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....

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....