A Brief Interlude

In a fit of nostalgia I spent this evening cruising through the Kung Fu Dorks blog archive. It's almost embarrassing to see how hard I used to train and look at myself now. My training over the past year or so has been haphazard at best: a couple months of every other week training punctuated by a three-week frenzy of kung fu hysteria. Sometimes I am working like a maniac, others I am just plain lazy. But every time I go back to Temple I am reminded how much I love kung fu and how much it has meant in my life.

I stopped blogging- why? I'm not sure. All us dorks are still around; maybe the internet has finally lost its novelty... Blogs are not so hip, if they ever were hip? I guess in the end I thought I had run out of things to say, and I'm not especially fond of when my posts became "Dear Diary" moments. Reading back though, I am realizing that this blog was good for helping me anchor my training in consistent reflection, even when we were talking about Chuck Norris Action Jeans. It's easy to train without thinking and lose the thread of your journey. Blogging didn't make me train more, but it did help me get more out of my kung fu by doing some cyber meditation at the end of every class and getting to share the saga with my compatriots.

This post is quick and dirty and not especially articulate or insightful, but just throwing down this bit of fluff makes me feel tapped back into training - and I haven't even been in three weeks. Sharing our thoughts through the blog, even though it is just with the same people we train with every day, helps magnify the amazing community of friends and Shaolin family the temple has provided. Possibly no one will see this post because the blog is all but dead these days, but it's nice to breathe a little life back into it, even for a moment, and know that the rest of the dorks are out there carrying on. So to sum up: yay kung fu dorks and yay memories. Amituofo, kids.

This Is Why I Train

It changed over the year. At the beginning, it was to stop thinking - for at least two hours during class. I was obsessed with my doomed relationship and self-pity. I was on a verge of depression. I learned to be present and mindful of things around me rather than just stayed in my own head.

And then I got over it.

I opened up and got to know more people at the temple. I realized I did not have to pretend to be accepted and liked. I could have friends I liked and liked me back for who I was in New York City! At the time, I trained because I was lonely. I wanted to make friends. I learned to open up and be comfortable with myself.

And then I started liking myself. I didn't need to be around people to not be lonely anymore.

Then it's because of Kungfu. I kept training because I wanted to be good. I wanted to kiss my toes and do all kinds of cool things other people can do. I liked learning and pushing my body to do things I never imagined doing. I remember the first time I did Ceshoufan. I had a surgery on the left shoulder not more than a year prior. I was mortified. But I did it. I liked the rush I had after the class - the feeling of accomplishing something difficult. I learned to be humble and confident at the same time.

And then that stopped too. I have been training only in Level 1 with the same routines over and over. I hardly do anything new anymore. I learned to find ways to improve what I know. I keep telling myself I can always learn - not a new move or a new form - but about myself. But that sometime wavers.

I still keep training at least 3 times a week. And I ask myself - why? What do I like so much about being there that even crumbling knees cannot stop me?

I think it's the positive energy - the chi. It's infectious. It makes me a positive and happy person. Maybe I do believe that through training I will one day understand myself. Or maybe I'm just addicted to pain.

Why do you train?

It's good to be back

Taking a break has its own benefit. For one thing, my knees were pain free until I started training again. But it's good to be back. To see people I know and with whom I have at least one thing in common. To feel welcome.

Tonight was my third class after being away for one and a half months. The pain and stiffness were still there. The flexibility hasn't come back. The first 20 kicks still hurt like hell. But it's OK. There was chi in the air. At the front of the lines, there were Xu, Khalid, Zhou, Randy and moneyfoot. It was beautiful and inspiring watching them training - especially when it's time for Tengkong Fanyao.

After the class, Heng Zhou's parents and sister showed up. They were such delightful people. One bit of wisdom from Zhou's mom that kept coming up in my head: She said she learned a lot since Zhou he started training. It's not because he brought anything new to the table. It's because they started talking more about the meanings and reasons for things. Subjects that everybody already realized but never brought up. Just by talking about it makes you learn.

