This and that...

I have shin splints... I also, somehow, have forearm splints.... that's a new one. I'm going through one of those cycles after not being sore for a few weeks to working through a brand new set of aches and pains...but I love it because it means I'm learning something new and hence building new muscles that will make me mighty, like Mighty Mouse. 'Course, I'd feel a little more confident about that theory if Sifu didn't yell at me three times today...... Still, embrace the pain!

Also, during the ol' 5 kicks, I think I may have gotten my first pang of the infamous but heretofore un-experienced shaolin butt sword. I guess it was only a matter of time.... Maybe it was just leftover from doing 7 rounds of caijiao at the beginning of class. I just hope it's not here to stay.

One other note, my middle splits are slowly getting lower, but I usually don't like to get a pull until the third round. Unfortunately, I feel as though stretching time has gotten shorter, because I don't always make it to the third round before Sifu says, "Let's go!" Sometimes I used to get to a fourth round, even when there were four people in the group, and then go do other stretches. Now, with only three people in the stretch, each of us still doesn't always get to go three times. Are we taking longer or does stretching seem shorter to anyone else?

Here's hoping Sunday's class is full of chi, my inexplicable forearm splints are gone, plenty of stretch time, and Sifu doesn't yell at me. Or glower at me. I feel like kfk is in my near future......

Oy...

Please never let me have a class like last night's again. Let it be behind me so I can look forward...

Learn Chinese -- Feiyue!

So, like, yoooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Inspired by Rob's recent acquisition of navy blue shaolin kicks (and needing a distraction whilst at work), I decided to take a gander at the Feiyue website (European version only, malheursement), and noticed this:

Seeing the pronunciation in the braces, it then occurred to me that the word 'Feiyue' is actually pinyin for Chinese characters. I consulted with our resident Chinese expert, Heng De, and he believes that the characters are 飞跃 (simplified; 飛躍 - traditional). He sent me to this online dictionary so I could confirm how it should be pronounced (1st line).

So it turns out, the proper pronunciation of Feiyue, is not fay yoo (or fay view, as some of us think it's a 'v' instead of a 'y'), but more like, fay yweh (much like Heng Yue's name)!

Oh yeahhhhhhhhhhhhh, taking dork to a whole new level!

Update (8/19): I just consulted with my parents, and both believe that the second character above (躍) is pronounced more like yao, and that the actual Chinese characters for feiyue is more probably the ones found on the second line of the dictionary entry linked above (飞越 - simplified; 飛越 - traditional).

Sweatology

Here are interesting articles in Tuesday's New York Times on sweating and the composition of sweat.

In keeping up with the spirit of posting wacky throwback music videos on this blog, I tried just now, but my work computer is doing funky things to the embed code. I'll have to update later. CHI!

Update: Here's what y'all been waiting for!

Me, Myself and I

For those of you who actually read this blog, you might have realized that my fellow dork Hannah and I have been pretty much neck and neck in terms of progressing through erluquan, and it's been a blast supporting each other for each little bit. I love the way during forms practice how we cheer each other on, especially for the dreaded sweep.

Then, this past Saturday, Hannah had the good fortune of being plucked by Shifu from the line to work with Richu on erluquan for thirty minutes. Figuring she and I were at the same spot in erluquan more or less, I went over to Shifu and asked him if I could join them, and he flat out said no. I have to admit, I felt a little dejected by his denial of my request, but I rejoined the line and decided to trudge on in practicing what I have learned already. Happily, about ten minutes later, Shifu called De over to work on erluquan with me, and that lifted my spirits. Shifu told De what I specifically needed to work on -- injecting more chi/extension into my moves. I realized then that although Hannah and I are about the same in terms of progress through erluquan, we each have different things to refine, so to lump us together would not necessarily benefit either of us. In the end, I was happy to have received one-on-one attention from De so we could focus specifically on my kung fu.

So it got me thinking -- while for the most part, I've been pretty good about understanding that what we do is not necessarily competitive and we are to view ourselves as individuals, lately, because I've been so parallel in terms of learning with Hannah recently, I lost sight of that concept. I felt a slight tinge of jealousy that she got to the five kicks (a major milestone!) the other day even though I was also very psyched for her. So I've had to remind myself -- it's not about what my fellow dorks are doing, it's about what I'm doing, and nothing else. Just me, myself and I.

Hannah made a commitment to herself recently to train harder until testing, which includes going to class 4x a week, which is so awesome. I dabbled in doing the 4x thing a bit last year but realized that on the weekend, I really need a day off to tend to other areas of my life, especially with the oncoming stench of my job around the corner. I am very content to train only three times a week, and I have to remember that just the fact that Hannah trains an extra class a week means she'll probably charge forth faster, and I applaud her for it. And the path I've chosen is what's right for me. I have to reinforce all of this in my head constantly, especially now that I might have given myself a new shaolin butt sword, but this time on the other side!

Anyway, last night, not too long after we started up forms practice, Shifu came over and grabbed a lot of us to work on forms, and I once again got paired up with De (yay!) to work on erluquan. I learned all the way up through five kicks! Well, mostly -- four out of the five kicks ain't bad!

Carnivore!

Yes ladies and gents, I have broken. At least temporarily. A serious analysis of my protein intake has led me, after nearly 4 years of peaceful vegetarianism, to rejoin the world of the carnivorous. Or at least omnivorous. Not to say one can't be vegetarian and train, but I'm just not able to support the effort required to do so. At least not right now. So I'm experimenting with the meat eating and we'll see how I feel after a few weeks. I have to say, and it's probably too soon to be true, but I kind of already feel better...I trained super hard and felt really good right up to the end. Might have just been all the great chi, but it might have been the animal flesh...Stupid amino acids...Oh well, at least I now can join the cool kids and train No. 1 soup.

Two, three, kick, turn, turn, turn, kick, turn!

Five kicks! FIVE KICKS! Count 'em, one, two, three, four, FIIIIIIVE. Saturday Sifu pulled me off line to work on erluquan with 30 minutes still left in class. Which meant that even though I had a lot to go over in the part I already know, there was still time to learn the eagerly anticipated 5 kicks. Whoo!

Today however, couldn't have been more different. By the time we got to fanyao in basics, Sifu had slowed us to a halt, going over the arm rotation and the extension again and again. He continued in this way for the following moves, breaking down every piece and doing it very slowly over and over. When we got to yangshen yunshou it was already 12, and Sifu told us to break and stretch, without having gotten to the rest of basics or chuji quantao. Then we did waibaitui and zhengtitui like usual then did both the first two forms and the xiebu, pubu, dingbu cycle twice. By the time we started doing forms on line there were 15 minutes left in class.

After all my bellyaching about wanting to learn more erluquan, it should be a no-brainer that Saturday's class was my more favorite of the two; oddly enough it wasn't. Before I got to go on to five kicks Saturday, Richu, who was teaching me, went through and found all the places where I'm being lazy, that is to say, all my stances. Mabus too high, gongbus with a bent leg, and pubus leaning too far over. And the last several classes I've heard Sifu yell my name out with frightening regularity, usually with the words, "lazy," "sleepy style," "slow down," etc. attached to it. So today was a welcome chance to work on all the nuts and bolts of my basics. I've never had a class quite like it, but it couldn't have been better timed. I can't wait to get a handle on the "choreography" of the five kicks, but for now I'm happy to concentrate my efforts on keeping Sifu from calling my name out again... Or rather, not without "very good," "beautiful," Or at least a "not bad" attached to it....