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.

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...

Last Thursday

Neck felt good enough to go to training last night, and since it was the last opportunity I'll have to go to a Thursday kung fu/tai chi combo for a while, I decided to strap up my fingers to protect my painful knuckle and go along to see how I felt.

Last residues of stiffness in my neck disappeared once I'd warmed up and I had a good class, other than the fact that we focussed quite a bit on mantis, where it's quite tricky to get the requisite "hook" hand shape when your fingers are taped together. After kung fu first D came up from tai chi to get my help with a section of char chuan he'd forgotten, then I had a good chat with one of the intermediate guys about plateauing in training and having to work through it to start seeing more improvement.

In Tai chi we worked on the Yang Long form, then some chen and some mi cheong, which I haven't done for ages, but D helped me revise the opening few moves which I've always found particularly tricky. D wanted to talk about me becoming a proper instructor, he wants us plan out my "development", start applying for my CRB checks, getting my first aid qualifications and so on....

Off to the pub afterwards with a couple of the guys because it will be a while before I get the opportunity again, given that I'm going to have to (at least temporarily) give up Thursday's for a while to concentrate on the Wednesday night classes we're starting up in Derby. I'll particularly miss the tai chi guys, since I get to see most of the kung fu lot on either Monday or Saturday at the other classes.

Necessary force

Made it in time to Kung fu despite hectic meeting schedule at work. I was happy to see the lad I injured last week was there - looks like I didn't cause any lasting harm. Went through nam chuan again with T but it's still not really sinking in so it's a good job it's not something I've got to grade on. Then lots of wing chun again, and some bokken.
Downstairs to tai chi without a break and straight into yang short form to the left which is always a challenge, but I actually felt quite pleased with my focus. 

Then we did some 2-person work where D asked us to try to think of how we could "add more power" to a move. When it came to my turn to demonstrate my suggestion it was accused of being particularly brutal! I don't think I've really got the hang of the tai chi minimum force attitude - I'm more of the "if someone is trying to hurt me then they've lost their right not to be hurt" school. Finished with a bit of chen, which made my knees hurt as always, and I still can't do the exploding outwards bit properly.