China

Well, I know everyone was hoping for consistent, exciting updates from our journey into the Middle Kingdom, and when it became apparent that wasn't going to happen, began eagerly anticipating the promised deluge of posting that would follow quickly on the heels of my return. Now, you're patiently making excuses for me (jet lag, unpacking) for why I haven't yet provided the details on the China training. You're reading this now with joy and wondering when the heck I'll get on with it and talk about training. Here's the thing, there is just too much to even begin trying to capture it all in blog posts. Even when I leave out the stuff not strictly kung-fu related there is more than I can wrap my brain around telling everyone, and I feel inadequate to convey what happened without losing a lot in translation. I'm overwhelmed just thinking where to begin.

I can tell you that I learned eagle claw and sword, and that others learned tiger, mantis, and 7 star fist. But just from that I could devote an entire post to describing what eagle feels like, or what it's like to be taught by an instructor who doesn't speak any English. I could wax poetic for pages about the wushu schools, and watching the armies of children training on expanses of bare dirt doing rapid fire caijiaos and butterfly twists and intense stretching exercises. I have a whole post in my head about watching our instructors at Sifu's brother's school do 10 backflips in a row and suicides on a cement floor, jumping higher than any of us could if we had a sprung floor under us. I could talk about how we couldn't drink the tap water so I was never fully hydrated. How it felt to train with perpetual low grade indigestion.

Then there's all the spiritual moments. Climbing Drum Mountain at the Shaolin Temple; seeing the places we hear about in Buddhism class. I want to talk about the irony of watching a monk talking on a cell phone and the different feelings and thoughts that evokes. Or seeing the classic monk-coming-down-Bell-Mountain-stairs-on-hands-and-feet. Then there's the experience of meeting our Sifu's Sifu and how surreal that felt.

I can talk about the bizarre jet lag that had me training yesterday, about how totally whipped I was in class and how much endurance I lost in two weeks. the list is endless. So why don't I? Instead of summing up all the things I COULD talk about, why don't I just talk about them, you wonder? Besides it being an overwhelming amount of blogging, besides not wanting to bore the pants of everyone, and besides feeling unable to do it justice, honestly, I myself haven't totally absorbed everything or straightened out all my thoughts and feeling about everything I did and saw. Note the excessive run-on sentences in this post.

So, while I set it all in order in my mind, I invite you to ask any questions that I hope I can compile into a single "Answers here" post. For the rest of it, expect lots of anecdotes and references to crop up as I move forward in my posts. I beg your patience in this endeavor. In a way it's like looking at my photos, looking at them all en masse can never convey the experience and deadens your senses, whereas seeing one picture has its own story and its own impact it couldn't otherwise have. At the same time, the single picture isn't enough to express the whole trip. So as I move forward it will be like seeing the photos a few at a time, and I think it will provide the best story.

Absence Makes the Chi Grow Stronger

I always start a post that follows a long blogging drought with, "I haven't been blogging but that doesn't mean I haven't been training..." But this time that's not the case. Today was my first class in *gasp* a week. Six days with no training may not seem like a lot to a regular, un-crazy person, but for me it's an eternity. Even in the past mad weeks of being all over the planet I was training at least three times a week. (And still feeling slacker-y.) I had really planned to take advantage of my newfound free schedule and get back in gear. But for better or worse I had a lot to do last week, a rough workweek, and I just felt... well... burnt out. And lazy. As soon as you have a few evenings off you start to think.. oh.. so this is what a normal life is like. Sure is nice. Doesn't hurt my butt sword...

But I knew that today I had to get back. Not training really wacked-out my body and my brain. Thing was, I had made plans tonight that I didn't want to break. So I got on the gun at work then slipped out for day class. It was quite a welcome back. I barely had a moment to warm up before I was speeding away at the front of the line with Randy. It was HOT. And definitely strenuous, but all the "resting" paid off because I had so much chi it was incredible. I know the first day back after a short break is the easy day, but I felt a mental and physical rejuvenation that were not what I was expecting. It's nice to take time off, but it's better to come back. Freak. Addict. Dork. Call me what you will. To quote my favorite bad western movie, "There is no normal life; there's just life." And my life involves multiple weeknights sweating caijiao - aaaaand a few week-long breaks every once in awhile.

June Finale

My family is in town; I haven't had a proper night's rest in two weeks; I've been traveling all over, gone to two weddings, and didn't get any food yesterday until 4:00. Whine whine whine whine. I didn't think I was gonna be training, THAT'S for sure. But when my siblings decided they wanted to just bop around the city this evening I decided to end the four day training drought and get my body and mind a step closer to normalcy. Maybe I would pass out/throw up/ really want to die, but I needed to do it.

