Thought Points

I don't have any kind of cohesive lesson or insight. Just a few thoughts:

1. It felt good to train last night, after missing a week of training.

2. I realized I like when visitors watch us train-- it makes me recall my first weeks at Temple, where I was utterly out of my comfort zone, but at the same time felt like I had finally found this place and these people that made sense to me. It makes me wonder what that person sitting there watching is thinking, and reminds me how far I/we have come.

3. I had to rush out last night to meet some friends for drinks back in Brooklyn. I'm pretty sure I left Temple too early though: As soon as I got to the bar, I started doing the Leg Sweep, like that's a completely normal thing to do. I felt kinda cool and kinda dorky, but mostly dorky. I am OK with that. But I'm not sure if the proprieters of the bar were.

4. My new strategy for healing my Shaolin Butt Sword is to make my butt stronger. It is my understanding that once a tendon is loose, you can't really tighten it again. The only thing you can do is strengthen the muscles around it. Any insight, anyone?

Love, Buns-of-Steel!!!

Shifu has a million eyes

I was so excited to train last Saturday because a grueling work week prevented me from attending class last Tuesday and Thursday. But I was dragging ass, especially during xiebu after chuji quantao. I was in the last row of people, and my knees felt like they were going to buckle as I slowly pivoted and crouched down.

All the way from the front of the carpet, I heard Shifu's voice -- "Ellen! You still don't get it!" -- and then this orange blur shot across the room and then towards me, ending up right next to me. I felt Shifu's eyes staring at me as I struggled through xiebu, so I dug into my dwindling reserve of chi and extended as though my life depended on it. And then Shifu left me alone.

Never assume that Shifu can't see you from across the floor. But mostly, be honest with yourself. There is no need for Shifu to push us into extending as fully as possible. We should do it all the time.

Twisting and Turning

My right knee has been hurting. I came up with all kinds of reasons for it:

• Doing Tenkong Fanyao only on one side


• Trying to lock my knees doing Gongbu


• High heel shoes


• Slippery winter sidewalk


• Old age


• etc...

I think I just figured the true reason out yesterday during the class. It's that move that you stand on the right leg - lifting your left leg - and strike up in the air twice while turning left with your right leg... [Illustration to come when I get home...]



I think I twisted my right knee trying to turn...

How should I correct this? Or do I just keep doing it and my knee will get stronger?

Leg Sweep!

I'm about to do the leg sweep, and I'm finding it intimidating. Must get over the mental block. Also, I find it frustrating being at the end of the line during the basic moves because people accumulate necessarily, and eliminate space available to train. That's a good lesson for paying attention when we start!

On another note, I gave the baby turtles a new toy-- it's a hollow floating log! They totally love it.
I also got them some plants, but I won't install them till I receive the big rocks for the bottom to anchor them in. Yay Beautiful New Temple!

How do you start Erluquan?

Last week Shifu corrected how I started Erluquan. You know - that move right at the beginning after you swing your right arm to the side and swing it back to the front as if you're hitting somebody's throat while doing kind of side Gongbu.

So I think Shifu told me to do this....



...because he told me to do the move like what we do at the end of Yiluqan where you hold your two palms up while doing the side Gongbu - he told me to do that and then chamber my left hand and flip my right hand. So the end result is the picture above.

But now I'm not sure that I understood him correctly because I looked at everybody else doing the form today. They all did this...



I think I'm going to keep doing the Fig. 1 and I'll be different... :) But how were you taught to do this particular move?

(I'm stealing Ellen's idea doing the stick figures. I'm too lazy to draw faces though so I'm drawing them from the back...)

Sarah and Jasmine

Learned two new names from two pretty ladies today.

Sarah is the very tall skinny girl with dark hair who has been training for a while and who can kick very very high. Esther and I stretched her today.

And Jasmine or Heng Zu (or something like that) is the dark skin, very pretty, level 2 student who has been training with us since after Shifu's birthday party. She always pulls her straight hair back while training.

*Correction*
Her name is spelled YASMIN.

Meet Ra!

After class on Saturday, Ji introduced me to Ra. He is of Persian descent, he has short dark hair and has interesting tattoos on his forearms and neck, and he painted the westernmost (golden) dragon column at the new temple. His name means "sun."

Also, on Saturday, I got to work on my little bit of erluquan with Tiao. It is good having her chi back at Temple!

Amituofo!

Just Friggin' Do It!

Ok, I'll admit it. Last night about an hour before class I was feeling a teeny tiny bit of dread going to Temple. Maybe it was because I felt low on chi, my job was stressing me out, I had friends coming later that evening from out of town so I was nervous about getting home before they got to my apartment, the rat situation at my local Au Bon Pain was grossing me out, or that the last time I went to a class that Shifu taught I got raked over the coals.... Whatever it was, it all resulted in this feeling of ick, and I was letting it seep into my thoughts. I IMed Sucheela about it, and you know what she told me? Train Harder!

Sucheela couldn't go last night because she had a friend's birthday party to go to. And every once in a while, I'll have a similar obligation, or there's some work deadline I must meet, which keeps me from going to class. I have to remind myself that I am so lucky to be able to train whenever I can, so I mustn't let these soggy feelings (can you tell it's pouring outside as I write this?) be an excuse. Every time we can go, we build towards something better and bigger.

So, last night, training proved to be superfantastiche, as always. I managed to get through class without hearing Shifu yelling my name, and practiced forms with the gang, even the wee bit of erluquan I learned for the first time on Tuesday, as sheepish as I felt. And to top it off, Shifu broke us up into small groups again to learn more forms, so Jeremy, Shi (Jose) and I learned a little bit more of erluquan together. Yay!!!

Silly Qbertplaya, why did I even question whether I wanted to go? MORE CHI!!

At last...

A nice bounceback from Saturday's tough class -- I started erluquan tonight!!!

Oh, happy day!

Woooooooooooo!!!!!!!

Okay, now I go to bed...

I Heart Training: The ? vs. the !

I still have a sword in my buttcheek, and repetitions of Erluquan are making my lower back sing a constant dull ache.

But amidst all of that, I have been feeling pleasure from watching people at Temple, who started training well after I did, advance quickly and beautifully.

And amidst all of THAT, I felt particular pleasure on Saturday, when, for the first time, Shifu asked me to teach someone. What an absolute honor. And, predictably, through that experience, I ended up learning quite a bit myself.

What surprised me the most, was that the humility I felt at being asked to teach someone else, far outweighed the normal humility I feel when I am corrected... or, shall we say, sharply urged on, during the normal course of training.

I realized that when I am moving in demonstration before Shifu, or anyone, as I am being watched, my movements bear a question mark, particularly while I am first feeling my way through a form. But when my movements were intended to provide an answer to someone else, I found it necessary to summon strength and confidence, sharpness and extension, and found, resultingly, that my movements instead bore an exclamation point.

What I learned from my teaching experience was this: that in transforming a question into an exclamation, the curve of the question mark is forced to unbend-- POW!-- and to extend-- BAM! and that is where I found the answer: in the length, the explosion, the strength-- in the pure power, gushing forth, entirely, infinitely, from within.

And oh yeah... another lesson? I still, and always will, have a lot to learn!

Amituofo.