Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Room to Breathe - On the Side

I was on the wider side of the carpet yesterday during the basics. I intentionally picked that side because I didn't like the dry hot air blowing from the heater above the changing room. It was wide and comfortable at the beginning. Towards the end when a few people got sent to the side, things got a little tighter.

I got sent to the side once when we first moved to the new temple. It was almost impossible (for me) to do tenkongfanyao in that space. So this time - I tried to give them space. The problem was that the space that was left in the middle got so narrow I could do only 2 or 3 moves and I would run out of space.

So I would like to ask anybody who happens to read this and trains on the wider side of the carpet next time to turn the line a little sooner - to be mindful of people training on the side while waiting for our turn in the line.

And for the people in front of the line - please be aware that the space gets narrower - if you can, please move a little bit toward the middle - try not rush people in the back of the line or yell at us to move to the side - because there's not much space on the side...

8 comments:

  1. Yeah, it's a hard choice. Lately, I've been going on the skinny side by the mirrors because I don't want to get cramped between the fast people and the beginners' line, but that heat blowing on our heads really sucks!

    I hope more people read your entry so they can consider where they end up standing and hopefully will be mindful of getting in the way, so we can all train as awesomely as possible!

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  2. If it makes you feel any better, 90% of the time it was impossible to do tenkongfanyao in the back in the old space. Well, as I learned, it was possible, but you ended up kicking training equipment, other students, etc.

    And don't feel shy about grabbing people and moving them to the correct space, even if they've been training longer than you have! You have something to teach them, too.

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  3. Hope it wasn't me! :) It's tricky for me to keep going to the end of the carpet since there are two lines that I have to be aware of.

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  4. yea we didn't used to do that 'people in the back move to the side thing'...maybe a year or so that started...but then again i have no concept of time as to when things happened at the temple

    but yea i don't like it myself, i think people should have time to finish their stuff

    is the 'back' still the far side of the carpet or is it the wood floor now?

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  5. De, the 'back' is the far side of the carpet away from the mirrors. It gets crowded since both the people that were sent to the back as well as people that weren't trains on the same side. There's even less room for people that were sent to the 'back'.

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  6. This clearly calls for a stick-figure illustration!

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  7. ellen in our art department is working on the illustration

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