Turned out to be a very hot, fast, and excellent class. I thought that the dehydration and exhaustion were going to be near-insurmountable hurdles. But while there were definite moments of dizziness and fuzzy brain, the 4-day-off-flexibility and healed joints counter-acted my tiredness and I had a lot of fun going down the line. My jumps actually felt stronger, my kicks were high, and mentally I was totally there, making myself laugh with silly training jokes. (At one point, I had a visualization of Eric having a fight with a giraffe.) Even at the end when I knew liyu dating was coming and I questioned my body's ability to make it, I was able to shake the cobwebs out and go for it.

I'm especially glad I returned to the groove because tonight my little sister will be joining me in class and I want to be back in gear. Good to know that reservoir chi is always there even when you least expect it.

Balancing Act

I’ve had some difficulty maintaining a regular blogging schedule in spite of my declaration to be more consistent. I guess I just don’t want to bore everyone with the same thing over and over or mindless filler blogging that hasn’t a real point. I’m usually so tired at night that when I blog, I wake up and find a whole mess of stream-of-consciousness writing staring back at me.

I’ve sort of hit an era of transition in my life, and I’m trying to let training carry me through it, but not distract me from it. This distinction was brought again to my attention over the last three days training. I was away for 5 days at a wedding so I was definitely suffering from withdrawal, but on top of the happiness in returning classes have been additionally great. N’ou has been back bringing extra chi to L2. Tuesday’s class was the most chi I’ve felt in a class possibly ever; there are lots of new people making classes bigger and Randy was there to help push me further on my handstands and straddle split. Last night, the demo team was in full force learning a sword form. It feels like the beginning of a new stage of my training journey, and one that I want to maximize and fully immerse myself in.

As I’ve said before, I am somewhere between wanting to be amateur and wanting to be a pro kung fu trainee. Do I want to be on demo team some day? That would be rad. But I don’t want to lose focus on those things I’m trying to sort out in my “real life” as well. Training is a big part of my life, but unless I’m angling to be a Sifu, it can’t be the only part. I’m trying to tell myself to balance the addiction with other goals. But then, if I had done that the last three nights I would have missed some great classes. It’s all about balance, but if you’ve seen some of my forms, you know that’s something I need work on both literally and figuratively…

Retreat!!

It would be impossible to do justice to the entire awesomeness, and all the fun shenanigans from this weekend's retreat, so I will try to sum up my top ten moments.

10. Yummy thai food. Congee for breakfast is the bomb.

9. Learning the second posture for the chi gong form, Yi jin jing. Starting the day's training with chi gong was very beautiful and remarkably invigorating. The five postures we learned were all fun and definitely challenging, but my favorite was the second: opening your chest and standing, legs apart, arms and fingers outstretched, face to the sky. It made me feel tall, strong, open, and totally connected with the day and the people around me.

8. Diving into the ocean after our final kung fu class. Freezing cold, and kinda rocky, but totally fun and refreshing. When you're near the ocean, you gotta jump in. Thanks for leading the pack, Mo!

7. Learning more DHQ. Self-explanatory.

6. Being the first person in the shower on Saturday night. After a day training in the sun, there's nothing more satisfying than beating the masses back to the monastery. Important high-point. :)

5. Spending evenings around the fire talking to my Shaolin brothers and making new friends. Whether talking to an old friend and learning more about them, or chatting with someone newly introduced to temple, it was a wonderful opportunity bonding with everyone, laughing non-stop, and trying unsuccessfully to find a song to which everyone knew the lyrics.

4. Chocolate chili cookies. Sucheela is a genius. Totally great (spicy!) cookie and a super way to make new friends.

3. Getting to see the stars at night walking through the woods. The country girl in me felt at home. It felt amazing to be out of this city, smelling the woods and seeing the stars.

2. Our Shaolin brother John Sid sleeping outside at the fire with a brick as a pillow. HARDCORE!

1. Knowing that even though this one is over, I will get to come back again.

How about everyone else?

