ever lower

training last night was awesome. it was a good crowd of folks, around 32. when i showed up at temple early to stretch, sifu was not around & for a moment i thought: who is teaching tonight? as others started to roll in, i am sure there were similar questions on their minds then about 15 minutes before class was due to start, sifu came in! the CHI level went up exponentially! line drills were good & fast. i am really happy with my cetutui these days & will train even harder. tuesday's class, quan tuo commented that my zhengtutui was looking great & i really did feel the pop every time! i snuck a look at sifu at the beginning of yanshen yunshou & after the first 2 sets, he sent me to the back to "practice". i rather enjoyed being in the back this time, although it was superslow at some points & i yelled out MORE CHI many a time to inspire people to move along. i wanted to pull people aside after training to tell them the proper etiquette back there but i didn't get a chance to. it would help oh so much if this was done.
stretching was great, i am working on the 3 man stretch with little help from the other 2 people then going a bit further back again before the front stretch. it felt so good & so painful! so i return to the back with the newbees & the others pulled off the line until we run the drill with sifu & at each movement he pulls further people off our line to get remedial work on different things. at the end there were only 4 of us left & sifu called out our brother richu to sharpen our moves. it was great! richu has one of the lowest mabu & gongbu stances i have seen & he is solid on his legs. he instructed me to explode at xiebu, to really strike & pretend i was going to hit our brother george (who was in our group & right beside me at the time) at the knees. that visualization really inspired me (although george was looking suspicious). i was proud that richu said i was looking really sharp & his only advise to me was to go lower, ever lower & hold parts of the form for at least 2 seconds before continuing. sifu watched us practice for a bit with his dubious face on. i think sifu was in a good mood!
sifu always tells me to slow down while doing fanyao & yanshen yunshou [my 2 really painful & difficult movements] but he says this in the same breath as he yells out move it, move it to the class. in line at the back, he said see you can do it while i performed yanshen yunshou. i suppose i have to not get carried away with the pace of the line but it's very hard not to. ongoing lesson.
2 separate people asked me about chuji quantao & if i had tested. when i said yes but i did not pass they were perplexed (as am i, still). it doesn't matter, though it did give a little further credence to my not understanding why i didn't pass. at least not yet.
working with richu also enhanced the end of class mabu/gongbu strikes for me. i felt firmly on the ground & didn't rise transitioning from mabu to gongbu. i kept my level the same & really felt the push on the side of the foot in gongbu.
after class a nice group of us went out to eat. quan tuo didn't train last night but met us afterwards to eat & hang out. it was such a good time with 2 newer brothers joining us! i look so forward to hanging out with those guys after training. we even sat outside to celebrate the good weather & we took over the entire section!

the photo is from shaolin master killer aka the 36 shaolin chambers which quan tuo & i love. if you check out his mabu, it's pretty damned good!

so i have to remember - lower, ever lower & pause before exploding!
amituofo! more chi! train lower!