Friday evening

"I've had 56 students win gunfights in the past 5 years.  I also had two students that died because they were unarmed when they were attacked.  Carry your f***in gun." - Tom Givens (Rangemaster)


OMG, Jen Jen Jen. This needs to stop. This ritual leadership team needs to break up due to irreconcilable differences. I had intended to perform my small part for next weekend's event and then just stop answering her e-mails and fade away... which would leave the door open to at least show up and participate in a non-facilitating way once in a while. But it has become clear that she ONCE AGAIN did not like what I did at the last event, even though it worked just fine,  and now she wants to vet my piece beforehand. She disguised this as a general message to everyone that "We don't want to do (fill in the blank with what I did last time). Let's all post our ideas so that we can be all goal-aligned." So almost everyone posts except me.... since I'm still trying to figure out how the hell to deal with her shit without getting pulled into a dysfunctional drama scene, and I also still have about .02% doubt that this may be *my* problem because I apparently have no ability to function in ritual nor gauge accurately whether things worked or not nor take constructive criticism... and she posts another general message going, "Okay, the only one who hasn't chimed in yet is Kitsune....." then again this morning with, "I'm freaking out here, those who haven't posted their ideas yet PLEASE DO SO". Jesus H. Tapdancing Christ, this is the biggest event of the year and you'd think she'd have enough to do without having this much time and energy to ride my ass. Over a very tiny role, which is not going to make a difference in anything even if she hates it. I don't want to be one of those people who causes a drama scene (or worse- bails) a week before a huge event, but I've about had it. This is nuts.

I mounted a pole in my basement gym to dry my gi's on. When I first moved in here, I looked at the shower in the laundry room and thought, "Sweet, I can hang my gi's right there on the shower rod to dry." Well, turns out the air flow sucketh in there and they take about a week to dry.... which is not a huge deal, except the condensation is such that I'm worried it's going to get all disgusting in that room if I keep doing that. I'm not sure the air flow and drying time are going to be much better in the basement proper, but I hope so. I'm going to mount a second pole on the porch so that I can dry them out there when the weather permits.

Friday evening BJJ in Bellevue. I got there early and had a long, thorough stretching session, followed by a few reps of the Tai Chi short form. Then Five Animals. Then Leopard Fist. I have not done any forms of any kind for, like, a year. I don't know how I feel about it. It stirred some things. Some good, some bad.

KOtH, sweep vs pass. There was an awkward moment right that the beginning when Prof Herbert tried to pair me up with Sauleh. There were only about 8 of us total in there, so having Sauleh in there with KoTH meant a lot of extra wall time for me. Irritating.

Brandon has his purple belt. He continues to get bigger- and better.

A few spars. Lance first, ha ha. He was nice, and let me simply run a sub clinic on him. I also got a turn with Herbert, which was awesome if exhausting. It was very flowy. I tried really hard to flow. I think I made a decent showing of myself.

Navel-gazing re: attitude

Someone who has agreed to fight you has agreed to serve as part of your test, your struggle for knowledge, your quest to make yourself better. –Sam Sheridan


As I'm sitting around thinking "What I wouldn't do for a piece of pizza- or ten", the inevitable "Why am I doing this?" questions start circling around in my head.

My recent batch of comps, I did specifically because I wanted to learn how to deal with the adrenaline dump. While I won't say that comps no longer make me nervous, They are now making me much less nervous than before. So I'm not sure I'm still making decent progress on that goal.

I do not enjoy competing, my record is phenomenally lousy.... and while I do feel that I learn things every time, I find myself once again wondering if it's a worthwhile pursuit.

I was well aware before even starting BJJ that the major limiting factor in my martial arts progress is my own defeatist mindset. I don't really know how to fix this. Continuing to train, and continuing to compete, thinking that at some point all the work is going to result in enough increased skill to make me feel more competant... it's not working.

I have made something of an effort in the last two years or so to be slightly less negative in my training blog- to mention more positives, and cut myself down less often. But it's not enough. To truly tackle this hurdle, it's going to take something else (probably multiple something else's). I don't know what. All I know is that it wouldn't be easy, and I feel exhausted just contemplating the question.

Yet if I am truly serious about my training, and not just going through the motions, I can't ignore this forever. It's the elephant in the room, and it's looming larger and larger. It's not just going to go away, ad I'm going to be stuck behind it as long as I fail to deal with it.

I'm having a sense that picking up Kung Fu again might be part of the key. I have really dropped the ball on this. It's hard for me to continue training without a teacher. Also, just the thought of Kung Fu is wrapped up with so much emotional trauma that I'm terrified that working forms again- tearing that scab off, so to speak- will result in being pulled further into the Black Hole of nightmares and depression. It's the same fear that working on art is igniting- only more direct; closer to the belly of the Beast. Just the thought of doing forms makes my stomach roll over queasily.

While there is certainly a spiritual component in BJJ- and that's mostly about what you put into it- so far I haven't gotten it to trip my spiritual triggers in the way that Kung Fu did.

I do not know how to proceed. But "ignore" is becoming more and more unworkable.

"What martial art you are doing?"

 The usual winner in a ground fight is NOT the best grappler, but whoever has friends who show up first and start kicking. –Rory Miller



Tues: 127.5

Tuesday lunchtime BJJ in Bellevue. We had a visiting black belt today- which always means a lot more work! I'm not sure if the prof is trying to show us UP or show us OFF in those cases.

Same standing thrust kick defense that we did yesterday.

Carlos: What martial art you are doing?
Kitsune: (hands over face in shame)
Carlos: I don't know what you doing, but ees not zchoo-zchitsu.

Okay, so it's NOT functionally identical to Black Crane. We are supposed to stand with one foot well forward. I honestly want to know how we can plan to have the correct foot forward when we are not dealing with a compliant uke who can be relied upon to kick with the "correct" foot. But I can't think of a way to ask the question without having it sound like the dreaded "my MA is better than your MA" challenge, which place I DO NOT want to go with Carlos. It's an honest question. I wonder who else I might be able to approach to straighten out that bit of confusion for me.

In addition, the copious errors of my ways included elbow striking with the "wrong" elbow. It appears to me that the technique will work with either elbow, but it seems to be better supported by the full weight of my body (as well as utilizing more of the torque from the turn) to use the "wrong" elbow. Oh well.

Despite my show of contrition and lack of argument, I wonder if he thinks I'm copping attitude when I inadvertantly bleed Kung Fu into my Zchoo-zchitsu; as it then turned into Pick On Kitsune Day- even though the room was packed, he was all up in my grill the whole hour pointing out errors in all of my techniques. Of course, many instances of POKD have no discernable trigger at all.... so who knows.

Foe is in your closed guard. Use right hand to pin hir left hand to hir belt. Secure left hand cross grip on hir left lapel OVER TOP of that trapped forearm. Knee up on the trapped side. Shin turn out on the OTHER side, toe posted. Stand. Switch sleeve cuff grip to opposite hand and grab pants. Break guard and squat, quickly moving to double inside-the-knee grips as you make sure your legs are out of DLR guard range.

