One-handed Kung Fu

Thursday kung fu.

I picked up SK for the carpool, and he said, "So what's the REAL reason you wouldn't stay for CK's evening class last week?"

"I told you- I'd already had my turn with her earlier... it was your turn."

"Okay... sometimes you're good at that, but this time you're not."

LOL. You have to be careful when you're trying to BS a Pisces. Not only are they more likely to see through you, they are more likely to call you out on it. He says he'd rather get an "I don't want to talk about it" as opposed to a bad snowjob. Dang. Snowjob is so much less awkward.... but only as long as the other person is accommodating enough to refrain from confronting you on it.

JaE was in class tonight, even though his right arm is pretty much nonfunctional. My right hand is still nonfunctional. SK is having surgery on his broken wrist the first week in March. (The good news is that he's expected to get 100% function back with no PT and a short recovery time.)

It must be challenging to try to design lesson plans when 50% of your class is crippled. I noted that at least we WANT to be in class so much that we still show up crippled. Then Nemesis pointed out that that might have something to do with the fact that we are crippled.

SK did have to change lesson plans on the fly, because neither JaE nor I could do the hard striking drills that he had been planning to work on.

We did some easy basic hand strike drills, then kick drills. Then some Kiu Two. I was definitely feeling those couple of missed classes- I felt so rusty. I did Kiu Two with Nemesis, and we worked mostly on the flurry-of-strikes section. I can't do the sweep one-handed. Eventually I smacked my purple finger on Nemesis' bony wrist, and had to go out and hold the finger in the drinking fountain.

Then a little Chi Gek. SK wanted people to match up with someone nearer their size, so I got JM. The combo of playfulness and competitiveness that JM and I often fall into (CN refers to it as "playing GOTCHA") had us trying a little harder to kick each other than to do the drill correctly. Chi gek is one thing I do fairly well, though- my ballet experience lends itself well to balancing on one leg and shifting around for long periods of time. I do have to keep hopping in on the opponent in order to keep in range with my short legs... but that means s/he has to then hop away, and usually compromise hir balance a lot worse than I compromised mine.

After that, Monkey-in-the-middle with simple self-defense techniques- with the right hand (EVERYONE'S right hand) out of commission. I was anxious about doing this; it seemed like a good way to bump my sore hand- so I was working in slow-mo. It's also more difficult to ATTACK with no right hand, I found. My initial defense reactions are very right-hand oriented. I found myself trying to bring my left hand up the centerline and adapt that to what I would have been doing with my right hand- instead of coming in from the left side.

Individual forms time. One rep of Hurricane Hands, then a few reps of Cannon Fist. Even doing forms hurts the finger... I was going easy, but even so, it started to throb after a while. After Cannon Fist, I tried a few of those Tiger-Versus-Crane kicks that I'd been strugging with last week, but that is also not very finger-friendly. Back to slo-mo.

I got a text from Cindy wanting to know where I've been and when I'm coming back! It's nice to be missed. I hope next week my hand will not be hurting so much, and I will be able to at least do drills.

(pic- Julie and Bianca)