Sunshine Sunday

Today Heng Zhou taught class. We were about 25 strong including quite a few faces I hadn't seen in a while, so it was energizing. Zhou, who's always great at mixing it up, did a neat twist on basics before we got in line to practice forms. He had us all line up in two lines as if we were going to drill basics again, so people got in line according to how fast they normally go, but then he reversed us and had the rear of the line lead as we did a quick set of some basics (so all of a sudden, I was 3rd!). He wanted those usually in the back of the line to get a feel for the kind of chi the front of the line has to generate. By the same token, I hope those who are usually up front gained a little perspective (or reminder) of what it's like to train at the end of the line, where sometimes one has to deal with crowding.

After that exercise and after we practiced forms for a bit, Zhou then broke us up into groups according to how far we had progressed in the various forms and made sure a lot of us learned a bit more, so I'm happy to report I got a little further in erluquan. Yay!

And, of course, at the end of class, Zhou engaged us in his signature madcap exercises including my personal demon, alligator jumps (pushups) across the floor. Whenever we do them, I remember how my very first day training way back when, Zhou taught, and I couldn't do more than one push forward, but now I can go the full length of the carpet, albeit slowly. I know I have gotten stronger as a result of training, and am proud of the results.

I don't usually come on Sundays because I usually like to get training out of the way on Saturday so I can loaf around the rest of the weekend, but I'm glad I got my butt out of bed this morning!