Now: Step left foot out to the left as you yank opponent's near leg straight and far knee to the mat on the other side. Sprawl and lay your face on hir belt, shoulder on the side of hir ribs. Dance to the side on toetips to pass.

If s/he pushes your face toward hir legs, go with the spin and do a breakdancing 3/4 turn on top of hir using your shoulder as the pivot. Now you are in side control, ideally with opponent's arms trapped as well.


Today's "Fun with English as a second language" moment:  "Poo foot".... Gordon was just as confused as I was by this instruction, and it was no clearer to either of us on the second or third repetition. Turns out "Poo foot" = "Pull foot" 

Hazards Of Using Your Martial Arts At Work, #31

Hazards Of Using Your Martial Arts At Work, #31:

Tonight I used an axe-hand strike to open a box of hematology diluent, and broke the string on my brand-new garnet bracelet. I spent the next fifteen minutes crawling around on my hands and knees picking pinhead-sized garnets out of the cracks in the linoleum.

Chi sau

Even more than strength and agility, awareness is our best weapon: a dynamic awareness that can look simultaneously into the present, the future, and the past. -Daniele Bolelli, On The Warrior’s Path

MM is in town briefly, and he invited me to get together and spar this morning.

It was kind of hard being at Volunteer Park- which was one of our Kung Fu sites. Seeing MM and doing Kung Fu also- although the Park was the worst part for some reason. Difficult painful stuff is being stirred- although it was already being stirred in these last few weeks.

It was a good workout, though. I have not sparred Kung Fu in a year, I think (I know CK and I didn't work on sparring the last time she was in town). I felt really rusty and somewhat intimidated. MM's quite a bit above my level in Kung Fu (would be even if I wasn't suspended from training), plus he's trained in a whole bunch of other MA's. He's a medium sized guy, but very strong. He has decent control, though, and I feel fairly safe working with him.

He did clobber me quite a bit. His arms and legs are longer than mine, so I remembered fairly early on that I can't really stand at (his) reach and trade strikes. So I tried to get in close on him. We did a lot of what I would classify as standup grappling. I almost took him down once, but otherwise no joy- he's really hard to take down. I got his back a number of times (like a wrestling hug around the waist), but could not do anything from there. He's too tall for me to get a choke from the back, and I tried stridently to get a takedown from there with no success. The best thing I did from there was to inch a bit to the side and get a hook kick into his groin once (a feat of flexibililty).

He tried vehemently to choke me several times (including getting my back and picking me up off the ground by my head, trying to get a hand wedged under my chin) and did not manage to finish one, which I am pleased about. He did get a large number of belly shots. Note also that I am still (STILL! STILL! STILL! AAARGH!!!) trying to stop kicks with my hands (my palm-heels, as if using fisted hands wouldn't be bad enough). What's it going to take to rid me of this instinct?

He got me a really hard kick right in the bottom of the kneecap once, ugly enough that I had to call uncle and lie down to writhe around in the grass in pain. I forgot to bring my jow, too. He poked and pressed at it a little... I'm not sure what he was doing; he seems too much of a straightforward science nerd to be into reiki or running chi... but after a few minutes I was able to get up and continue. It didn't bother me in BJJ class later,and now it feels just fine. (Relieved.... when it first connected, I thought, "%$^#! That's it for the day- maybe the next FEW days!")

We finished with some sticky-hands. Still feeling too much strain in the biceps, and a bit of elbow-flying... but much less elbow flying than I used to do, and I was doing well at keeping my shoulders relaxed and my form decent.

Really enjoyed that, despite the negative-emotion stirring and the whack in the knee. He will be visiting again in the winter, and hopefully we can do this again.

We worked from 9 to 11:30. I had brought my BJJ bag and could have just made it to lunchtime class, but I was too ravenous. I had to eat- and going straight to BJJ from lunch is asking to find yourself hurling in the alley before warmups are done. I had slept very poorly the night before, so found myself too lazy to get to the 4:30 basics class. I was less sorry about that when I got in at the tail end of it to see that it was just Ritchie, a brand-new humongo white belt, and another white belt that I've worked with a couple times before and I know is *WAY* too spazzy for me to work safely with.

So just competition class. Standing pass wherein you sort of slap the knees to the side and lunge past to KOB. This particular pass was one of the most difficult episodes *EVER* in regards to my "I can't tell my left from my right" disability. I remember trying to do this pass about a hundred times with Carlos standing there saying "wrong" every time because I kept reaching first with the wrong hand, stepping first with the wrong foot, or both. I felt a little bit of jelly-belly as soon as I saw the pass, but luckily I seem to have evolved since that bad episode- and I had no trouble with it. (Not so the big white belt.... he got pushups for saying the s-word on the mat...)

Then the same pass to KOB, transition to BOTH knees on belly, transition to front mount. Just to make it more challenging to maintain balance and control, we were to keep both hands on top of our heads like POW's. Marcello was looking at me with serious angst on his face. He's not that big, but seriously, I'm a tiny mouse. I told him, "Do this on my stomach, not my ribs." The bad rib area seems no worse and maybe a bit better in the last few days, but even so... my abs are pretty tough, I can take a guy up to medium-size kneeling on my belly if I gotta. He kept murmuring, "Are you all right?" Yeah, just stay off my ribs, and I'll live.

Then we added an escape to replace closed guard for the person on the bottom- the turn, comb the foot over, turn thing that Leslie and I were just talking about yesterday (she linked to a vid of Emily Kwok demo'ing it).  It's both Leslie's and my fave reaction to front mount, and it works very reliably. In this instance, after getting half guard and scooting out to the side, we were to push on opponent's far knee and stick our foot through to replace closed guard.  To my intense unhappiness, partners were switched and I was put with Ritchie. He's mostly okay with drills, but he's one of the very last people I want bouncing on both knees on my belly. I'd rather have Marcelo, for all Marcelo's probably twenty or thirty pounds heavier. Well, frame those elbows, cross your fingers and suck it up. He actually turned out to be okay. He had a little trouble combing my foot out.... my short legs make it more difficult for people to do this technique on me.

Prof finished us up a little early, with no positional sparring or free rolling- which was probably just as well, since Marcelo was the only person there (besides the prof himself) that I would have felt okay sparring with.

Dan was sitting on the wall waiting for the next class, so I asked him for a roll. I seemed competitive against him. He is short, but stocky. He got my back a couple of times, but I escaped. He set up a few chokes that came close, and one armbar that came close, but got no taps. I set up a triangle, which was at a poor angle and I knew immediately that I wouldn't be able to finish it. Yet since I almost never even try for triangles, I was happy that I had attempted to set one up at all. I also got the grab-the-backs-of-the-heels takedown- I kept in mind SIDE CONTROL's advice about the technical lift, and was ready to do it, but I didn't need it- somehow the momentum catapulted me directly into front mount with almost no effort on my part. 

Black Crane drills 1 through 4

“Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to be over,
it’s about learning how to dance in the rain.”
- Author Unknown


Friday: 133.5

Sunday: 132.0. FOD: Leopard Fist. Did just the standard version.

