now i am serving grapes!

last night's class was a drippy one! i got to temple at quarter past 6 (it was murder trying to get out of my office) & proceeded the usual ritual i have described many times in previous entries. by 1/2 past 20 people had arrived & by quarter of 7, there were 42 of us warming up! pretty unusual. sifu was tan & in a good mood, thinking & talking fondly of mexico. he was saying he wanted to buy property there to heng mo & i. interesting.
so bang! class starts & it's going super quick. sifu told me to slow down for precision at gongbu early on but told me to speed up at fanyao. can't win with that man! i got in a stitch in my side during shuangtui quxitiao but kept going, walking off the floor intermittently to spit & run back in again (yes, lovely i know! but hey smoker here). heng li also kept stepping out of line but that's because his uniform didn't have elastic, it was being held up by his belt! i almost offered to have it fixed for him but no talking so... sifu had us do ceshoufan from the beginning of the carpet to the end, one by one, one on each side. i was getting all giddy being upside down. i made it through & was a little worried about yangshen yunshuo but i took my time & it went fine. sifu pulled most of the new people off pretty quickly so the line was smaller but not that small. suddenly it was stretch time & it was only 7:35.
i did the 3 man stretch with heng han & nicholas. han completely stretched me to the extreme & it hurt but i breathed through it & got a righteous stretch, holding each side & front for as long as i could. then the individual stretches alone watching sifu teach the newbies the basic stretches, standing & on the floor. thank god i have that towel because i was mopping myself up & still could not get all the sweat off of me.
then back in line! we were huffing through the end through tengkong holiotui & the stitch came back! ah well. then forms! i did the usual chuji quantao & what i know of yiluquan which is probably 1/2 with the rest & we gave one another a lot of encouragement with clapping & some yells. i get alot of sweet encouragement from the gang so i do my best to do the same. heng mo was yelling: get'em, get'em, get'em! which was awesome! sifu kept looking over at us as we were loud (frightening some newbies with more chi yells!) & giggly. i clocked it, we all each did a form every 5 minutes for more than a half hour. i guess that isn't too fast, i was actually getting cold in line but i used that time to catch my erratic breath! that's what happens when you are on the floor, doing a form with chi! slopping wet!
sifu came over & was watching someone do yiluquan & stop a third in so he talked to her for a second then asked everyone who hasn't finished it to come over. me, me, me!! he called for richu to teach us & i learned another third of the form - including serving grapes, a palm up move. when i last learned something last week, i stopped at the first pubu. richu took me to the 2nd pubu which is actually 5 movements. so fast! but great!
i have to say the cross caijao is a mind-fcuk! i kept stopping before that move & i had to convince myself to do it. i really have to practice that & also the gongbu with arms straight up to the side. sifu, as i have seen, is a stickler for that. richu said to really emphasis the pop at cross caijao even if the caijao itself is a little weak. noted.
when recounting all this to quan tuo, he shook his head at me & said you learned 5 movements? i think he thinks i should sharpen them all up before moving on. i will, dammit!! he didn't train since he's still not feeling good & that is worrisome to me. i told him so. i got to practice a few times with richu doing adjustments here & there. i think i know the rest from watching but i should wait to be taught officially before attempting it. i have lots to practice anyway!
soup training after then home bound to chill with my boys. soup training is always fun with 8 of us recanting the class experience to one another & the weekend. we toasted colleen who just started to learn chuji quantao, ah! more chi!
it was a good class & i had excellent recuperative sleep til about 4am. weird.