Kickin' It With Heng De

(Awesome Heng De has offered to share his recent thoughts via a guest entry. Amituofo!)

I was thinking last night about how jumps taking off of my right leg are much better than off of my left. Especially in danfeijiao, a kick where you jump off your right leg, tuck your left, slap your right like caijiao and land on your right. I do it great on my right - I feel like I can get some serious air, more than any other kick (which is another issue, why jumping off my right leg alone gets me higher usually than off both), like Shifu said to me when you jump higher, you have more time to express yourself.

So being the scientific and analytical type guy I am, I asked myself why I feel better with my right leg kicks and jumps than with my left. In the form I just finished, there's a tornado kick with the right leg, and two erqijiao or danfeijiao like kicks off the right leg. So I wondered in our forms, how many kicks on each leg are there? You'd think it should be even to develop both sides of the body. But my results are surprising and astounding!

Form	Right leg kicks	Left leg kicks
xiaohongquan	4	3
dahongquan	6	3
tongbeiquan	6	2
xiao luohanquan	5	2

and the most astounding result...erluquan...which we all do over and over again for like a year, has 11 kicks with the right leg and just 3 with the left!

Add all of this with how many people don't do kicks like erqijiao or lunbicaijiao on both sides, and that's a lot more kicking with the right than the left. Over the years it really adds up.

I started doing staff form with the staff in my left arm because I could feel the strengthening in my right arm and it would be really sore. I didn't want to have all that extra power and coordination in my already dominant arm only. So far I can do the whole form, but it's not as smooth as my right side of course.

I'm thinking about starting to do forms on the opposite side now. At least tongbeiquan which is short and would be easier to figure out, and erluquan because there's so many more kicks on one side. So if you see me doing 5 kicks backwards, now you know why. And knowing is half the battle G.I. JOOOOOEEEEEEEE!

(In case you were wondering, the other half is sounding like you know what you're talking about, thanks Mo and Cheng.)

Oh yea speaking of 5 kicks my left side waibaitui sucks...my hip just doesn't open and my right shoulder hurts when i do it. Could it be all those times doing 5 kicks over the years was what made that side more open? Maybe I should do erluquan only on the left for the next four years...

Diversion Tactics

I thought last night's class would be all about my thumb; it's still fat and pained and kind of purple. Turns out, it was all about my hamstring. After overextending a caijiao last week my right leg has pretty much been out of commission. I've been training through it, but it's come to the point that I think this one needs rest, not training. (The last couple of classes have been, frankly, painful.) What it did serve to do though, was distract me from my thumb. The distraction allowed me to discover that, while I can't bend it, I can still do a ceshoufan or two without too much pain.

Funny how one pain minimizes another. A foot injury distracted me from my shinsplints, a sore neck distracted me from my foot. A sore butt distracted me from my neck. The flu distracted me from everything. Just goes to show, if you don't focus on the pain it will in fact go away.

This is something I've noticed in how I approach class as well. I used to get caught up in how many people were in class, where I was in line, how many minutes left until a water break, the temperature and who knows what else. I realized lately that these things have gone away. I don't know if it's from training a lot more or being stronger, or being more chan, but now class is just class. I don't worry about how much water I'm drinking or where my sweat is flying: I just train. I don't know how or when it happened, but it's a really satisfying realization.

I also spend less time trying to distract myself in line. It used to be that I would try to think on something, sing a song in my head, or anticipate some other move to distract me from the pain/exhaustion of the move I was on. Now, I am much more focused on what I am doing and how well I'm executing it. And the pain has gone away not through distraction but through strengthening my movements by focusing on technique. It's not that I don't still get tired, (hahah if only). It's not that I don't still fall victim to pain - see my lackluster training in light of current barrel of injuries. Only now I feel like, I'm going in with the same mindset no matter what variables are varying.

I must say though, I'd still like something to divert me from the pain in my leg. It's so unsatisfying not to be able to whip out five kicks at full chi.

