Attention!

Last night, after a string of non-stop humidity-filled days, the temperature in Temple was, dare I say it, almost tolerable, when I arrived with a few minutes to spare. I changed quickly and spotted some people I hadn't seen at training in a while, which energized me.

I seemed to be cruising along (well, not feeling like I was gonna pass out) until Shifu barked at me to move to the other side, to even out the line. It jolted me into tengkong fanyao, and I tried to be sharper.

Then, when we got into lines to do yiluquan, I started out at the front line at the end, and thought there weren't enough people at the back, so I made a move to fill in, but Shifu again yelled at me to stay where I was and demanded to know where I was going. He said I was training sleepy style.

He might have called my name again at some point during class but I lost track.

It had been a while since Shifu yelled at me for something like this -- not for poor execution of any particular basic or movement, but rather, for something as essential as paying attention. We must listen with Chi!

At first it surprised me to hear him directing his words at me, but in the end, it resulted in me being more careful with how I conducted myself for the remainder of class. When Shifu is paying attention, I end up paying more attention.

Mystery....

Last night I finally solved a mystery. Lately, every time I've finished what I know of erluquan the toes on my right foot have ached like I jammed all of them at once. I never notice myself doing anything to them during the form, but I've ended up with a little limp as I go back to the line. Running through it in my head I couldn't figure out what move I was doing that would jam up all the toes only on my right side. Whenever I was doing the form I would forget to try and figure it out, my mind consumed with trying to remember all the things Sifu has told me to do. Last night though, my toes were so sore they reminded me to solve this mystery once and for all. I thought, maybe something to do with the sweep? I don't quite know how.... maybe from jumping into the pubu? But I never had that problem before... I went through the form step by step and then -- I couldn't believe it. It was the xiebu stance right before the sidekick. Possibly the least demanding part of the form that I know thus far. And I've done xiebus forever; how could this be? But there was no doubt about it. Apparently, when I go down into the stance I am slamming my right foot really hard into the ground, causing the ache in my poor, abused phalanges...

The more I thought about it the more it made sense, because that's the point in the form when my legs start to feel a little tired and I'm not as controlled as I should be. Mystery solved! At least partway. Now, how to prevent continuing to hurt myself? I've had this problem before, overzealous moves causing me injury. Slapping my foot too hard during kicks, stomping too hard during pubu chuanzhang.... But I've gotten control over these things in the end. This is slightly different since it's a result of being tired more than being too exuberant, but the same rules apply: I need to be more controlled, pay more attention to what I'm doing, and of course train harder!

Breaking in!

No, I'm not the victim of a home invasion; I'm talking about my new feyiues. But we here at KFDU like puns. And for how tough it is to break in a new pair of kicks, it feels like trying to break down a door. My new shoes are black (yes I'm just that cool) and they bring me great joy, but I miss doing the sweep in my super slick shoes....

Maybe there's some way to wear down the treads with something... back in GA the trucker dudes would break in new hats by rolling them up and stuffing them in a glass of water for a few days. Get that authentic, worn down, stuffed-in-a-glass-of-water look I guess... And the hippie kids would break in their hacky sacks (remember those?) by running over them with their cars several times. So I have faith there must be a way to accelerate the breaking in of my shoes.

On the other hand, it was a lot easier to get out of straddle stretch with a little friction on my feet. So maybe I'll just let nature (the nature of my shoes anyway) take its course. I'm sure I'll sweep away the tread in no time. Or five kick it away... last night I learned erluquan up to the five kicks, so it's only a matter of time. New shoes = good luck?

The Green Monster

F the Green Monster. I'm not talking about Fenway Park's Green Monster, as shown above, but the one that rears its ugly head whenever we have a class and there's an itty bitty number of attendees. As Hannah already mentioned, only twenty people trained on Sunday, and hardly any senior students, which made the carpet oh-so-inviting. Yes, I'm talking about that Green Monster, the carpet which seems endless and forever sometimes, especially when you're tired, especially when it's a warm summer day, especially...oh, whatever!

It is clearly a mental game -- the size of the carpet in actuality remains constant, but when our numbers are reduced, the challenge of filling the carpet with our chi-osity seems rather daunting. We are physically capable, but mentally, it can be a struggle, so we must push ourselves, as Quantou once wrote.

Today, Shifu was peeved with our chi in class during basics because people were stopping about midway, so he made us stop and walk around the columns so we could rev up our chi and attack the carpet better. Unfortunately, some people didn't quite get it and continued to stop midway when we resumed, so we had to walk the walk again. Oy.

During forms, I tried to approach the intimidating vastness of the Green Monster by seeing it in a different light. Usually, I do chuji quantao followed by yiluquan followed by what I know of erluquan over and over again -- lather, rinse, repeat -- and oftentimes, squeezing in erluquan can be tough whenever the carpet is full since it takes up a lot of space in both directions.

Today, however, since so few people were practicing forms -- I think as low as ten at one point -- I saw it as an opportunity to go nuts and do erluquan as many times as possible, which was great because I've been dying to get the sweep kick going smoothly. I think I did erluquan as many as five times in a row before I busted out the chuji quantao again. I need to break in my new feiyues! Each time I erluquan-ed it, and practiced the sweep kick three times in a row, I felt happier and happier knocking it out of the ballpark. And I think I did all right....

So, yeah, F the Green Monster (and F the Sox, while we're at it)!

The challenge....

Small classes on Sunday aren't unusual, but today, when I realized we were going to max out at 20 students, I had a bit of a panic. My mom was here to watch and I wanted to be as full of chi as possible, not gasping in short short lines. I know we should try our hardest every day, and I do, but today I tried my extra-hardest. Having my mom there was great inspiration to keep going even when ceshoufans made me crazy dizzy. I've said it before and I said it again, this just shows just how much of training is mental.

Also interesting, in addition to the class being small, there were not a lot of old-school people training today. It's always strange when I feel like part of the older half of the class, but today it was even more pronounced. These things got me to thinking about how much I've learned and how much there is left to learn and so on. I know, I know, how quickly we get through forms isn't important, but I don't want to feel as though the reason I'm not getting through them is because I'm letting my mind keep me from training as hard/as much as possible. So I've made a little bet with myself to train every possible class (for me that's 4 times a week plus holidays) between now and testing in October. If I win (...against myself....) then I will get..something. The validation of having done it. naturally... aaaand something shiny, like gold feiyues... or maybe a leg stretcher... or LeCreuset cooking pans.... mmm yeah... Nothing like a little personal challenge to break down a mental wall...

That's the gauntlet... that I threw down at myself.... yeaaahhh....