Monday FOD: Tiger Versus Crane. Standard version only. Note that the standard version starts out with a RIGHT Eagle claw. I'm finding that with the forms I've practiced "in the mirror" extensively, I'm often groping for "uhhh, which side is this...?" at the beginning- but once I get going, it's usually not much of a problem because each move flows into the next and they usually only make SENSE on one side.

Also note that after the hop with the "energy ball" and the flying crescent kick, you land in east-facing horse and turn directly to the south-facing Tiger crossed stance. I was wanting to stick the clawing-face-plant in there, but that is later.


Wednesday: 133.5
Sometimes my nightmares are very literal. Last night I dreamed that I was living in some dump, and got burglarized three times in rapid succession. They took everything of value. With what few scraps I could salvage, I was living in my car. Then, it shifted and I was leading about five dozen surviving refugees across a post-apocalyptic city in the dead of winter. That was very weird- but I think that with a few tweaks, I can use some of that last adventure in my weblit. ;-)

Acrobalance. Unfortunately, it seemed to be "couples' night" at the circus school, and all the bases came in already paired up with their own SO flyer, so I was the odd person out- which was awkward. Ended up switching out with the most inexperienced guy (again.... I need to try to avoid this happening every time), whose girlfriend was a six-foot-tall toothpick. One must base a five-foot-tall beginner hourglass completely differently from a six-foot-tall intermediate toothpick, so he was having a lot of issues.

Lots of side-star and cartwheel stuff. Keep the chest facing the wall and don't let it (and torso) roll towards the floor. Also remember to turn the leading toe out, and once up, the DANGLING toe needs to point toward the base and not towards the floor.

Propping yourself on blocks and balancing in an L shape while supporting your weight on your hands is a lot harder than it looks. Especially if your hips are too wide to fit between the blocks. Still feels like entering an alternate universe when I come in here and am "the heavy student" at 133.5lb.


Thursday: 133.5

Friday: 134.5 (I had some mustard-onion pretzels yesterday). FOD: Iron Needle

Last night in Somnalist Trauma Theater, I was at some kind of large event at a beach house when someone started shooting up the crowd. I instantly took off running like a rabbit without even turning to look. Points for rapid OODA, penalties for not trying to stop the guy from slaughtering the crowd. I was fleeing across the front lawn alone, and could see his shadow (and the shadow of the firearm, which looked like a damn bazooka) looming up on the grass to my left. There was no cover, and I am not a particularly fast runner (although I venture I may be faster than I think, if I ever find myself pursued by a nut job with a bazooka). I thought, "This is it," Then two people came out of the house to the left, and he started shooting at them, while I ran on. I did the exact same thing I'd done in my previous shoot-em-up dream a few months ago, which had disturbed me so.

This spring I need to renew my concealed pistol licence. I've had it for nine years now, and I haven't actually gotten around to procuring a gun. Since my knives showed up dependably in my violent dreams when I started carrying them in real life, I'm curious to know whether- should I buy a gun- I will start whipping that baby out during Somnalist Trauma Theater.

Saturday: 135. FOD: Southern Mantis. I haven't done this one in a while and was worried about my memory retention, but only a couple of minor problems. After the topfist, the cat stance needs to shift to an equal-weighted Mantis stance. The double low block after the head-smash is with Mantis hooking hands. (I'm not going to beat myself up over having done the heel-hand ones out of Three Step Arrow instead). The final move is a Mantis finger-poke with the left hand, not a hard block. Other than that, seems fine.


BLACK CRANE DRILLS 1 through 4:


+Crane 1 (double eyestrike)

Begin in high horse facing east and looking north. Double Eagle claw hands, palm down, rt in front of groin and left slightly north of left thigh.

Turn torso to north. Do not move feet. Double viper-hand eye strike to north.

Cross wrists, turn palms up and bring elbows together at solar plex. Forearms are now forming a "V" with flat palms toward you.

Step through with rt leg forward to north, turn to end in high horse facing west and looking north. As you step and turn, both Eagle claws circle up-and-over forward (rt at chin level, left at waist level) to end palm down, left in front of groin and rt slightly north of rt leg. You are now in the mirror of the stance you started with. Repeat drill on opposite side.


+Crane 2 (eagle claw eyestrike with two circles)

Begin in high horse facing east and looking north. Double Eagle claw hands, palm down, rt in front of groin and left slightly north of left thigh.

Left Eagle claw strike eye level to north.

Turn left palm abruptly toward your face. Hand is flat.

Scissor step rt foot behind left. Bring left palm to rt shoulder. Cross fisted rt arm in front of it, fist at left elbow.

Unwind to your right into high horse facing west, as Rt fist hammerfists chest level to north, palm down. Left hand is now palm-up against left shoulder.

Scissor step left foot behind rt. Double Eagle claw strikes downward- left in front of groin, rt just north of rt thigh.

Unwind to your left into high horse facing east. As you come around, drag whatever you have gripped with your Eagle claws along with you (possibly over your right hip/knee). Also get a left elbow strike in as you rotate.

End the same way you began: high horse facing east and looking north. Double Eagle claw hands, palm down, rt in front of groin and left slightly north of left thigh.

Repeat. Practice off both sides.

+Crane 3 (corkscrew punch)
Begin in high horse facing east and looking north. Double Eagle claw hands, palm down, rt in front of groin and left slightly north of left thigh.

Circle left arm clockwise in front of face to end at groin, still in Eagle claw to block/seize.

Corkscrew punch rt hand overtop of left arm, at waist level, while using left hand grip to pull opponent into your punch. End with rt little finger up. Torso can turn fwd, but do not move feet. (The fist stays in one place once it's struck the hypothetical target, and the ELBOW rotates around the axis. Extend the punch fully. It's okay if the shoulder hunches up a little.)

Step through to north with rt foot and turn to end in high horse facing west and looking north. As you step and turn, both Eagle claws circle up-and-over forward (rt at chin level, left at waist level) to end palm down, left in front of groin and rt slightly north of rt leg. You are now in the mirror of the stance you started with. Repeat drill on opposite side.


+Crane 4 (backfist to ground)
Begin in Black Crane high guard- high horse facing east and looking north, left arm out straight to north shoulder height, hand in "stop" position; rt "stop" hand at rt jaw. Toes are pointing northeast.

Turn to north and sink into front stance left foot fwd. Rt Eagle claw stabs palm-down in front of groin. Left Eagle claw out straight to north shoulder height.

Lift left foot into White Crane one-foot guard stance. Arms cross wrists at groin and then circle up-and-out to end in Crane-necks flightly to front of sides of temples. Elbows are bent.

Left hand goes to rt hip with grabbing motion. At the same time, Rt Crane's beak stabs north chest height, and left foot firemans' kick to north. (Note that the side that you kick with is the side that the grab BEGINS on. The subsequent Crane's Beak strike is with the other side.)

Little hop starting with left leg, as if you are stepping/jumping on the bent-over opponent. Torso and left toe turn northwest. Touch rt toe down briefly, then…

Outside-of-the-foot rt kick to downed opponent's head (or belly, or groin, or whatever). Pull foot back in. May touch toe down briefly if need be. Left hand is doing Black Crane ward at rt jaw.

