Another Family Affair

Feeling a little sad at the end of my brother's visit, I went to the temple on Tuesday night for a shot of action meditation. The class was extremely small and fast with Joshua and Chris E. leading the line (welcome back Joshua!). The Chi was high but everybody was tired. However Shifu was in a good crazy chi mood the entire class. He came up with funniest bits while we did the basics. He showed off his super stretch during the break, encouraged and corrected us while we had one-on-one teaching sessions. And most importantly, he mumbled "hmmm alotta chi" at the end of my Dahongquan!

It was as if he was compensating for my blahh. I know it's just me trying to reach out but like other people said - things are what you want it to be. I wanted the temple to be there for me that day and it did. By the end of the class, I was sweaty, smelly, and exhausted - but I was happy to be there.

Unsolved Mysteries

This week I dub "Unsolved Mystery" week. If you had read my previous blog entry, you would know that I mysteriously hurt my back and was quite unable to explode my chi to the fullest during forms testing. What was even more weird was that on Wednesday night, while I was sleeping, I managed to seriously sprain my ankle. I woke up in the middle of the night with excruciating ankle pain. It felt like someone dislocated my ankle by dragging me across gravel road with a 4x4 truck. I couldn't walk for most of Thursday and Friday. I had really wanted to train Level 1 on Thursday and Friday. I tried to do a gong bu during the day and it nearly killed me.

I haven't had any Shaolin injury till this week. I definitely haven't sprained my ankle for well over 10 years. I am an avid runner and cross country runner. Our ankles are made of steel. We train them to be.

This leads me to believe that there is something happening to my body that I am not aware of or I am doing something wrong and my body is rebelling. One thing led to another and I believe it is a combination of the way I am stretching and how I regulate my chi. For all the extension we do, I don't nearly stretch enough before and afterwards to maximize strength, flexibility, and enhance recovery. All that is going to change. I bought a really cool stretching book that shows all the anatomy of the muscles so you can understand to stretch better. It's actually been really helpful for my back. I never realized that I haven't been stretching my lower trunk at all!!

Here is also a helpful link for everyone about cause of injury and preventive exercises, i.e. stretching.

Stretching Reference

It's a good read and as you can see, Hamstrings Inflexibility, Gluteus Maximus or Adductor Magnus Inflexibility, and Hip Flexor Inflexibility all can increase Lower Back Injury.

I have also uncovered another "Unsolved Mystery", it is "the Shaolin Butt Sword." This topic has been talked about quite a bit, and I believe it is the Adductor Magnus muscle. Here's one stretch that may help prevent and alleviate the infamous Shaolin Butt Sword.

With my newfound knowledge, I will be stronger than before!! I am going to stop blogging and go stretch!! :D

Curse of The Dorks!

Did anybody other than me notice this curse? When you become one of the contributors on this blog, sooner or later you either fall out of your training schedule or fall out of writing. It's as if blogging and training have secret force against each other. So far, only Cheng defies the curse. She trains and blogs so regularly I want to give her Top of the Dorks award.

To support my case of the curse, I give you examples:

1. Mo doesn't write regularly. So she was able to dodge the curse and trains without interruption.


2. Ji joined the blog and then got a new job and a baby and trains less.


3. Qbertplaya and I wrote pretty regularly and then we got knee injury (at different times.) Although we are back training, we fail to keep our posting schedule.


4. Our latest addition, Leo, joined the blog and then got a new fabulous acting role and cannot train as frequently as he did.

You see????!!!? Now give me chi. I'm going to try to break out of the curse! Arrrrrgggghhh!!!