Ceshoufan Craziness!

Sometime last summer, I somehow tweaked my right arm/shoulder rotator cuff area. I'm not entirely sure how I did it (perhaps practicing kung fu, carrying luggage, or monkeying around), but it's one of those nagging injuries that keeps hanging around because it's pretty impossible to avoid using whatever muscles/tendon(s) are inflamed, kinda like the infamous Shaolin Butt Sword. Anyway, pretty much at the end of last year, I decided to put a personal moratorium on ceshoufans, figuring it wasn't the best thing in the world putting all my weight on a gimpy shoulder while doing a cartwheel.

My progression through learning the Level 2 basics since the beginning of November finally came to a point where I could no longer avoid doing ceshoufan. I had put off learning Bawang Zhaikui (jump with backwards punch and cartwheel), but it then became the last one on the list. So, after a few times of awesome Eric working on loosening my arm muscles and being faced with having to learn Bawang Zhaikui if I ever wanted to start learning Xiao Hong Quan, I bit the bullet. I then did my first shaky cartwheels of 2009 this past Monday. Scary!

And it paid off -- at the last part of class, during forms practice, Shifu sent Lukas and then Carlos to start Xiao Hong Quan. Emboldened by having done Bawang Zhaikui earlier in line that evening, I asked Shifu if I could join them. He first asked if I had finished learning the basics, and I could honestly answer yes! So he allowed me to join the new Xiao Hong Quan-ers, and I triumphantly ran across the carpet to start the new form.

During last night's energetic Level 2 class Han had us do Bawang Zhaikui as well. But she added a nice challenge, which the competitively friendly bunch ate up -- if we did the ceshoufan with both hands, we had to do 10 v-ups (kinda like sit-ups, but you're lifting your legs too). A one-handed one required only 5, and if you did the holy aerial, i.e., no hands, then no v-ups! Man-oh-man! People were giddy, trying to avoid doing all ten v-ups. I found the chi so infectious, I went right into it without too much thinking, figuring my gimpy shoulder wasn't really doing all that much in terms of weight distribution anyway, so I kept that hand off the ground. And it worked! I did my first one-handed cartwheel (albeit wobbly) ever! I tried it again, and succeeded once more on my third try.

This is probably the first instance where I can think of an injury actually helping me achieve something. Maybe I'll have to screw up my other shoulder just to get the aerial. =P

Learning to Fly

Before we learned to walk, we all repeatedly fell down over and over again until we were able to develop our muscles and coordination to the point where we can balance ourselves precariously on two feet. It is after millenniums of evolution that humans have become one of a handful of creatures that has chosen to walk on it's hind legs. And now, I'm on a quest to further that evolution. I want to aerial, butterfly twist, and TengKongWaiBaiLiang as my only mode of travel from Point A to Point B.

I feel like a child learning to walk again. Oooo...boy! I sure have the bruises to prove it too. On Wednesday night Level 2 class, I walked in and both John and Heng Ji (Branden) said to me, "So you landed an aerial, eh? Let's see it!" They proceeded to pull out the big mats for us to play on. We had about 20 minutes worth of jumping and fumbling through the air trying our best to land our aerials and butterfly twists. None of us landed it but it was nice to have the mats and not have to worry about landing too hard on the ground. It does pose an interesting question. Is it better to learn how to land it on a mat, build the confidence there and then land without it? Or is it better to venture out onto the real surface where we will be doing the aerial anyway? I suppose it comes down to personal preference. Do you want bruises now or later? You are going to fall a few times. It's a fact. It's overcoming that fear of self-preservation. It's letting it all go and just fly. During class, I put that philosophy to the test. Heng De let us do BaiWangZaiKui for about 10 minutes. I think the way I was falling was scaring some people. "Leo, when you land fall, it's like seeing and hearing a sack of potatoes fall on the ground. Ka-Boom! But you do it with no fear though. I don't know if I can do that..."

My body is still a little battered today. I am not sure if it is from the falling or my muscles getting used a new way of coordination and use. I would like to think it's the latter because if I let my fear control me, I will never be able to fly. It really isn't about the falling down. It's about the getting back up and trying again after you just failed. But maybe I should invest in some protection, just in case. A wearable airbag. I sure could use that!

Even though I wince in pain every step I take, I can't wait to get out there and learn to fly again.

Fear isn't something you have; it's something you ARE!

Tonight I went to class in a pretty good mood. I decided I didn't want to work too much on anything where I could potentially injure myself right before testing, so I opted to do some mental training instead.

As we know by now, I have serious fears about landing on my head and going upside down. Well, to prepare for liyu dating we occasionally, (more often of late) do a handstand and then go into a somersault from there. I use "we" loosely. Everyone else does a handstand somersault, I just do the hand stand then lock up and either come back down to my feet or fall sideways and land like a sack of bricks. Fear. I got it. Can't seem to lose it.

So today I spent a half hour before class using a mat and trying to overcome this obstacle. It's since I know I'm lacking the upper body strength to go down slowly; I'm just waiting for a CRACK and impending quadriplegia. And as much as my brain says "DO IT!" my body simply will not respond in kind. I got a little closer as I went on, working in baby steps, but after the 73rd try or so I started to feel queasy and decided to stretch the rest of the time before class.
Sadly the queasiness did not go away. Even sadder, it intensified. I was about to ralph the entire class; I couldn't do my shuangfeijiaos to save my life. And when Han told us to do handstand somersaults, well it simply wasn't my happiest hour. At break I compounded the problem by drinking a ton of water, and I spent the rest of class trying to do my forms as gently as possible so as not to get sick all over the carpet. It's almost midnight and my stomach is still not quite right.

After class some of the other folks said they too had felt really tired and/or queasy. So at least I wasn't alone though I think I looked a mess. I'm glad thought that it was something in the air and not the handstands. Because I just found out that it is something Sifu might actually make us do during testing. So I have to keep wailing at it for the next few classes until I can stop choking, and I sure was hoping it didn't mean I would be this nauseated for the next three days.

Break-neck speed

Austrian Update: Yesterday In the evening Heng Xin took the three of us to go see the Shaolin tour performing in Vienna. As many of you may know Xin is a CR-azy driver, which was super fun (see Richu's blog for more), but having my head whipped back into my headrest repeatedly did nothing to help a neck injury I sustained in training and I woke up this morning with a vary sore/stiff neck.

Here in Vienna they have jumping class on saturdays right after training, then advanced tumbling at 5. We stayed for the first one, which was mostly basic rolls, then some head flips and liyu dating. Doesn't sound too hard right? Alas, for me it was.

One of the jumps is a diving roll. Some of the folks here jump super high, perpendicular to the floor, head down, then go into the roll. I definitely found this a little intimidating, my constant fear in things like that is breaking my neck. But I figured I used to swim, I used to play volleyball, I understand the mechanics of diving and rolling. Unfortunately, either I'm even more uncoordinated than I think or my arms were just too tired from training to adequately support a diving roll, but they totally gave out and I landed, hard, on my head/neck/shoulder. Yi and Richu were both watching and apparently it looked pretty bad. I shook it off ok but I was definitely leery of my jumping for the rest of the class, and my head flips were just somersaults.

I was talking about it afterwards, and I realized that my fear of getting injured is probably part of why I got injured, as it causes me to hesitate in my movement. But I don't know if having it happen has made my fear worse or helped me get over it because now I know I won't actually die.... Either way, I'm giving my neck a break today so it doesn't get actually broken.