Drop into deep lunge rt foot in front, left leg straight. Snappy knuckle-strike (like Monkey slep, only fisted) to downed opponent's head. Left hand still warding rt jaw.

Stand up in Black Crane high guard facing west.

Repeat drill on opposite side, OR….. Turn back to east with Black Crane arm switch.



My spirit misses kung fu. My body misses kung fu. My mind misses kung fu. My emotions have such painful associations with kung fu. I and kung fu are a moth circling a lit tiki torch. I am so bitter toward SK for several reasons, but one of the biggies is that he poisoned that well for me. I do so wish I had never laid eyes on that asshole.

Southern Mantis

The 70-80% level of technical excellence can be achieved relatively quickly; however, to attain the remaining 30% or 20% requires a disproportionate amount of time and effort. Tony Gummerson, "Teaching Martial Arts"





126.0

I'm relieved to not be gaining a lot of weight. Besides the "almost no exercise"thing, I have (as Georgette says) been "craving comfort food"- partly because I'm depressed and partly because it's really really cold.

JoE wanted to work on the first section of the tai chi long form again, so we did that for a while. Then Southern Mantis.

Notes:

After the first turn, the stance is a cat stance, but shifts into a front stance with the strike.

The first backfist- look at the target over the right shoulder, but do not turn the shoulders/torso. Torso remains facing south.

Just after the cat stance with curving-up topfist: as you skip forward with that circular punch, the left hand is doing a southern Mantis-handed clearing motion in front of your body. (This is *HARD*- it doesn't really seem to make kinetic sense- yet)

The low splitting motion just before the head grab- these are also southern Mantis hands.

Head grab and knee up: the reason I was having trouble getting my rt knee past my inturned left knee to do this knee strike is that when JoE does it, he pivots on the posting foot as the knee goes up, so that the toe is no longer turned in. While I had barely been able to squeak out the technique with my toe still turned in, I needed to stop and clarify that- because the next move has you turning to the left. If my toe had remained where it was, the next move would have rotated my left leg 360 degrees at the hip and busted the thing right off.

New part: after you smash the bad guy's head on your knee, turn to south in horse and chamber left hand at waist. Right hand describes a small counterclockwise circle and ends pressing toward the floor palm-down at groin.

Without stopping, bounce out of that strike into another small counterclockwise circle and Mantis-fist strike rt hand across your waist to the east. Torso does not turn- remain facing south.

Without stopping, bounce out of that strike and turn east in cat (left toe in front), rt forearm across chest and palm warding toward north just under left armpit. This had should be all the way past the body. As it snaps into place, left hand comes over it and strikes to east at neck level with poking southern Mantis-finger. This strike begins at centerline breastbone and the arm follows a looping corkscrew path, curving a bit to your rt and ending with the palm facing north. Very southern-Mantisy, it looks awesome when JoE does it- I am clumsy with it. I can see how it's SUPPOSED to be, though.

JoE is not happy with my flow in this form (a perpetual problem for me, especially in Mantis material). He doesn't like the pauses. He made me try to do it really fast, to get rid of the pauses.

We then did some Box form, at JoE's request. I was able to confidently answer all of his questions. I feel pretty good about most of my Dragon material. *He* looks clumsy in *this*. I couldn't criticize his motions (well, I could, and did, a few- but then he fixed them), but the flow needs a lot of work. He was pausing too much (ha ha... I'm totally serious!) It's good that we have different strengths, so that we can help each other learn.

We ended with a little sparring, slow-mo because I didn't feel like putting my contacts in. The slow-mo- with him- really points up 1)where I leave holes, and 2)how I let him tie up my arms (often getting one or both actually crossed over my centerline). I didn't let him take my back and knock me down to RNC me this time, although he did take me down once, and then perched on top of me and punched me in the head. I was able to mime ripping his testicles off, but eventually had to cry uncle and admit that although he may be neutered, I was dead. I wish my sweep skills were good enough that I woudn't get pinned with him on top like that all the time.

As usual, I had a hard time dragging ass out to do this this morning. My body was happy afterward, though.

Thursday

If even for the blink of an eye you can control two of the other guy’s limbs with one of yours, either with angle or timing or some sort of clinch, then the opponent is in grave danger. - Josh Waitzkin, “The Art Of Learning”




(Kitsune to CC and D)
Are we on for Thursday at 6?

(CC)
Looks like D will be here…I will be visiting a friend at a hospital but will try and be back in time for the tail end

(K to D)
Confirm/deny?

(D)
you really don't like to waste time with socially pleasant extraneous words do you!?!

confirm

(K)
Tigers like to just get to the Point. If not all Five of them.




127.0
Some evil person has been stocking the cookie jar in the communal kitchen with Halloween candy for the past couple of weeks.


Thursday FOD: Touch Bridge

JoE wanted to work on the Tai Chi long form, so we did that for a while. Then more Kiu Two, which again took the bulk of the time. He had a cool armbar app for the salute, of all things. JoE loves those armbars.

He wanted to work a Wing Chun drill of CC's, and we bumbled around trying to remember exactly how it went. Next time I see CC (if I ever do- geez that man is flaky about meeting... he's bailed again for tonight), I'll need to review that.

A little sparring- again not too great on my end, although once again I avoided most of his copious takedown attempts.

Last time I sparred him, though, I had let him GET MY BACK AND TAKE ME DOWN- **TWICE**... he did the same darn thing today (only once, though). I need to not let him do that again- I'm still not quite sure how it happened, so if he *does* get that on me again, I need to call a time-out and reconstruct exactly what he is doing and what I ought to be doing in order to stop him.

I did get front mount on him and hold it for quite some time, although he was doing a pretty good job defending his neck. He normally does not have any trouble tossing me off front mount (few people do), but today I prevented this by constantly shifting my weight around- sometimes sliding almost off into a side control, then back on again (while constantly attacking the throat). He was only able to get me off him in the end with a hair grab (OOOOOH how I hate those!!)





I asked D to work on the Green Dragon form- Plum Blossom Fist (who makes up these names???!? I wonder how many of these bizarre form names can be traced back to poor translation skills).

First arm-circle: make sure the back of the rt hand SLAPS, and pull left hand all the way to centerline.

Elbow strikes- fold arms more, so that elbows are overlapping

Second arm-circle: end with a snap.

Both arm-circle parts: note that these are cat stances and not Seven Stars. For some reason I keep wanting to do Seven Stars.

New part, after the 2nd arm-circle.....

Little hop to the right (south), Black Crane guard to north (Rt palm at left jaw, left palm outward at left thigh).

Left side kick north to knee level. Rechamber. Do not set foot down.

Bring both straight arms down, circle to your rt, then over head, As you give a little 180 degree hop to face west. Hands continue circle in a karate-chop motion to north (rt one on top and in front), continuing to your knees as you bend a little, facing west. Now arms circle around to your left, overhead, face north again and end in karate guard position facing north. Left hand is on top and in front, you are in a north-facing cat with rt toe in front. This entire arm-circling sequence is continuous and flowing.

Scissor step rt foot to west in front of left. High blocks to west, elbows leading. Left, then right.

