Engine Engine Number Five

The above is a painting by Charles Demuth entitled The Figure 5 in Gold as inspired by one of my favorite poets, William Carlos Williams (Jersey, holla!), and his poem, "The Great Figure":

Perhaps that is the way I ought to view charging through the five kicks -- like a fire engine barrelling through the streets of New York, moving quickly without hesitation!

5-Alive!

Yesterday I didn't learn a new move, but that's not say I didn't learn anything new. At the end of class a bunch of us got to work on 5 kicks with Heng De, who helped us work on speed and extension especially in the 5th kick. Since the 5th kick is the hardest and clearly requires lots of strength, I trained something even harder that I hope will help, #5 soup.

Ok so it's not quite the #1, but that might have been just too much for my digestion to handle. When I first got the bowl of floating cow set in front of me I almost would rather have done the 5th kick 500 times than eat it. Rob was sitting beside me and was very entertained as I shut my eyes and started eating. I couldn't help it; I knew I wanted it but my brain shouted "No!" It was the hardest training I've done in ages. Luckily, it was delicious, as I knew it would be; I just had to mentally overcome the fear of putting it in my stomach. And my insides didn't hurt at all afterwards, which means #1 is a small step away. Hopefully, all the tendon will help my own tendons whip out a super waibaitui in my 5 kicks. Never would have thought I'd need the mental stamina I learn in class to help me train a bowl of #5!

Get yer kicks...

Last night I returned to training after a week off due to illness. I felt the effects of my head cold still, coughing up lots and getting winded much more easily. Well, dem's the breaks, I guess. At least the time away allowed my oncoming shaolin butt sword to go away, I hope.

Glad I trained though -- I was able to practice erluquan a few times including the four out of the five kicks I learned a week and a half ago with De. I even faked my way, albeit poorly, thru the 5th kick -- the waibaitui -- and into the gongbu.

Fortunately, for the last ten minutes or so of class, got put in a good group by Xu to hammer out more of the five kicks with De. Whereas I had just learned them, some of the folks in our group have been doing it for a while, so it was good to observe their technique and listen to De point out what to tighten and speed up.

I've got a long road ahead of me in perfecting the five kicks. I think I'll have to sometimes do them exclusively when it's my turn to jump on the carpet!

Kung Fu Dorks or Geeks or Nerds?

At our dinner after training tonight, we discussed the differences among dorks, geeks and nerds.

Someone offered that geeks are normally self-proclaimed but dorks are not. People call you a dork but you don't do that to yourself. So how come Kung Fu Dorks? I am quite proud to call myself a dork... I thought dork had this kind of cutesy and innocent connotation.

So I did some research...

According to Dictionary.com, dork got the worst meaning - someone stupid and ridiculous. Nerd is a little better - it can mean an unattractive stupid person or an intelligent but single-minded person. Geek is not much better - referring to a peculiar or otherwise dislikable person especially overly intellectual one.

So it seems like geeks and nerds are quite intelligent but dorks are not.

This is not good.

Maybe some other dictionaries will agree better with me. So I tried UrbanDictionary.com.

It said a dork is someone with odd interests and often silly. I like that! The second entry for geek (didn't like the first entry so ignored it) said that a geek is basically a person who is highly knowledgable with technology. Cool. And a nerd is someone extremely smart.

Ah hah!

Thus - Kung Fu Dorks are people with an (odd) interest in Kung Fu who at times are silly (in a good way).

Shaolin Crush #1

Yesterday I got all three of my wishes: lots of stretch time, Sifu didn't yell at me (really) and there was lots of chi. Thanks to one Heng Gui.

Every now and then I get a Shaolin crush. A Shaolin crush is not a romantic crush; it can be girl or boy and it happens when some aspect of someone's training tugs at the strings of my heart. Sometimes it's someone doing a beautiful form, or seeing a shaolin brother who I know is in pain or having a rough day persevering through a class. Sometime it's seeing a new student smiling after sweating through their first training session. Sunday my Shaolin crush was Heng Gui and watching him teaching basics.

Class was small: 15 students. Two of them were there for a trial class. Let's just say it was quite a challenge. Gui kept us all going through basics with his usual chi-tastic cheering. But what really solidified my crush was when we started forms. There were 4, count em, FOUR of us on line for forms. And 50 minutes left in class. I felt the chi, but I admit I was worried about its endurance. Luckily, on the other side of the pillars Gui was teaching caijiao and gongbu. If you've ever been lucky enough to have Gui teach you, you know that in addition to his unbridled enthusiam he also has a very creative way of describing moves. His reservoir of metaphors is endless. Sunday, there were descriptions of tigers, snakes, springs, nutcrackers, and staple removers, just to name a few. And while the multitude of mixed metaphors might have been a little confusing, their rich detail kept me Po, Ji and Alex smiling, even laughing, throughout forms and the time went by much faster. Even Sifu was laughing and you could tell the trial students were really enjoying themselves and the chi was palpable. So, for now, on my Shaolin notebook there will be little hearts scribbled around Gui's name: my newest, very inspiring, very entertaining Shaolin crush.