Devolving

Last night, through no one's fault, I got smacked in the hand in line during fanyao. I never really think of fanyao as a strike, yet I can recall more than one occasion where I or someone else has suffered a rather painful injury from a fanyao collision. Don't underestimate the power of whipping arms! Anyway, the accident left my thumb throbbing and before the stretch break it had swollen too, if not enormous proportions, at least big enough to look funny next to my other thumb. And just when I unjammed my finger accident from last week. Of course that one, I hit myself....... As a result I once more have a hand hampered by a jammed finger. Only this time I've lost the benefits of my opposable thumb, the result of eons of hard evolving.

My pre-simian abilities got me pondering backwards evolution and that feeling you get sometimes that, through no fault of your own, your kung fu seems to be de-evolving. (Devolving we'll call it, hyphens are awkward.) I'm not talking about when something is rusty because you haven't practiced it in awhile or struggling with something you're still trying to learn. This is when you're rolling merrily along only to suddenly discover you can no longer do a fanyao properly on your right side, you can no longer do a yangshen yunshou on EITHER side, or you for no reason whatsoever regress in your forms. This seems to be happening to me a lot since I began L2. Sometimes it's just choking. Sometimes.... I don't know.


There does exist the theory that you are actually getting better. The more you learn the more you see that you are doing incorrectly so you are more and more aware of even the tiniest flaws in your movements. So even though it feels bad/different, the move is improving.

I think this is sometimes the case for me, but certainly not always. I guess, sometimes something just gets off and, like my new found appreciation for how much I need my thumb, when it starts working once more, you get the pleasure of success all over again.

Keep Clean

My uniform collection grew to 5 uniforms - 3 blue and 2 orange. That's only because I'm too lazy to clean them every so often. The unintentional consequence of this infrequent laundry is mildew smell - especially t-shirts/tank tops I wear under the uniforms. Fresh out of the dryer, they smell nice and clean. Not so, once they absorb a leeeeettle bit of my sweat...

I have heard a few laundry tips from our changing room:

• Wash in 2 cycles.


• Use dish washer detergent.


• Sprinkle baking soda over the laundry.


• Boil them.


• etc...

Here's a new one. Lifehacker.com published a top 10 food and drink hacks. At number 7 is how to clean everything with vinegar including mildew towels which I assume should work with my mildew uniforms and tank tops.

I will give it a try and post the result once I get all my uniforms dirty. In the meantime, if you have tried-and-true laundry tips, please share.

Day 3 - Kip UP

On Monday night Xu had us new folks have a wild stab at liyu dating. Having never attempted it before, I was mostly left with a head and neck ache. Last night, though, I got to learn it for real. As it turns out the pieces individual are not that complex even when done all together it looks pretty daunting. This made it all the more puzzling when I couldn't do them. I never expected to get the kip up or head flip right away. But I somehow got stuck on my stomach unable to unfreeze my muscles to kick my legs under me. The cylinders would not all fire at once. Still, I'm glad I got to be taught it so I can work on it now instead of throwing down wildly with no clear idea what I'm supposed to be doing.

The unfortunate thing is, I don't get to work on it before class tonight because I have to work late. Yay overtime - boo my 20 days being thwarted already. Ah well. I'll embrace the chance to let my neck rest and look forward to trying it again tomorrow. And seeing Qbertplaya on Saturday!

Day 1 - The Dark Side

This time last year I was working two jobs, seven days a week, and training maybe once every two weeks or so when I got the fluke morning off of was able to drag myself to a Sunday class before hustling like mad to work. Luckily, around February things changed and somewhere in there I began training my first night classes. So I've never before experienced training nights in the winter - damn it's dark! Normally I don't mind when the time change throws us into nighttime at 5 pm. It's seasonal; it's fun. But rolling in after being at work all day and then getting ready to train, I look outside and see black and just think, "It's time to be in my bed," even if it is only 6 in the evening. Mmm bed. but I will not let the black of night stay me from my appointed task. And my 20 days are off to a rollicking good start.