End by pulling rt Mantis hook back to rt shoulder, step west with left foot and turn north in a high horse. left palm-up knfe hand strikes to north neck height. The power comes from the torque in the turn and Mantis-hook pull.

Now into the previously learned hop-and-turn-and-kneel section.


Those elbow circle-block things are going to need a lot more work- I am still a bit confused. I want to be doing low palm-heels as I pull out of each one, but apparently you don't.

We practiced the Kneeling-with-Leopard-fist guard section as well, and D keeps harping on me that my flow is not continuous enough (thus the energy is not recycling, and I'm chopping the power off of all the strikes). Also (as always) my shoulders (all of me, in fact, but especially my shoulders) are too tense. Part of this is a mental block- when I loosen up these big arm-circle things, it makes me feel that if I was actually hitting anyone, it would be like those chicken-flap hits that women who've had no self defense traning always do. I wish I could see CN do these- it would probably help a lot. Anyway, after he'd had me rep it about a bazillion times and I'd loosened up to where it felt distressingly flappy-armed, I watched him do it and said, "It looks almost like Monkey." He didn't seem to like that observation much, but it did. The two slappy strikes at the end of the two arm-circles at the beginning of the form also look Monkey-like. So I did the section as I would interpret Monkey doing it. D said it looked much better. Well okay then. Dragon + Monkey. There's one ugly deformed nuclear-fallout baby for ya. But I'll experiment with it.

That section- as well as the part with the Mantis hook- is confusing my brain because it's transitioning large vertical circling to large horizontal circling and back again. That seems Dragony, but my body and brain aren't assimilating it very well at the moment, so I don't think I've done anything like that in any of my other forms (Dragon or otherwise).

We did some sticky hands, played with the Wing Chun drill (we couldn't figure out out either... will have to ask CC).

D's going to be out of town for most of this month. He seems to want to bolt the rest of Hurricane Hands as soon as he gets back. I hope he's not planning to blow town for good before he teaches me the rest of Plum Blossom Fist. Unfortunately, I can't really hold the remainder of HH hostage, because D learns new form material about 10x faster than I do.

Saturday

In all athletic disciplines, it is the internal work that makes the physical mat time click, but it is easy to lose touch with this reality in the middle of the grind. - Josh Waitzkin, “The Art Of Learning”


Friday did not exist.
Saturday FOD: The Dance Of Life.

I'm ashamed to admit that I didn't meet my goal of getting to 2 BJJ classes this weekend. I just could not seem to rouse myself to do anything at all Thursday evening through Saturday afternoon.

I had to chuckle at the new posting on the Hyperbole and a Half site, about depression. I would like to have my depression form an impervious exoskeleton like Allie's. Unfortunately, my depression is not a steady state of uncaring nor an upward slope of recovery- my depression looks like an EKG readout. Whenever I have a few hours that feel almost bearable, and I think, "Hallelujia, the worst is over," or "Hey, I'm going to survive this," or some such, next thing I know I am plunging to new depths of the abyss. I have learned better than to ever flirt with the notion that it can't get worse- because there's *always* worse.... even when you feel certain that it can't possibly feel any worse.

I did drag myself over to CC's for class on saturday afternoon- although D ducked out, and CC ducked out himself after about half an hour. He set me to work doing Sil Lum Tao on the wooden dummy, so I did that, then some reps of the Green Dragon bits, then Hurricane Hands and HH In the Mirror, Five Animals and FA In the Mirror, Dance Of Life.

It looks like I might not be able to get into the aerial silk class for a while due to scheduling issues. I'm now trying for the acrobalance class.

Thursday

Players tend to get attached to fancy techniques and fail to recognize that subtle internalization and refinement is much more important than the quantity of what is learned…. Depth beats breadth any day of the week, because it opens a channel for the intangible, unconscious, creative components of our hidden potential. - Josh Waitzkin, “The Art Of Learning”



Sunday FOD: Lun Qi
Monday FOD: Cannon Fist
Tuesday FOD: 5 Points
Wednesday: nonexistant
Thursday FOD: Kiu Two


JoE and I got together to train on Thursday morning, and ended up spending almost all of it on Kiu Two. Mostly him doing Snake One, me doing Snake Two.

Note that during the "flurry-of-Snake-strikes bit: After the right high Snake Strike and the left low Snake strike, that right Snake needs to retract almost all the way and get down to your left elbow so that it is low enough- and far enough to the side- to intercept the next strike.

Do not hurry through it so much that you cheat or skip the bong sau.

Also- make sure to have range on the kick to the rear leg. I usually have to hop in a bit.

Next time we meet, we need to work on me doing the Snake One side and him doing Snake Two- also the Southern Mantis, which we did not get to at all today. Another (eventual) thing I would like to work on with him is Snake Versus Five Animals- since these two-person forms are really much better to work on when you actually have two people.

We did about 10 min of sparring at the end, and he smoked me. I am leaving way too many openings. Another thing I tend to do with him is to forget how well-rooted he is- he is always hooking legs and trying to throw me or take me down, and I can usually defend the first attempt, but sometimes leave myself overbalanced and vulnerable to his follow-up.

One more thing- remember the street name (Belmont)- I got a little lost again trying to find his apartment.

Thursday

We live in an attention-deficit culture. We are bombarded with more and more information… the constant supply of stimulus has the potential to turn us into addicts, always hungering for something new and prefabricated to keep us entertained. When nothing exciting is going on, we might get bored, distracted, separated from the moment. So we look for new entertainment…If caught in these rhythms, we are like current-bound surface fish, floating along a two-dimensional world without any sense for the gorgeous abyss below. - Josh Waitzkin, “The Art Of Learning”



Well, Pollyanna is dead. I made one final attempt to work out issues with SK, and got a pathetically inadequate response back. I have done all I can do to try to salvage this, but I can't fix it by myself, and he will not cooperate. So, it's official- I have quit SK's class and he is no longer my teacher- or my friend either. (I don't do Facebook, but I still made a digital-age ritual of it by putting his e-mail addy on my Twit-filter). We're never going to see or speak to each other again. That sucks, and I expect my mood will be roller-coastering all over the place for a fair while to come, and you'll still have to read my whining about it. But the bridge is now burned and the earth salted.... so hopefully closure will be able to come in time.


I was supposed to have class tonight with CC and D, but CC bailed. (I really hope that guy is not trying to set me up with D.... I wouldn't put it past him.)

We went over the bits of the Green Dragon form that we'd done previously. The part that starts kneeling with one Leopard Fist out, I have pretty well down. I need to remember that it starts with the right Leopard Fist palm towards me.

The part with the scissor step:

Begin facing north, rt Mantis hook at Rt shoulder and left hand palm up shoulder level stretched out to the west.

Hop into scissor, rt foot in back.

Unwind to kneel on left knee facing west, As you turn, rt elbow goes up to guard face. As you knee, left palm-heel strikes west at chest level. Rt arm is now at rt temple to ward.

Left hand pulls in to chest, rt hand comes down and left hand circles OVER TOP of it. Palm heel left hand to west again.

Left hand pulls back to rt jaw to ward. Rt forearm strikes forward.