Women and Sports

Not too long after I hurt my knee back in September of last year, I got into an argument with my father, who had said to me, "I don't think women should do kung fu." I know he probably was reacting to seeing his daughter hurt herself while he came and watched a class and had found an awkward way to show his concern, and, well, he also is kinda old school, but his statement infuriated me. How could he say that to me, especially after watching me and several of my female friends train so hard for nearly two hours? Hmph!

It is interesting, however, taking into account how many of us women do suffer from various joint (especially knee) injuries. I've heard that women are more susceptible to such injuries for a number of reasons such as our general greater flexibility leads to overextension, or that wider hips lead to a different sense of balance, or that higher tolerance for pain results in us ignoring warning signs, or we feel like we have to prove something while performing against males by pushing even harder.

In fact, this past Sunday's New York Times Magazine featured an article discussing sports and women (in the context of soccer). Check it out. It suggests that perhaps because we are built differently, we should be aware of such differences, and not necessarily view them as limitations, but train with them in mind. The article also mentioned the importance of "sufficient core muscle strength, balance or overall coordination to play safely."

I remember reading recently in one of those free magazines you find while riding an airplane about building core strength, a concept with which I was only vaguely familiar. There is belief that emphasis in building "core" areas such as the abs, pelvis, shoulders and general torso area will result in a safer overall development of one's physicality.

Perhaps it would be prudent to be smarter about training kung fu rather than just slashing through everything? What do you think?

(Also, here is a follow-up discussion to the Times article.)

A bounce in my step, a spring in my heart!

In the changing room on Friday, while my gaze was fixed on the ground (changing room etiquette), I noticed that Richu has inserts in his feiyues. I asked what they were and Eric answered for Richu that they were for support. Then he said, "You gotta have 'em when you're a high-flier. Leo, you're a high-flier too, you gotta get them. Your knees and back need support."


After thinking about it quickly, it makes perfect sense. Maybe that's how I hurt my lower back during testing. So Saturday, I went out and got the Dr. Sholl's Tri-Comfort Orthopedic insert.

On Sunday, I got a chance to try them out for the first time. I have to say, Temple training is a whole new experience. I don't know why I didn't get them a year ago! They felt really good! They made my every step have a bounciness instead of the ground jarring sensation each time after a kick, move, or jump. The Feiyues don't offer much in the arch support area. Actually, they barely offer any support. They are flat and unforgiving. The best running shoes have amazing support because the foot is constantly pounding the pavement/ground. Even though we are on carpet, our repeated kicks and foot hitting the ground will take its toll. It's one reason on the first step of my gongbu, I never seem to feel right. The heel hitting the ground too hard always sends a vibration up my spine that I don't particular like. Today, that first step felt kinda nice! I was genuinely surprised!

There is a drawback though. It threw off my balance quite a bit, especially in forms. I wasn't used to having an extra layer in my shoes. And the bouncy support also changed how my stances were executed. But, by the end of class, my balance adjusted and I feel that with a little more getting used to, my forms will be even better than before.

There are different type of sole inserts. Some are for arch support; Some for knee support; Some for lower back pain. Maybe I'll mix it up and see which one I like best. Or maybe I should get something like this? Do you think 師父 (Shifu) would approve? My 騰空翻腰 (Tengkong fanyao) would really soar!! :D

A strapping young woman...

I've always been minimalist in my uniform. No socks, no straps, so sash. The less I have to fidget with the better. But after a long time of seeing other folks rocking the straps, and getting tired of catching my pants in zuopans, I decided to try them out. It was quite an improvement, though a little hot. I need to perfect my tying technique both in speed and effectiveness, but once that's done I think I'm going to be a straps-on kind of girl from now on. It's great not to trip on your pants (and my elastic is so stretched in the waist one good tug could pull them all the way off!) and also it gives you a new feeling in the way you kick, and allows you to see the line of your leg and body better when you are looking at a move in the mirror. We'll see if I feel the same when summer starts and it gets really hot. Till then, straps stay.

Last night, aside from trying to keep the straps up, I concentrated on two things: relax, and "kung fu is fun." It seems counterintuitive that repeating these phrases in your head would make said activity relaxing and/or fun, but I'm the personality type that needs those things spelled out sometimes or I forget. Combined with the fun of wearing the straps. I had a great class. Kung fu is fun. Meditation, workout and all that aside, it's simply fun to explode and tumble and train. And by relaxing and enjoying myself I do then also reach my goal of getting technically better. I have to remind myself that taking your time and relaxing is not the same as being lazy and not training hard. As Richu/Nike so succinctly put it, "Just do it." And have fun. And wear straps.

