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Friday- 131.5. FOD: Spear hand. Note that the first footwork motion is into FRONT stance. When I went though this, I was doing Seven Stars. For the past several months, I have been inadvertantly changing a whole bunch of stances to Seven Stars. I had previously assumed that it was because I had repped Spear Hand and Southern Mantis so much; but now I am starting to wonder if subconscously my body is thinking Seven Stars is going to be less painful on my knees. Disturbing, if so.
Saturday FOD: Lun Chi
Sunday FOD: Silken Needle. Note that there are THREE side-pushes, and they go 2, 2, 1. I can never remember that.
Monday FOD: Cannon Fist. Not happy with the way this went today; going to roll it over into tomorrow.
Tuesday FOD: ergo- Cannon Fist.
Thursday: Picked up MM and took him to my (non-MA) gym for a few hours of sparring. It was great, all except for the part where I jammed my busted finger before we'd even broken a sweat. God, it hurt. I didn't want to waste the opportunity to work out, though- so after a short break huddled against the wall gritting my teeth and cradling the hand to my chest, then sticking it in the water fountain, I fisted it and continued. It was definitely a handicap to keep the hand fisted- it's my dominant hand, and I do a lot of grabbing, clawing and poking. A lot of Tiger, Snake and Mantis is nullified when you have to keep your hand fisted. I did, however, do a little better about remembering to not stop kicks with my hands- or if I did, to at least use the heel and keep the fingers out of the way.
His head seemed to be surrounded by an impenatrable forcefield, but I got lots of belly and groin attacks in. The scissor-step underhanded Tiger strike to the groin was not working on him as well as it had been working on CK, and I couldn't discern why. He often has all four limbs moving simultaneously, which is very distracting, and you don't know where to guard. He got me a lot with the trick of striking with left leg and right arm together, or vice versa. That one always gets me. Another thing that was working for him was hand strikes shooting from underneath or rolling overtop the opposite arm. The ones coming from underneath never looked like they had range- until they hit me.
That right elbow of his was the bane of my existance. Everywhere I turned, it was in my face. The Wing Chun that he has been practicing is really showing there. Often I impaled *myself* on the elbow while I was trying to come in on him. He tried to guillotine me a LOT, but it was very easy to escape.
He was very skilled with blocking my close-in knee strikes. It was very hard to avoid telegraphing those with my balance shifts. With someone who can read those well, I need to be better at discerning which ones are positioned well enough to be worth going for and which are fruitless.
Another thing that I did well today was to pay careful attention to my focus level. As soon as I started to get frustrated and noticed my focus level drop, I asked for a short break- instead of continuing and allowing the frustration/focus drop to lead me to do stupid stuff and get clobbered MORE, which is a self-perpetuating cycle.
Great practice; I was really happy that he had made the time. Hope to do it again next time he's in town (prob next fall). I'd like to take him over to Sleeper for a little grappling if we get the chance next time- although that will probably sink my goal of getting one tap on him before he learns and formal grappling! We did end up on the floor once today, and were both trying for footlocks- I *still* can't manage one, dang it.
Arial Silk at the circus school. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to do this today with my re-injured finger- it hurt (and so did that perpetual sore rt shoulder), but was managable. Most of the same stuff from last time, munus the double foot locks and the second climb technique (although I did get a little time to play with double footlocks). One new thing- flying Dutchman. Single footlock with both silks, then split the silk and twirl your body around the side that your foot it locked, wrapping the silk around your ankle and pushing it down with the opposite foot. Three up and then three down. Note that this one is a little dangerous, especially if you're high up, because it's a little hard to get unwrapped again and you have to make sure you leave yourself enough energy to get yourself out of what you've gotten yourself into. Also, I need to keep my body stiffer on the twirl and keep it more controlled instead of storta throwing myself into it.
Note on the climb- after bracing the foot, stick both legs out stiffly to make an L shape with the body, then pull the hips to the silk. Taking the extra time and care to do each of these steps cleanly resulted in a better climb.
I was not doing very well emotionally today, and wrestled with anger and depression. It was frustrating, because today was almost identical to last Thursday, when I worked out with CK and MM and then took them to Shaolin- except that week I went straight home afterward instead of distracting myself with circus school, which should have made me MORE susceptible to sinking into angst. But I had been doing pretty well the last several days, and backslid today. I wish I had a better understanding of the triggers.
Friday: 132
I had been looking forward to some BJJ today, and am quite vexed. But my finger is very painful, and I don't think it's up to grappling. I hope it will heal quickly. I really have got to get some grappling in before the next work rotation begins. Also, I have to host the drum circle tomorrow. Stick drums for me, sigh.
When I decided that I could just live with the modest amount of pain and disfunction presented by that busted finger, I hadn't really thought about its potential for RE-INJURY. If it's going to be frequently reinjured- and take a long time to heal- something may need to be done. Unfortunately, the health insurance I was hoping to manifest has not manifested, and will have to wait another year.
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