(Note that the strike sequence is left, left, right)

Stand and turn torso to south, sliding into a lunge with rt leg straight. left forearm is at left temple to ward. Rt arm sweeps from rt to left and ends at left knee (palm facing east).


new part: the beginning.

Start facing north with rt Dragon hand sitting on thumb side of left fist, at left hip.

Little hop into cat stance (rt toe fwd) facing east. Both Dragon hands rotate clockwise all the way around, rt hand beginning at 12 o'clock and left hand beginning at 6 o'clock. When left hand gets to noon, being it down to rt jaw in Black Crane guard. Rt hand strikes east from chest in a palm-heel chest height.

Move weight forward so that you are in a front stance. Forearms fold across each other at chest with rt on bottom. strike with both elbows to east.

Skip forward a step to make another cat stance with rt toe in front. Both dragon arms rotate around again, unfolding (so they are going counterclockwise this time). End in a basic karate-style guard with rt hand on top.


After Green Dragon, we worked on Hurricane Hands, and I taught him up to the Dragon throw (but not the throw itself). Note to self that I need to make sure to practice that damn throw before I go back there. It's very difficult to correlate the arms and legs in relation to each other.

After that, we ran through Bung Bo Kuen several times.

D didn't want to spar. He obviously is avoiding sparring with me. I guess I hit too hard for him. Dang.

He reprimanded me about my stiff shoulders again, and also told me that my assignment was to do something fun this week. Argh.

This week

you don't stop fighting until the fight is over. You don't need to go down just because you have taken a few hits. As long as you believe you can keep going you will. If you do go down, you are still going to win because you are going to gnaw through his Achilles' tendon and bring him down to where you can rip his head off. -Greg Hamilton



Tuesday: FOD is Tiger Versus Crane.

Today I played with Frolic In the Mirror up to the "skipping Mantis" part.

When I began this "Mirror forms" project, I was viewing it as something that would keep me occupied in periods of not-getting-any-new-material for years to come. It is sobering to look at my forms list and realize that I can actually see the ceiling. After Frolic, Wood Monkey is really the only form that it makes decent sense to work off the opposite side.

I guess I could work the two two-person Snake forms- Kiu Two and Snake Versus Five- off the opposite side, but no one will ever be able to do them with me! All the other forms- including the Tai Chi forms- are encyclopedic enough that they are already doing all the techniques off both sides within the original form.

Wednesday: FOD is the White Crane Walking the Path fragment.

Thursday: The FOD is the Tai Chi short form.

Lunchtime BJJ at Gracie Bellevue. The thought of food was disgusting, but- remembering how exhausted I got and how poorly I performed after not eating before class- I made myself eat protein and carbs.

Armbar from mount drills (Miriam had us folding up the leg closest to the head to remount; this was new and sort of awkward for me), double-leg drills, some back-and-forth "pick your own takedown", positional training from front mount and from closed guard.

Still too tired to want to do open mat; but it didn't matter today since everyone scattered anyway.

Having a lot of trouble gearing up enough to make a decent effort. I just can't make myself give a crap about much of anything right now.


Kung fu over at CC's with CC and D. Mostly one- and two-step sparring. D is definitely assuming an assistant instructor role instead of fellow student.

Like CC, he complains if I hit even medium-soft.... it's so difficult for me to remember to go that light after five years of going medium-hard in SK's class. Even when I start out being really light and careful, as soon as we speed up a bit, I forget. I got reprimanded numerous times. Sigh.

They want me to try to go for a more varied range of targets; as I tend to stick mostly to head and neck. Again, old habits die hard. Especially when the opponents are a lot bigger and have thick torsos, I just have a hard time feeling confident with rib attacks and such. (Without thinking, I protested, "But *that's* the soft part!" indicating D's head. Oops.)

Also caught myself referring to SK as "my teacher" and that group as "we" a few times, even though I have a terrible dread that neither of those will ever be true again.

Sunday/Monday

Sunday:

The FOD is Kiu Two.

A few reps of Kiu Two, a few reps of Angry Snake (again, with a pen instead of a dao), all the mirror forms in a string. Touch Bridge seems as good as the others now. I was able to do that tricky arm spin in Five Points, by cueing myself to remember the start position a couple of moves beforehand.

Many reps of the Mirror forms in progress, Tiger Versus Crane and Black Crane 1. TvC: That spinning flying kick, starting to come along a bit. I added a couple of the next techniques…. If I wait till I can do the kick to move on, I'll never get this one done. Black Crane: I went ahead and worked my way all the way through it, since it is a very short form. The hairy part is the reap at the end- another spot where all four limbs are doing different things at once. It's coming, though.


Monday:

The FOD is Little Red Dragon.

Once again I am drafted to work a stretch of midnight shifts to cover for so-and-so who continually calls in sick. The boss has confirmed (confidentially to me) today that she is fixin' to let this person go. If I took this position, it would mean mostly midnight shifts (my favored shift) from now on, much less bouncing from shift to shift at all hours, a more regular/predictable/plannable schedule, and- whoee- health insurance. It also starts at 9:30pm. If I return to SK's class, I can't possibly get to work on Thursdays and Sundays till 11pm. I told the boss that I would only apply for the position if there was a way that I could get cleared to come in late on those two days. The logical part of my brain is asking me, "What are you smoking, woman???!?? You're a shoo-in for this job, but you could get passed over because of this clause. And you don't know if you will ever be able to return to that class anyway." Yet I just can't seem to burn that bridge. (If SK ever speaks to me again, maybe he'll be reassured to hear that I'm compromising my career on the hope/assumption that I'm going to be back in class at some point.)

Stretches of midnight shifts do make it very challenging to get to any BJJ. Yet on my days off, I ought to be able to do two classes per day- as long as I'm not too wiped out. Things are going to be hard for a few months- till someone gets hired and trained to fill whichever schedule hole remains. In the meantime, I will be doing the lion's share of both jobs. It looks like this entire year (beginning with my busted finger, and finishing with burning the work candle at both ends)is just panning out to be a poor year for training, on all fronts.

Today I worked on Little Red Dragon, all the Mirror forms in a string again (including Touch Bridge, which is as good as any of the others, and Black Crane 1, which just needs a few more reps to be equally as good. Several reps of the tricky reap at the end of BC1, which is really the only challenging part. More Tiger Versus Crane: mostly the spinning flying kick, and starting to work into the two final kick sequences after that. The Tiger sequence- on the mirror side- goes Left kick first, then right, and left back kick at the end. The footwork is a little tricky- if you don't have correct foot in front, your legs are essentially braiding when you try to do the kicks. The other kick sequence is going to be fairly easy to memorize, I just need a little practice doing the flying kicks on the less familiar side.

Played with the opening to Hurricane Hands In the Mirror. It was either going to be that one or Frolic Of the Five Animals.

Saturday

Nothing says, "Please don't rape me." like multiple jacketed hollowpoints. -John Fogh




The FOD is Leopard Fist.

