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.

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.

Lost It

Snatched a few minutes to practise this lunchtime, but to my great distress discovered I seem to have forgotten a large part of the Li Pi Mantis set. Where's that gone? Maybe my brain is full and something has to go for each new set I learn.

Shake it baby, shake it

Usually when we train on Monday night we are in the small hall and the belly dancers are in the main room. But last night their teacher was ill and the class was cancelled. So we took our chance and grabbed the bigger hall. Meanwhile a steady flow of trainee belly dancers kept turning up. We managed to persuade one to stay and train with us...and she was a natural! I guess it's not that surprising that a dancer should be well co-ordinated, but she picked up what we were doing in the kick-boxing really quickly. And she enjoyed it so much she says she'll come again. And no she wasn't scantily clad....

Got to teach 2 things I've never taught before last night too - the single person miao dao (bokken) drill and the "mantis grasps cicada"

Stick with it

Kids kung fu this morning, didn't feel much like going especially since my two were not around, but dragged myself down there anyway. Turned out to be not too bad - couple of new kids in the tinies class who were trying really hard and having lots of fun, then the new style combined over 8s class which was fairly well behaved.

Also D turned up to use a bit of the hall to practice his stuff because he struggles to get to the weeknight classes, which meant I got to spend a little bit of the time helping him with choy li fut.

Went through the start of nam chuan towards the end, which I'm keen to get sorted - it was actually the first kung fu form I learnt all those years ago (coming up for 10 years soon!) - I'd been doing some lightweight tai chi for a few weeks when someone persuaded me to go along to a seminar with the head of our school where I got thrown in at the deep end with nam chuan which is a very bold and energetic form, very unlike the internal stuff I was used to - but I was instantly hooked!

Didn't stay for too long afterwards because both T and I are still recovering from a virus, but did manage to revise the second stick set and the 2 person mantis set ("Mantis grasps Cicada"). Slowly but surely getting back into shape....

Punching above my weight

or above my height to be more precise. In kickboxing last night T told me I needed to practise punching a bit higher than shoulder/face height, since most of my opponents would be considerably taller than me. True I suppose, but if I were really defending myself against someone bigger than me I don't think punching them in the head would be my first choice strategy - in fact I doubt very much whether I'd use kickboxing at all, it seems pretty much like a sport to me rather than a serious martial art (not that I don't enjoy it, cos I do...) if I were in a corner I'd probably use some Tai Chi or mantis. Anyway, cue twenty minutes or so of punching high wearing my heavy gloves, so today my arms and chest ache somewhat

Kung Fu afterwards was pretty good, went through some bokken/miao dao drills with the green sashes, then some basic Mantis stuff with the beginners. After the class I finally got to the end of the char chuan set I've been learning. I think it is a most fantastic set, I only hope I can

do it justice with enough practice. A big moment actually, since I think this marks the end of the official syllabus, from now on new stuff I learn will be what takes Master They's fancy/what he thinks is appropriate for me, rather than the standard stuff that

everyone learns if they stick around long enough. I'm thinking of it more as just starting out on the real stuff, rather than having "finished" anything

Saturday

Three kids classes, and then, since I didn't have to dash off to take the eldest to swimming lessons since she was at ballet instead, T and I did about another hour of work on 2 person sets like Ee Sen Tee, 2 person Choy li fut, Kwok Sau Thay and Mantis 6-punch. So just the four hours practice...

T is keen for me to try harder in the two person work to kind of intimidate my opponent, that is to throw the punches/kicks so that they would actually make contact if they weren't blocked. I'm fine with that when I'm working with him, or one of the other senior students, but I'm reluctant to be too hard on the lower grades 'cos I'm afraid I might scare them off. At the same time I know that if I'm not testing them, they'll get into bad (and ineffective) habits. A fine balance needs to be struck.

Reminiscing

Thursday night was a grading for the adult beginners. Around 20 grading in all, going for 3 grades - yellow, green and blue. T used all the students above these grades to help out with the teaching (well, revising) that went on during the evening - I was assigned to the yellow-to-green group, which meant plenty of work on Chang Chuan, the first proper two person set (which I think is called char chui?), Mantis San Sau, chi nar locks and the first stick set.

At the end we went back to the way beginner gradings used to be back when I was doing them, in that we all sat down and watched just those people grading going through their form. A welcome change from the more recent trend of everyone who knows the form going through it together. It's undoubtedly a bit more stressful for the gradees - but as T pointed out afterwards, if you were ever called on to use the martial arts in a real situation, that would be pretty stressful too.