Hi-Chi

Last night, after about 25 minutes or so of relentless handstand-choke-fall over, I finally got the handstand somersault. On a mat, but I think it is a worthy first step. Bolstered by this success, when class started I bopped right to the front of the line and managed to stay there the entire class, even through ceshoufan, which is when usually I have to make way or get run over.

Training was great. There were at least 30 people there; and maybe it was the chi of the first really warm spring day, or maybe everyone was excited for testing, but the energy was bouncing off the walls. It was a relief after the struggle of yesterday, and I think I have just been off kilter of late because I was sick, then threw the baby shower, and my schedule was out of sync. So it was nice to have everything get back to normal and high-chi right before testing. I even got a chance to do erluquan and xiao hong quan all the way through. I finally felt like I was having fun again. I guess I probably should have taken off more than two classes when I was sick.... but what can you do? Testing is this weekend!

Stage Combat

As some of you know, I am an actor. Most of us have had physical movement training of some kind so we can be more aware of our bodies while in front of the camera or on stage. Yesterday, while in acting class, something particularly interesting happened. I was doing a scene with a fellow actor in which we were in a argument. Nothing was rehearsed so neither of us knew if the fight would get physical. He is about 6'2" and probably 170 lbs., so in terms of size of weight, he was much bigger than I am. Towards the end of the scene on the first take, the actor lunged at me and put a bear hug around me. Instinctively, I immediately went into a 弓步 (Gōngbù) and did a 推掌 (Tūizhăng). And he was pushed backwards, powerless, like a rag doll. A look of shock spread across his face. He wasn't expecting me to be able to push him off so easily. He tried again and ended up with a similar result. I didn't realize what I had done until the teacher mentioned after our scene that my Shaolin training is really paying off. She saw that I had complete balance and control of the situation because, physically, I was immovable. That physicality completely described the relationship between the characters beyond what mere words can be said. It was utterly instinctual. She loved it. The class loved it. I loved it.

It's not very often that we get to use what we practice at the Shaolin Temple. It's not 1200 A.D. where there are still warring tribes and we must fight to defend ourselves every day. These days, the guy/girl with the bigger gun usually wins the fight. It was really nice to know, that other than being a pretty art form, the training is based on real applicable uses. For me, oh lucky me! I get to use it on stage or in front of the camera every day!

Top Ten

Reasons tonight's class rocked:

- Big class -- over 30 people! Last night's L2 was also big -- 16. Is this a sign of a shift into spring training with larger classes? Either way it was fun filling the temple.

- Xu and Yue leading the lines. Somewhere in the middle I noticed that Xu and Yue were in the front of both the lines. I don't really get into gender politics much, but I still appreciated that I trained in a place where two unobtrusive petite girls are leading us down the carpet hardcore. Even cooler is the fact that it took awhile for me to notice. I love that we all just train hard and don't make a big deal out of who's a boy and who's a girl, who's old or who's young, who's been training the longest, or anything like that, everyone just trains.

- Sifu opened a window. That means spring is officially here no matter what the calendar says!

- Lots of chi. I felt Sifu was really urging us on today and that everyone went with it. Maybe it was wanting to represent for the several trial people in class, maybe it was just the air flowing through the window, but there was great energy tonight I thought. And I was glad. I trained muay thai this morning (7:30 am!!) and was worried I would feel tired, but I felt great and had lots of fun.

- Heng Gui. as always, a joy. :D Hope he's around for awhile.

- Working on head flips before class. Still a ways to go, but I'm getting less bad. That's comforting.

- Everyone stretched together! As mentioned in an earlier post, wall stretch has all but disappeared lately. Recently I was in a class of 25 and EVERYONE was stretching alone. Tonight Xu immediate got all the new/trial people together for a group stretch and that precipitated much more communal stretching. At least two groups of us were doing wall stretch and I think I saw several other people pairing up for stradlle and front splits, and cetitui stretch. I felt like we were more the old Shaolin community and less the sort of eerily silent group of people stretching in the same room.

- Richu saying Marcho de Mayo.

- Finding a new muscle emerging on my quads. New musculature is always interesting and inspiring.

