm going to blog this year as well, even though in essence I expect that this year will be exactly the same as the last. It's certainly started the same with a Monday night of kickboxing and kung fu

Having said that this year should see me start to teach kung fu as a pukka instructor rather than just an assistant....and also see work get a lot more hectic as stuff starts to turn and burn.

And new year's resolutions? Just one or two - to live like a Zen Buddhist, to lose 10% of my body weight and to train more than ever. No sweat.