Magic mirror, tell me today. Did all my friends have fun at play?

Yesterday I was a bit of a mess. I was out late on Wednesday and had to pack my kung fu bag hastily in the morning, so I forgot my feiyues for the first time ever! Also, I wanted to finish up a report at work before I left the office, resulting in me leaving 5 minutes later than I normally do. Rush rush rush!

Class was smaller, probably due to it being a Thursday before a long weekend. There were 29 of us, and quite a few of the usual suspects did not show. Heng Ch'ieh's sister, Heng Chu aka Aubrey, was in town. She filmed us while we were training, which at first was slightly distracting, but it also encouraged me to focus better and push myself harder lest I get captured on film training sleepy style!

I did wall stretch with Shi (Charlotte) and a new student, Taylor, who wears a green bandana over her hair. On Tuesday, Niederwelt and I stretched with another new student, Lani, who is very tall and slender with long dark straight hair and many silver rings. Stretching with different people is a nice opportunity to meet others; it also serves as a nice reminder of how far we have come in terms of training and stretching.

During forms, Shifu observed me from the other end of the carpet working on Erluquan and gave me some extra love. I practiced over and over again the last bit that Han taught me recently as Shifu yelled at me things I should have been doing with my hands and head. Argh! Train harder!

For dinner, we got together a nice big crew, many of whom had never joined us before. Do you remember the kids' show Romper Room when Miss Molly would call out names of kids while looking through her magic mirror? I saw Jaka and John Sid and Colleen, Charlotte and Hannah and Billy, Richu and Leo and George, Mike J. and Lada and Yuri (another new student, sort of -- she's Korean and trained for a few months a long time ago till she broke her ankle outside of class) -- a whole smorgasbord of folks! Good times...

Congrats, Billy!

Our classmate Billy and his band, The Blue Vipers of Brooklyn, won the Subway Idol competition on Fox's The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet today! Yay!!!

So beautiful!

Everybody's got a little light under the sun*

Last night's class for me was tough! During ceshoufan I got kicked in the leg. And as Quantou led the line during waibaitui and I was anchoring the end, we nicked each other in passing. All banging aside, I was surprised that it was my second class in a row that Shifu didn't pick on me for anything specific. I guess being sent to Kung Fu Kindergarten every once in a while can be a good thing.

Curiously enough, after Shifu finished working with the side, he came over and sent most of the people practicing their forms to work with Chris Erk aka Moneyfoot on tenkong fanyao, leaving just a mere handful of us to continue with forms. So Mike J., Hannah R., Patricia, George, Jaka and I had the entire half by the mirrors to ourselves, while the rest of the class (at least 30-something) were congregated on the other half of the carpet doing their various lessons. For a while, it was non-stop forms action for the six of us, which was fun, but EXHAUSTING!

After a while, Shifu sensed that I was losing altitude, so he took pity on me and told me to jump in with the tengkong fanyao bunch for the last ten minutes of class. I appreciated the "breather" and also the opportunity to work with Moneyfoot, who is a brilliant leaper and a good teacher. He reminded us never to look at the ground and to keep our heads up. In telling us to pop our hips, he said to imagine we had flashlights attached to the front of our pelvises, and that they should be shining up to the ceiling when we pop.

By the time we sat down at Thai Son for a post-training meal, I actually felt beat and kinda woozy, but definitely in that satisfied happy way that a good bowl of soup can remedy. And it was superfantastiche to catch up with Heng Zu, whom I hadn't seen in ages!

* The post title is a lyric from "Flash Light" by Parliament. I am going to have this song running in my head everytime I attempt tenkong fanyao from now on...

Shaolin Skin Care

We sweat buckets in making our bodies and minds more beautiful, which is so awesome, but who wants all that beauty marred by dry or greasy skin, or even, *gasp!* a big ole zit? Just like we've had to change the way we eat before class so we don't urp it up at Temple, I've found myself needing a more disciplined skin care regime. This is especially crucial because we often go out for some fun times after class, so it is usually more than a few hours before I am able to wash my face properly, which is the perfect recipe for PIZZA FACE!

A few weeks ago, after class I walked around town with Heng Ji and her friend Yvette who has lovely skin. We were in Kiehl's in the East Village where Yvette recommended that I use Tea Tree Oil Toner as an easy post-training cleanup for my combo skin. So I bought a smaller bottle and put it in my kung fu bag with some cotton pads and have been applying it to my face after I get out of my stinky uniform in the changing room. I hope this stuff helps!

Similarly, on Saturday, for cleaning meditation after class, I helped Heng Mo and her sister Ashley (who was in town visiting and did a trial class, yay!) clean the turtle tank and the turtles themselves. We applied to the little guys this cream called VitaShell, which serves as a skin and shell conditioner. According to the product website, VitaShell "combines moisturizers, conditioners and proteins in a unique, deep penetrating cream that revitalizes dry, brittle or cracked shells and skin." I looked more closely at the label and found many ingredients that are common to human skin care products. How cool is that? Apparently we all need to take care of our shells!