- Coming home and having time to make cookies. Assuming I post this now. Thanks for a great class everyone!

Whoa, Nelly!

Monday afternoon I decided to take a few days off from my OCD training schedule and get a little work done on my so-called "real" life. Sensing this hubris, the Shaolin gods smote me with a thrown back. So whether I had wanted to or not, I didn't return to training until Thursday night.

It felt great to be back, I was full of pent up energy, and ready to go hardcore. About halfway through warming up with kip-ups though, my back pain reasserted itself and I knew that unless I wanted to really lay myself out, I'd have to work at containing the exuberance I felt.

This was quite a challenge; lots of my favorite Kung fu dorks were there including the long-absent Heng Gui! As we all know, he has through-the-roof chi so his return made class even more energized.

It was a strange feeling, instead of having to dig out the energy to go full-chi the whole class, I was getting constant reminders in my lower back to not extend quite so much, or explode quite that hard. I now understand a small part of your pain Qbertplaya, in having to pace yourself when your physicality can't match your chi. It's hard!

The fact that I had to do that though, was a good indicator that I CAN pop and extend and go strong all class. Finally, when trying (unsuccessfully) to do 5 kicks with slightly less vigor, I gave up on reining in the chi and went for it. I'm paying the price today, (training L2 is getting about 60/40 odds right now) but it was worth it to take advantage of such a fun class.

Magic Mirror on the Wall....

Before training I always try to do a few ceshoufans while warming up, particularly on my left side, to get my body warmed up and break through that initial intimidation before I have to do bawang zakuis in class. Yesterday I moved down to the other end of the carpet so that I could watch myself do them in the mirror. Admittedly, my attempts to watch myself probably threw off my form a little bit, but it was amazing to see how different it looked from how it felt.

Often I see someone not extending or not straightening their leg and I think, "How can you still be doing X after you've been taught a dozen times not to do it?" But then I remember I still fight to have a straight leg in my gongbus and I've literally been doing them since day one. The trouble is feeling something versus seeing it. My leg feels honest to god straight. I feel my knee locking. but when I look in the mirror I see that is not the case, and I see why I'm still getting called at in line.

That is what happened with my ceshoufan. I never thought they were stellar, but I did feel they were improving. But watching them in the mirror I now see many of the sources of my problems and lots of new problems to sort out. Funnily enough, this didn't bother me. Instead it made me happy to have finally been able to identify specific problems in my form instead of hearing the inspiring but often vague go-to command of "Extend!" I'm much more comfortable having things to work on when I can see exactly what they are instead of hoping against hope that I'm correcting something the right way. Hopefully, now that I can see it I will eventually get to the point where I CAN feel the difference and I won't need the mirror anymore to tell me what 's going on.

Richu's Austria Perspective

If you are interested in reading more about our fellow dorks' trip to Austria, Richu is blogging daily with pictures. Please go here to read more! Let's share their experience together!

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.

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...)

"Train, Train, Go Away"

Whenever I first wake up, I never want to train. On the border of sleep and awake getting out of bed seems quite unappealing if not totally impossible. Of course once I'm up for ten minutes then I'm fine. But today, waking up after a night out to a gray rainy day, I decided to roll over, snuggle deeper into my comforter, and snooze until noon.

WHAT? "Now way. I have taken two days off because I felt a little under the weather, but I was getting my lazy ass out of bed and training no matter what. I threw myself out of bed, and in under fifteen minutes, cooked and ate breakfast, got dressed, got my bag together, brushed my teeth and ran out the door.

I can't train tomorrow, which means that Monday would be 4 days since my last class. That's less frequent training than when I was working full time. We simply can't have that. Class was very humid, and the last vestiges of my cold left me feeling woozy and lethargic, but it was a fun class and by the end I felt stronger than at the beginning. After all that bitching and moaning my Shaolin whatever sword was tight but not excessively troublesome and my shinsplints took a brief respite. Then, instead of booking it home to curl back in bed I stayed for a really great Buddhism class then helped do some storage reorganization with the demo team practicing in the background. It was a good reminder how many different kinds of training I get when I walk into temple: physical training, mental training, spiritual training, community training, and inspirational training watching those I admire. Those are the things that I need to remember to make the next hauling out of bed a little less melodramatic.