I will not be going to Kung fu today. I guess I should stop writing that, since it is now the norm instead of the exception. Despite my initial resolve to keep my mouth shut and my head down for a while, I lasted a whole two days before I e-mailed SK Saturday morning and apologized for distressing him with my absence- explaining that I'd truly thought it was not impacting anyone besides me. Haven't heard back from him. Sigh. He's really pissed at me. I am really unhappy.

I e-mailed CC and asked for a lesson. We're supposed to meet on Thursday evening (when I will yet again *not* be going to SK's class). Sigh. It's good to be able to work with CC- who will be, if I do not return to SK's class- my only option for continuing to study Kung Fu. But every time I work with him, it hits home how much better SK's teaching style melds with my learning style. Not to mention CC is much less accessible. That will burn more acutely now.

Today, besides Leopard Fist as the FOD, I did all the mirror forms in a string. It is *finally* starting to stick in my head which way I need to open up Leopard Three in order to go which direction. I need to keep my brain focussed on the BOTTOM hand, because that is the one I'm going to strike to the inside with next. As long as I focus on that, it is obvious which way I'll be turning after that. The mind is so funny sometimes, the things it will remember and the things it won't.

Need to rep the arm-spin thing from Five Points, just that, about a million times. Everything else in the mirror version of 5 Points is going pretty well, but that one thing always stymies me. The left hand needs to fly up to about 11 o'clock and circle COUNTERCLOCKWISE from there.

A couple reps of Angry Snake, with a pen in place of a sword. Many reps of the opening moves of Tiger Versus Crane In the Mirror. I worked with some of the next techniques for that one. That centrifugal jumping spinning kick that always gives me so much trouble- not the kick, but the way the arms go- is even worse on the opposite side! Maybe I will gain some clarity working with it from the other side.

I also practiced the opening moves of Black Crane 1 In the Mirror- up to "Crane Serves Drinks" (no, that's not the real name of the technique, but that's what it looks like).

My injured knee doesn't seem too bad; it's probably a good thing I couldn't get to any BJJ this weekend, giving it a chance to heal up.

I read on SIDE CONTROL's blog that Lindsey got his black belt. I can't wait to see him and congratulate him.

Thursday and Friday

An armed man will kill an unarmed man with monotonous regularity.
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Thursday:

Today's FOD is Frolic Of the Five Animals.

I didn't go to Kung Fu today.

Despite having seemed understanding at first, SK was apparently more upset with me about that than he let on. This morning he text-bombed me and just ripped me up one side and down the other. Like, to the extent that I don't know if he'll ever speak to me again in any context. He accused me of not considering my training important- which feels like a blade in the gut. That's just deliberately trying to be hurtful- he knows that's bull. He also suggested that he may ask CN to take over teaching due to his guilty feelings over his role in my hiatus.

I had never intended this to be a permanent hiatus, I just needed a break- a few weeks maybe, until a couple of interpersonal issues got cleared up and some raw emotions got decently scabbed over- but he was steamed up enough to sock me with several additional bits of heretofore unknown (to me) information that- unless he was exaggerating for effect- means the situation is even worse than I thought, and may well be unfixable.

What a clusterfuck this has become. I wonder if he was just having a really bad morning, and he'll be more rational after a few days..... or if this was a peep behind the filters, into what's truly going on in his mind. I wonder if I'm never going to hear from him again. I did say, "Take some time to think" before his textual version of stomping out and slamming the door. It would be my preference for none of us to burn any bridges here.

I was distraught enough about this that I could not go to BJJ today. It might have been a good distraction, but I think the first time someone swept me, I would have burst into hysterical tears- which behavior isn't really fair of me to inflict on my teammates.

Crap. :(

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Friday: 123.5.... getting too thin. I recently went on a salad kick, but I was also putting some dressing on it (many salad dressings have more calories than hot fudge sauce, didja know that?!), and some breaded chicken bits, and too much cheese, so I wasn't expecting a weight dip.

Today's FOD is Sil Lum Tao.

Lunchtime BJJ at Gracie Seattle. Lots of warmups, a hip throw (I got to drill with Vince, who obviously knew what he was doing, so he helped me out), then King of the Hill from various start positions. I actually won two of these, which almost never happens. Tweaked my right knee somehow, though. I thought I might have to sit out after that, but I walked it off. I could see the throbbing, jumping muscle right through the thick gi pants, though. We'll see what that feels like in the morning.

The final round found me in bottom half guard with a mammoth white belt crushing me. We must have thrashed there for four minutes. Yes, Kintanon, I remembered my homework about ceasing just lying under there, but I squirmed and wiggled and he was just lying on me with all his weight- I could *NOT* get out. He couldn't get out of the half-guard either, though. Finally the timer sounded.

Got in line to bow out- my heart was pounding so hard, and my stomach was rolling- I had to duck out of the line and run to the bathroom because I thought I was going to throw up. I didn't, but I had to lie there face-down on the tile beside the toilet for a time.

That small-size purple belt invited me to roll, and gave me some advice about tightening up subs before starting to move the main part of the body to finish them.
--------------------
Went to the (non-MA) gym and did formwork. All the mirror forms with their regular-side counterparts (except for Leopard 3- I forgot that one). Couple of bobbles, but mostly looking good. I'm happy with how Five Points In the Mirror is coming along. Touch Bridge In the Mirror as well. Many reps of the opening of Tiger Versus Crane In the Mirror- I'm up to the first set of double Tiger claws, but the second technique of the form (which involves a turn as well as doing something radically different with each limb at once) is a bugger. Sil Lum Tao (the FOD). Snake Versus Five Animals, Kiu Two.

I do so much "micro-fu" formwork in my tiny living room, and at my tiny workspace in the middle of the night, that it was novel to have enough room to do everything (including the jumps and rolls and kicks) and not have to pause and back up several times during each form. It was also really nice to have the mirror wall to work with.

-------------------

Evening no-gi at Sleeper. I was a little late (stuck in traffic) and missed half the warmups.

A few guard passes from various starting positions utilizing a cradle over the neck and thigh. I was drilling with Alecia, and noticing my ever-shrinking weight against her solid twenty-ish pounds heavier and the fact that every once of it is muscle. She made a couple of comments over the course of the night about me putting up more of a fight than before.

Some positional training from various guard positions, then a few free rolls. I got to work with Alecia, Eric, George, and Cindy.

I asked Cindy for some options for when I'm on my back and she's standing. No matter what I try to do, she spins to the outside and sits on me. She does this to me multiple times every time I work with her. She showed me that I need to close up, and/or hook the leg that she's trying to bring around. I have no doubt she'll just come up with another way to sit one me, but at least it'll be a DIFFERENT one.

Yes, I tried to get out from bottom half-guard again, but this time I was severely handicapped my my sore knee- which is now swollen and painful. I sat out the last roll or two because it was getting worse.

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.

This is the weird side, right?

