Orange Crush

It is no longer an object of fancy for your humble Narrator; I finally got the call to the big leagues, to wear the orange robes, and no, I couldn't wait to try them on, as evidenced by the photo above. :)

It has been a mighty struggle for me, especially from the time I blew out my knee to not passing erluquan during testing six months ago. Well over a year had transpired since I finished erluquan, and I had to find ways to understand why I needed to be in Level 1 for another six months after not being elevated to Level 2 this past April. Of course, one can always polish and refine what one has learned, and one can become stronger, but the challenge also became a mental one.

Mainly, I had to fight to maintain my motivation. This was not about going to class and having Shifu motivate me with his barking. Rather, this was about me pushing myself, in spite of myself. I have witnessed several of my dearest friends who started after me get to Level 2 ahead of me, and while yes, I know it's about the individual journey, and not comparing yourself to others, most of us have enjoyed success in our lives largely due to a competitive sense. I wanted to be able to train with my brothers and sisters, learning new things together, like we used to. I admit to feeling traces of jealousy at times when hearing my fellow dorks discuss new moves. I felt bad for feeling simultaneously proud and envious of them for progressing through subsequent Level 2 forms while I remained stuck on erluquan. And so, when I cried like a baby after last certificate ceremony, it was for a multitude of reasons, none of which were hugely attractive.

But I had to keep reminding myself that I'd get there eventually. Maybe it'd take me a little longer than others, but I needed to keep plugging away. While I was recovering from my knee injury and couldn't train and missed my friends for two months, I remember thinking, geez, I can't wait to train kung fu again. Just to be able to caijiao and mabu again with my peers would be a wonderful thing! And it goes to show that it's not about how high you kick, or how fast you fly, but that you're doing it, and you try and try again to do it better. The action is meditation itself -- it's not about what you're doing, necessarily, but the doing itself.

We see people come to train at Temple with varying skills. Some so very amazing and lithe, others needing much training. But we judge not how well people do in terms of ability, but how hard they try, vis à vis their expressions of chi. I hope, for me, that ability to express my chi never dries up. As long as I can move my body, I hope to keep moving forward.

Thanks to all of you who've been so supportive. I am so glad to have had you along for my ride. All week long before yesterday's ceremony, I promised myself I wouldn't cry again, yet surely I did, but at least this time they were tears of happiness. I was one of the first Kung Fu Dork bloggers to write; I am the last of the bloggers to move to Level 2, and to that, I say, better late than never!

So, in five minutes, I shall depart my laptop, and jump on the subway, for what will be my very first Level 2 class, which promises to be scary and fun and challenging. I cannot wait to train harder, to learn new things, and to continue forth with the next chapter of my journey of getting to know myself.

CHI!

Moving Forward One Caijiao at a Time

I think I’ve mentioned before that sometimes during class, when the going gets tough, I remind myself that this is as hard as it can get. Every class will be a little easier, because every time I am making myself a little stronger. I think I’ve also mentioned how I know that this is a completely inaccurate and illogical rationale.

Last night though, when Sifu was saying “challenge yourself, move forward not back” I realized just how very inaccurate and illogical my rationale really was. Before, I was thinking it was off because some days you have more sleep, better nutrition and so on and so on. But last night I realized (or re-realized) something else. That if you are always pushing yourself, training will always be hard, no matter if it's L1 or L2. If you're training with the same intensity then you'll always be pushing yourself to that next level. Sure if I kicked as low as I did when I first started, training would be a breeze, but because I’m pushing forward, kicking higher, stances lower, popping harder, it's still just as tough as that very first day. I’m moving forward.

This made me think of one of Sifu’s other axioms, “nothing is difficult, nothing is easy.” I usually focus on the “nothing is difficult” part because telling yourself that nothing is easy isn't really an inspiring though. But in light of my other musings, it’s GOOD that nothing is easy. The day a class becomes easy is the day I'm not pushing myself, not training hard. The pain and difficulty are marks that I’m keeping my resolution to train harder. This all feels familiar, maybe I’ve blogged it before, but it’s a point worth reiterating. At least, I have to reiterate it for myself for when I feel lame still being tired during tengkong fanyao even after doing it for 2 years... But then, enjoying the never-ending ass-kicking is part of what we love about training, right? :D

Sausage Fest

Amituofo!

Hello My Fellow Kung Fu Dorks!

This is my first official post! Please let me introduce myself! Amituofo! I am Leo! (ROAR!) More Chi! Train Harder! You might have seen me around if you train Level 1 at the USA Shaolin Temple. I only started to train at temple 9 months ago and I'm the youngest blogger here in terms of Temple Age. Okay! Now on to my first entry!

For the first time, there were no female chi! Not even Heng Xu or Mei Mei! Well, that's not exactly true. There have been classes where it has been all guys, but those classes were usually very tiny, probably less than 7 people. But today, we had 16 people. And even Shifu mentioned it has never happened. Especially, since, today was not a holiday or a weekday.

I know the reason why. It's because most of the KF girls were celebrating Heng De's 21st Birthday far too late into the night/morning. I could have sworn before I left the party, I got quite a few half-hearted promises to train. ;) But, alas, I was the only one that made it to temple.

Training today was totally invigorating! When I first got there, I gotta admit. I was tired. My warm-ups consisted of me walking around the circle trying to keep my eyelids up and extended. But after 5 minutes of basics, I was ready to rock. Anybody else have that issue? My body just needs that Shifu-induced-wakeup to be able get the chi up. Once it's up, I'm fine the rest of the class. I probably should come as early as I can to get my chi up so I can start class at full chi. But...the darn bed yoga training was just too inviting... :)

Oh yeah! Joshua was there. For someone who hasn't trained at temple for a long time, he still led the line, and had awesome chi and perfect forms. He's very good about training the basics and forms outside of temple. He's self-motivated while currently, I'm Shifu-motivated. This is one of the things that I will be working on before testing in April. More Chi!

"Temple is in the heart, we take it everywhere with us."

-Shifu Shi Yan Ming

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.

The Motivator

Leo gave some interesting thoughts on motivations for beginning training and continuing to train. Specifically he was discussing the difference between men and women and retention, but I began thinking about the reason(s) I started training and how they are similar or different to the ones I have to continue training, both in terms of the long term commitment as well as what gets me to temple daily. We've talked a lot about why we train now: the challenge, the community, the mental training, the benefits to our personal well being, and the straight up exercise. But for me at least, I started training for different reasons than those that motivate me now.My initial impulse to come train was borne of 2 things 1) I had lots of free time and I was bored 2)I wanted to look cool doing kung fu at parties. Secret number 3 was that I wanted to become a contract killer.......... The free time is now gone (yes I'm working again). I have found I feel un -coordinated more that I feel cool when training; and if anything the more I learn the more I'm humbled about the lifetime of learning left. And, I don't want to be a contract killer anymore..... But clearly I still train; funny how things change like that. You always get more than you bargained for. I'd be interested to know what prompted other folks to start training (exercise? party trick? followed a friend/boyfriend/family member?) and whether that's the same motivator they have now.

(Also, I love the Buddhist-y cyclical nature of how you train for a reason but training changes your reasons for training so you train more and then your motivations change again and so on and so forth...)