Sick List update

The patient has taken a distinct turn for the better today - to the extent that a few minutes ago she asked if we could do some kung fu practice for her grading this weekend! I think she'll be back to school tomorrow

Sick List

Monday morning started early being woken by the youngest arriving by my bedside to tell me she was about to be sick....so one very quick dash for the bathroom later it was obvious that one of us was going to have to stay at home with her as she wouldn't be going to school. And it was my turn. After a fairly long day of cleaning up (although to be fair she is pretty good at getting to the bucket in time!), I was happier than usual for the other half to arrive home after work to take over while I slopped off to kickboxing and kung fu.

Having done next to nothing except sit by a sick bed all day I had plenty of energy to burn off through both sessions and through the sparring at the end. Taught siu lim tao, biu jeet and stick, then the first mantis 2 person set that I can't remember the name of.

Afterwards went through char chuan and bokken vs pole, then had a long conversation with the hall caretaker about iceroad truckers, which although I've never seen it is probably going to get much more relevant to me when I get sent out to the frozen far north of Canada next winter for work....

While the outside is moving, the inside is silent

Probably never been as happy to set out for a run as I was this morning - a houseful of pre-teen girls is hard work, especially the seemingly constant shrieking, which went on 'til at least 1:30 in the morning and started again at about 5:30. So leaving them with my other half to reconstruct the wreckage of the bedroom and sort out which particular bit of clothing/jewelry/make-up belonged in which suitcase while I went for my constitutional felt like heaven. Why is it exactly that they scream so much, either in laughter or mock distress (or at any other excuse)? I'm sure I wasn't like that (but then again I was always an odd child).

3.5 miles in very pleasant clear cold conditions, thinking about Master Wu's calligraphy which I think says something about being still and silent inside even when engaged in battle.

And home just as the mothers started arriving to pick them up. Ideal.

Baby Remember My Name

Last kids class before the junior grading, so lots of form practice - and my work on yang fan chuan at lunchtimes paid off - I remembered it better than T I think. We've decided to move the senior juniors (!) on to the adult syllabus once they've finished the straight sword, so started teaching some siu lim tao to the older ones.

Afterwards we went through bokken vs pole again, both sides all the way through, it's starting to fit together in my head now. I suspect we looked fairly good going through it because I noticed at one point that we'd gathered a bit of an audience, since we were in the sports hall with a viewing gallery above. Good job we're not paranoid about people stealing our secrets! We also went over biu jeet, then some more of the wing chun 2 person sets, including one that teaches the way to escape from one of the chin na wrist locks, which is something I've been wondering about for a while.

After class home to the un-mitigated joy of my 10 year old's sleepover birthday party, part of which featured a visit to the cinema to watch "Fame". I was struck mostly by the dance sequences, and in particular the dance classes, which have more than a little similarity to martial arts training (but with less bruises? Or maybe not)

More lunchtime fun

Got a good 45 minutes in today, followed by some stretching. If I'm not mistaken, I think I've actually managed to get my side kick a little higher. Still can't do full box splits though.

Later got in a couple of miles brisk walk, so don't have to feel too bad about not running today. Must go out on Sunday though.

Upper Class

Managed to get out at lunchtime and do some practice - quite an intense session with quite a bit of wing chun and a couple of more open forms.

Then Thursday night kung fu - I got to teach the senior students, first taking everyone through choy li fut, then splitting them up and rotating round the different groups. I think I handled it fairly well, the trickiest bit was teaching part of the biu jeet that's really hard to explain (although physically not the hardest part to do, strangely enough). Then afterwards more bokken vs pole with T, this time with me trying the pole part - quite tricky!

Down to tai chi, went through a small section of the sword in fine detail, then practised the

relevant applications. Went through the 2 person pa kua set too. D slipped in the promise of some revision of the tai chi fan in the near future which I'm looking forward to.