Sunday

Make your attacker advance through a wall of bullets. You may get killed with your own gun, but he'll have to beat you to death with it, cause it's going to be empty. -Clint Smith




Today's FOD is Leopard 3.

I didn't go to Kung Fu tonight.

All of the Mirror forms: the normal side first, followed by the Mirror side. They went better than Thursday's run, although I notice that the fine detail in Leopard Fist wants to get sloppy in the Mirror side for some reason. I think part of me feels like I need to do the Mirror forms even faster and smoother than the normal forms in order to PROVE that I am truly proficient. If I'm doing the mirror side slower and more carefully, it feels like it's substandard. Resolve: "slower" is better than "sloppy".

Note that in Leopard Fist, the second double Leopard Fist strikes begin with the vertical forearm to the FRONT. I checked the vid yet again to make sure. I also wanted to see which arm was on top for the actual strikes, but after watching it several times, it is plain that SK is doing a different (more advanced) version of the technique. His arms are crossed and both palms are toward the ground. In the version I've been doing, the arms are one-on-top-of-the-other and the palms are facing each other. Since I haven't been taught the advanced version yet, I'm going to just stop fretting about which arm is *supposed* to be on top and do it with the rearmost arm on top- because that makes more sense to me kinetically in order to get to the endpoint faster.

Five Points Of the Star, both ways. Again, Mirror form is better today, but still needs more work- especially the last 1/3.

After the first Dragon-Rides-The-Wind, note that I keep wanting to orient myself toward the back corner for some reason- need to make sure I travel toward the front corner.

The big arm circles before the fireman's kick have to go counterclockwise in the mirror form. This is surely going to be the last bastion of getting the Mirror form correct. I have to stop and think about it every time.

Also, after the duck-behind-the-knee, I need to fall BACK instead of diving FORWARD... it took me this long to figure out that that is why I keep ending the form facing south instead of north where I started.

After the roll, both the first step and the first knee-up into the jump are RIGHT. Left fist down, then turn AWAY from the fist side. After the second roll, the OUTSIDE leg needs to be the straight one. It's all obvious from there on.

Beginning of Touch Bridge In the Mirror.

Short sticks. I haven't practiced with those in a while. Low four-count sequence, high four-count sequence, low-to-high-to-low. It came back fairly quickly, but gets sloppy when I try to go too fast. I remembered that the rapping last stroke on the high ones ended BENEATH- at the ribs.... but when I tried to do the low ones the same, it didn't work. After some fiddling, I figured out that the rapping last stroke on the low ones ends ABOVE. Sheesh. No wonder the low-to-high-to-low is so tricky. I do like it, though, when I am able to figure out how something goes by figuring out how it makes SENSE to go, instead of just relying on memorization.


I ordered a ten-pack of reeds for my bass clarinet today. I know that's not really training, but I'm counting anything spiritual as training. Besides, it's good BREATHING training- no BJJ artist could argue with that.