Last night I got to learn/try some new L2 moves, which is always fun. And in so doing I had to do lots of sweeping. Or in my case, attempted sweeping. Now I've been taught the sweep many times by many people and been given and endless array of pointers and tips, but sweep perfection still eludes me. What I'm realizing, is that for me it's a strength issue. I can comprehend these moves all day long, but I really just don't have the power in my hips to overcome toe leverage of my long ol' legs to whip them around with any kind of power. So many level two move involve some incarnation of sweeping, and my hips/quads are simply wimping out on me.

Luckily, strength is a fairly straightforward thing to rectify. I'll keep training harder, even if it is soporifically dark outside. Each sweep brings me closer to daylight savings time.......

Past-Present-Future

It's been awhile since I've done a post, which isn't to indicate that I haven't been training. I've been training a fair bit; I've just also been working, dog sitting, cat sitting, turtle sitting, and Thanksgiving-ing. And when I got home nights I was too lazy to sort my thoughts into a coherent order, even to the casualness of blog-standards.

Anyway, training has been great, learning lots in L2 and continuing to work hard in L1. This past weekend I had a bad cold so after soldiering through Friday nights class I spent the last two days resting, losing then regaining my voice, and now blowing my nose incessantly. Should be ready to go for tomorrow though. Looking ahead I'm taking a much needed, long overdue and extended vacation home for the holidays. I'll be gone for a solid two weeks and I'm a little concerned about my ability to make myself train even lightly while at home under a barrage of seasonal activities (namely cookie eating). So to gear up I am going to try to train every day until I leave. That's 20 days, for the curious. It's a lot, but I know I can do it. And hopefully it will get me on a roll so that when I go home I do train enough so that the return isn't too painful. I always tried to never get more than four days off in a row, and since starting L2 I haven't taken more than 2 days off consecutively; so the thought of two WEEKS off - two weeks and three days - is blowing my mind a little right now. It's easy to tell myself now that I'll train, but I know when I get home and I'm surrounded by distractions it will become easy to "forget." So here's hoping I can start the momentum now and work on that self-discipline a little. And while I'm going to concentrate on getting enough sleep, I will endeavor to make sure I'm popping up regularly and posting my progress.

(And sadly I can't claim credit for the picture below. I just thought it went with the theme. Though I am a little fuzzy on why he has a samurai sword.)

Crocodile Kick

We had 7 people in the class today - including Heng Han who taught the class. It was a treat. Because the class was so small, Han let us, newbies, tried almost everything. I got to do all kinds of fancy kicks and at the end learned Qianbaitui Houbaitui - which I think is the fanciest of them all.

It goes roughly like this: you kick with one leg inward in the front and then whip the other leg to finish a circle.

We have similar kick in Muay Thai where you whip your hind leg to attack. It's called Jorake Faad Haang which means crocodile tail thrash or whip or something similar.

I couldn't really do it right. I was told I needed to extend more. Maybe the next time I try, I'll imagine my legs crocodile's tail.

Yay! New Bruise!

This time it's at the inner side of my right ankle from trying to Lihetui but couldn't.

:)

I haven't had bruises from training for a while. Maybe I didn't train that much. Maybe I got better at what I had learned.

Anyway, the bruise hurts but I like it.

Welcome Back!

It's good to be back. Vacation was very nice. Returning to people I care about and I know care about me is nicer. I was dreading going to train after 3 weeks off. But with a little encouragement from Heng Cheng, I made it. And I made it through the 2 very-difficult-to-breathe hours.

Waking up tomorrow should be fun. I can't wait to see which muscle group will hurt the most.

Entering the country for the first time with my brand new green card, I got Welcome Back! from the nice immigration officer. I thought that was cute. Nobody said that to me when I had a visa. They just took my pictures and finger prints suspecting that I might be a terrorist.

It's different at the temple. I have always got a Welcome Back! here. It feels nice to always be welcome and be missed. I got a hug from Heng Cheng and Heng De, a kiss from Heng Mo, a smile from Richu and Heng Huang and "Oh Sucheela is here. Welcome Back!" from Shifu.

I promise I will train harder.