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...