train sharper

last night's class was really hard for me. i think in many ways it was worse than tuesdays class, not only because it was a wee over half the size. again, i got there on the early side although i did dilly dally outside for a bit trying to acclimate myself to the warmth outside since i was in a freezing office all day. moreover, i was reminded consistently to make sure i hydrate enough & i think i overdid it since i actually threw water up & strangely i felt a tad better. but i did step out of class after hurling to get myself together & sat in mabu stance then i ran back in again. i opted to go slower for more sharpness. i made it through all the way to forms! it must have been about 2 weeks since i last did forms on the floor & when sifu was separating people out to learn i ran over to the yiluquan teaching which heng zhou was in charge of. he's good about basics, lower stances, strength from the hip, proper arm placements. although i didn't learn any new yiluquan, i sharpened details otherwise not discussed previously. of course i was sucking wind! plus quan tuo may have hit upon why the top of my foot tweaks: my laces are too tight. apparently when we warm up the feet expand & i always wear tight shoes for fear they will pop off when i kick & i am cutting off circulation to my foot. so i will loosen them up first to allow the feet to expand as they will then retightened them if needed. my shaolin hair was also a lesson. i put it in a big pony tail on top of my head & braided it down so that it hung from the back. everytime i extended, it hit me in the back of the head so it was a lesson to me when i wasn't extending properly. it worked well if not a little too well because it was tight. i did get a stray strand in my mouth a couple of times. some brothers were in class we hadn't seen in a while & the group to train soup was lovely. one thing that was odd was whenever i got to the corners, or the end of the line i got a little chill despite the heat in my face & chest being so intense. people were complaining of similar. for the stretch, i worked on the machine since it didn't add to the dizziness & i gave myself a good stretch, breathing along the way! quan tuo & i are thinking of getting one for the house. quan tuo got a bit of sifu love last night & he's not happy about it! everyone gets a turn, i think. it was a great class & a good time as usual & boy was i starving marvin with only that salad for lunch (& assorted munchies), that experiment failed. i need substantial food for training. but yes i trained hard & sheer will got me through it & yes! i sharpened up yiluquan so it's all kinds of good.
when we got home, quan tuo & i watched shaolin soccer & i love this movie & it had been a while since i had seen it. we realized that there are so many moves in that film that we have already learned, specifically yangshen yunshuo which was awesome & really showed me that i should be leaning back so that i am horizontal (so scary) & also mixed in tai chi which is great. also it's a lovely film with a beautiful message: shaolin has to be repackaged for the common man. let's face it, we cannot live as monks (or most of us cannot) so why not make shaolin accessible with all the teachings for the modern man? unlike kung fu hustle which was fun but was all flash & trend, shaolin soccer shows us that the power is within us, that none of the things we see on the screen are things that we cannot learn with hard work & perseverance & that we are a family, all of us, brothers in shaolin. maybe i am a little sentimental about kung fu & this film in particular but dammit. it's a message worth putting out there. we train everyday, not just at temple but in life.
MORE CHI