Keep Calm

Kung Fu tonight. Quite a big class, and at one point we were all doing Bokken together, which was a bit fraught, although I don't think anyone actually whacked anyone else.

The class was interrupted at one point by a really p*&sed-up guy who wandered around the hall challenging us to fight him and claiming he would kill us all. T eventually managed to persuade him to leave, staying calm and collected and reasonable sounding (but firm) throughout the 5 minute episode. I was really glad that I wasn't in charge of the class at that point because I'm not sure I'd have handled it quite so well. And just how out of it must you have to be to go in to a room full of 20-odd martial artists (some of whom were wielding swords and poles) and try to start a fight with them?

Anyway, after that interlude we got back to training, I went through Siu Lim Tao with the beginners and the first two person set, then went through the Mantis two person set with the purples. Plenty of kicking in today's lesson too, I decided to go for it during the Zi Chi drills and was doing them as fast and high as possible, so I was distinctly flagging by the end. Then after everyone else had left I ended up going through one of the kids wushu sets with a couple of people who come to the Saturdays too to help them catch up in time for the forth-coming grading.

Down to Tai Chi, today we did the long form and I managed to get to do what I've been meaning to for a while, which was sit and watch and write some notes. Who knows if they'll make sense when I look at them tomorrow, but it's a start. Then more sword form and a bit more of the two-person sword which if my favorite, finishing off with the two person pa kua.

At the end I was still so hyper that I managed to persuade P to fight with me and we did a bit of Mantis vs Pa Kua sparring. Inevitably enough he won, (next time I'll choose Wing Chun I think) but that's not the point. Hopefully I can persuade him and D to make it a habit and we'll have a scrap at the end every week....

Hurts so Good

Fast paced kick-boxing last night, working with R mostly which means I can punch and kick hard during the pad work - when I'm with one of the girls I always feel like I have to hold back a bit so I don't knock them over! T was being hard on me about getting my turning kicks right, making sure I'm turning my hip over properly. This means that by the end of the session my hips were aching, but in a good sort of way that I quite like really (is there something wrong with me to feel that way?) I also managed to trip myself up and fall over during some spinning kicks!

Then Kung Fu, tried to teach the yellow sashes some more Chang Chuan, the problem being that it was the bit that I struggle with myself nowadays because it starts the same as a section of Yang Fan Chuan and I always end up doing that instead 'cos I practise it much more often. I think I got it straight in the end though.

Sparring at the end, I'm enjoying it more and more lately. Paired up with the guy who knows Mok Gar Kung Fu and we gave each other a good fight I think, although I was a bit nervous because we weren't wearing gloves.

After the lesson I went through two-person choy li fut, mantis six-punch and the single person butterfly knives. Still lots to brush up on.

Must Try Harder

Just 5 including me and T at Kickboxing Monday night - cue a fairly intense hour of training including lots of elbow strikes and plenty of pad work. Discovered fairly early on that Sunday's run had left me with a bit of a groin strain, but gritted my teeth and worked through it.

Then Kung Fu, worked on Chum Ku and the Mantis 2-person set, then char chui 2 and the first stick set. During the sparring I was being so cautious because of Thursday's incident that I ended up getting hit by one of the beginners - there's a middle ground somewhere between passivity and attack that I need to find!

After the beginners had left worked on 2-person Butterfly Knives, Mantis 6-punch and Li Pi. It's starting to take some kind of shape I think - how long 'til my grading?

Eye Opener

Thursday - Kung Fu. It was generally a good lesson, plenty of Wing Chun again, going through Siu Lim Tao and Chum Quoi. Then the sparring. That was going quite well too, then, paired up with a young lad (don't know exactly how old, I'd guess about 12 or 13?), I blocked with a "golden rooster" to a turning kick he was trying, somehow my shin made contact with his knee and suddenly he was in a heap on the floor! He was very brave and didn't make a sound but it had obviously hurt him pretty badly, and for the rest of the evening he couldn't put any weight on it, so had to sit out. T had to give him and his mum a lift home because he couldn't walk. No idea how it happened really, but I feel really sorry for him. Hope it was nothing that a bit of rest and ice can't fix but we'll have to wait and see - knees can be quite tricky....

Quickly went through Mantis 6-punch after the class before rushing down to the Tai Chi class, which now starts earlier, so I barged in halfway through the Yang Long Form - it was really hard to concentrate and adapt to the pace without the short break I normally have between the classes. This will be a test of my ability to focus I guess. Went through some more of the sword form, then started going through the 2 person sword again, which I love! S managed to pick up a hand injury from someone's sword (looks like stigmata!) - but that wasn't my fault, I promise.