To achieve an elite standard of personal performance usually requires a fair amount of natural ability, motivation and commitment. It does not follow that an elite martial artist also has the ability to pass those skills on to others at all levels. IN fact, the opposite is usually true. To become an elite performer usually means that the student has natural ability and therefore learns skills quickly and easily. A great degree of self-motivation and commitment is also required and such performers generally find little difficulty in applying themselves to the rigors of training, grading and competition. Since very few students achieve such high levels of performance, too often a coach does not understand the needs of these "lesser mortals" who are in fact the majority. When one looks at specific groups such as junior, female, male, elderly, competitive, aggressive, shy, introverted, or combinations of these, many martial arts coaches in the past have been- to say the least- underprepared. Tony Gummerson, "Teaching Martial Arts"



Today's FOD is the Chen Dao form. I went back and corrected an additional small error that I knew was in the transcription.

I did get a walk today, albeit not a particularly strenuous one. I skipped BJJ this morning, partly just because I was being lazy and partly because I assumed I'd be going to BJJ tonight. Then I found out that the reason I have been skipping Kung Fu was not going to apply to tonight's class, so I could go. Happy I was. I appreciate it even more now that access is limited.

Starting with some hand strike drills, specifying that we start with a defensive move followed up by an offensive one.

Then we were asked to come up with a short opening sequence that we might use for a first attack. We spend a lot of time practicing things that are defensive (first) and assuming the other guy is making the first attack, so this was a little different mindset.

I chose a Wing Chun guard with the left hand on top. My idea was that I'd hope the guy would be watching my top hand. My right (dominant) hand Mantis-gripped his right wrist while I stepped in, turned his corner, Yanked him forward and downward with the Mantis grip, and my left hand circled UNDER our joined arms to palm-heel him the side ribs. I liked it. If I was trying to surprise a random person, I would use Mantis- because it's just WEIRD. Few people are going to expect you to grab them and pull them into your strike. Once I tunred the corner, he couldn't get me with his other hand. The palm-heel was also quite hidden from view, and I liked the way it felt circling down and under- very natural, and I got good power on the strike.

It was amusing/interesting to see that- working independantly and in pairs- everyone in the class had chosen slightly different variations of the same thing: Bridge one arm, turn the corner on the same side, and strike.

Individual forms. I ran through all my mirror forms (with the exception of Five Points, which is still too rough). Then I did each form normally, followed immediately by its mirror counterpart. I bobbled a few things, just because my brain was a bit confused by having to switch gears like that.

Then I worked on Five Points In the Mirror. I haven't worked on it in a long time, and it was very rough at the beginning. Once I got back in the groove, though, it came a bit easier.

I'm not sure why this one snarls my mind so badly- maybe just all the directional changes. I keep having to go back and verify and reverify that I'm turning in the correct directions. Then I have to verify and reverify that I am truly doing the mirror version, and not simply the same techniques on the same side just facing a different direction.

If it's not just all the directional changes that are mixing me up, it may be the fact that- ironically- the material is *TOO* intimately familiar. The other forms, I just have to keep in mind that I'm doing a given technique on "the weird side"... the Tiger stuff, it feels right on both sides, so I keep thinking, "Wait... is this *really* the "weird side?""

I got about three quarters through and thought, "Crap, this is giving me a migraine!" So I just went back and repped the first bit several times over.

After that, I did a couple reps each of Kiu Two and Snake Versus Five Animals. Those two are full of strike sequences that are complex enough that they just really need a lot of frequent reps to stay solid. I think I should probably put an extra stone or two in the FOD bowl for each of those.

A few additional reps of the three trickiest spots in Bung Bo Mirror. Then I was out of time.

I told SK that I am almost finished with all my transcriptions, and he wanted to know what I am going to work on NEXT. I still haven't told him about the Mirror Forms, and I don't want to yet- so I just told him I have a top-secret project!

Bitch-slap

As a warrior, you are given weapons very few people possess. The self-confidence of a wild animal, a spirit that can’t be broken, the tranquility of one whose roots are too deep to be disturbed by minor events. If you don’t change the world, certainly no one else will.
Daniele Bolelli, On The Warrior’s Path


I spent half the night doing Bung Bo Kuen in my sleep, and it wasn't even the FOD.


Today's FOD is Snake Versus Five Animals.


Thursday Kung Fu.

Hand strike drills. SK came over to hold his arm up for me to strike at during the Tiger straight punches, then took a step backward and I almost fell on my face. Umm, yeah, I see that I am overbalancing forward a bit too much.

Walking line kick drills: box kicks, crescents, flying crescents.

Next, I was to be the punching dummy for RM to practice the first three Black Crane line drills.

After that, Black Crane drill 5 with partners, about a zillion times. Me and Nemesis and MM, then me and Nemesis and RM.

Short spar with MM. He has been working a lot of Wing Chun, and it shows... there was always an elbow (followed by a backfist) rolling over into my face. He's well above my skill level, but I got a few things on him. Then it went to the ground, where I didn't fare very well due to not having the skills yet to compensate for the vast strength differential. I managed to bitch-slap him hard across the face once, which was so funny (to me, to the onlookers, and to him as well) that I got in three more of those over the course of the spar.

Individual forms. I worked on the FOD (Snake Versus Five) and also the other 2-person Snake form, Kiu Two. I can see the influence of Hurricane Hands on both.

Got some more done on the Tai Chi long form transcription.

Signed up for the tournament, an hour before registration closed. I don't really feel like doing it, and ironically that's why I decided to do it. I just have so many deeply absorbing personal problems right now that there is an almost total absence of competition anxiety. It might come roaring back on the day of... but for now, it's like, "Geez, why did this fluff ever seem important enough to get wound up over?" It may be interesting to see what happens- for good or ill- if that mindset holds during the competition.

Sunday evening

When you're a kid, things are pretty simple. Then everything gets very complicated. At some point, it goes back to simple. Or, rather, it doesn't stop being complicated- it's just that you realize that the simple parts are all that matter. -Kitsune



Sunday kung fu, with CN teaching and MM in town.

We started with some reps of the Mantis bo form, then we worked on Angry Snake on our own while CN taught MM the bo form. I repped all three dao forms a few times, then moved on to some Box Form, Little Red Dragon, Little Red Dragon In the Mirror (mostly okay, there are a couple of techniques I tend to be a little hesitant on), and Lun Qi.

CN came over and asked to see my Snake (two reps) and had *no* improvement points to suggest. Zow. He did tell me about an alternate move for the kneeling step, but said the one I was doing is fine- he just wanted me to know that the other existed, in case anyone else expected me to perform it the other way.

Then some Box Form. MM and JoE do not know the form, so they learned the first bit and practiced it while Nemesis and I (who know the form) worked some apps. Noticing that he tends to find armlock apps in almost everything.... JoE is even more apt to that (he was doing it while I was working with him on Thursday), and I rarely seem to see the armlocks till someone points them out to me. I do tend to see the apps that involve getting really close and clasping arms and other parts of the bad guy against my body.

Sunday

125

Back down from a dizzying 128, trying to get my diet back on track.

Today's FOD: Long Qi..... all the stones went back in the cup yesterday, starting a new cycle- with the Leopard At Dawn fragment.

Holy crap. I have been working my posterior off and now have ALL BUT ONE of my Shaolin forms (Hurricane Hands) transcribed. HH is about 1/3 done. I still have three Tai Chi forms to do… the three really long-ass ones….

The transcriptions are now in order of style and including most of my stray notes in the text instead of tagged onto the ends of the pages.