Beta Then Some

    Thursay Mar 23,2023, Beta version for our weapon form was due for the IHC. What an amazing night that was! Such a diversity of weapons, so much creativity, wow. This is year five for me in the IHC and I am more excited that ever about the year ahead. Once we get a demo put together, Kaboom!! I am so stoked. 

   Now that I have a beta version of my form, time to tweak. I noticed many many things in my beta that I need to fix, NOW! Somehow while doing my demo, I forgot I had feet. My arms were moving, my Tiger Fork was swinging and stabbing, but my legs/hips/feet stayed home that night. And boy did I feel it. At one point I thought my weapon was going to rip my arm off. It took a mighty heave-ho to get it moving again, that is supposed to be my hips job, jerks. Ouch. Felt that Friday, that's for sure. 

   Now that I have a "plan" I need to figure out what went wrong and what went right. Oh ya, and figure out what happened to the rest of my limbs and joints. I need all six harmonies to do this right, not two and a quarter. Needless to say, I am excited. A new weapon is a mystery wrapped in an puzzle hidden in plain site.

Balance

    I can see what I want to do, I can think about how to do it, I can visualize it in my mind, I see it is possible to do by watching other people achieve my objective, so why can't I convince myself to do it? That is a tough one to swallow. Is it my spirit, my intent, my dedication to mastery, my ego, am I just dabbling instead of taking positive consistent action? 

   I am asking some tough questions of myself lately. I feel like I am standing on the first step of a divergence in my martial arts training and lifestyle. To often I am given golden nuggets of advice that I don't take to heart. I just acknowledge them and move on. Excuse after excuse pull me away from what I know will benefit me emencly. And this is nothing new in my life, I have a history of doing this. And now I have a significant genetic/lifestyle health issue that has forced it's way into the equation. 

   The "superman" ideal that I have lived by for the past fifty-two years has not served me as well as I thought it had. Ego and complacency have not served me well either. I need to take control now because later is sooner than I thought. And that scares the crap out of me.

   This is my boat to steer, I am in charge of my own problems. I will and have started making the changes that I need to. I have consulted my physician, I have started to amass more and more information as to the changes I need to make, now to stop dragging my feet and wake up.

   As I finish this abbreviated blog, I am going to take the dog for a walk and enjoy the beautiful morning that Mother Nature has blessed me with. Savor, enjoy, balance, repeat. 

https://guidelines.hypertension.ca/prevention-treatment/health-behaviour-management/

 

 

Perfection in the Imperfection

    Hand form, weapon form, daily training, regular classes. Every so often in the midst of one of these appears an moment of ahhh. Maybe it is something I am struggling with, maybe something I thought I knew but turns out we were just familiar with each other. 

   Yesterday (Sat) I was working on my Beta form for my Tiger Fork and I experienced one of those moments. It was an unintended move, it just happen because I was letting the weapon "lead" my motions. Single handed articulation to two handed helicopter to single handed articulation to an unintended double wrist roll. Felt natural, easy, like it was meant to be there, nice. 

   But when I tried to recreate it, it felt forced. The moment was gone. But now I know that that move is in there, hiding in plain site, waiting for me to find it again to allow me to own it. Exciting. 

   This leads me to wondering what other moves are in there waiting to be discovered. Today I will explore some more, seeing what road my Fork leads me down. Move over Dora, I'm Don the Explorer.

Finish Then Flow

    We were working on flowing through our form this week, and I will admit, I struggled. It seemed the more I flowed the less I finished my moves. It is such a fine line for me to deliver a technique properly while not making my form look "chunky". In my minds eye I can see what I want to do, and there are examples all around me of fellow students doing it, it is just getting my body to listen. 

   I think the best tool/concept I received this week was the foot work lesson from Sifu Hayes in the IHC class on Thursday. Just that small adjustment of the lead foot allows flow in ways that are now painfully obvious to me. I am now applying it throughout my forms and the edges of flow and power seem to be finally working together instead of staring at each other from across the room (more of a harmony than a solo).

 

 

   Open training, what can I say other that wow! Another great turn out, lets keep that going! I really feel like there was some great connections made between so many students. I myself had the opportunity to  interact with several people, and it was incredibly fulfilling to me. The "walls" that some people have seem like they are finally starting to fall, people going out of their comfort zone and asking questions, it was a privilege to be involved.

Examine and Explain and Then Feast

      Why/how does this move do what it does? 

   That has been my objective this past while, to ask that question of myself while practicing my forms, simple right? Not!!

   The ideas and questions being floated about by fellow students (you know who you are) have opened up trains of thought that I didn't even know existed. Their eye for detail is obviously much more attuned to their Kung Fu than mine is. What I just normally feel as "right", they ask questions about in ways I usually don't even consider, like foot placement, opening of the hips, transitions of power and flow, etc. Amazing! And the answers being given are opening up entirely new concepts and avenues of understanding, not that I DO understand them, yet. 

   Trying to apply these concepts has been both frustrating and incredibly rewarding. I have had more than a few AHA moments this past while, and every time I have one, it makes me hungry for the next one. I just wish there was more time in the day to explore more, but there isn't, so I must utilize my time more efficiently to feast on more of these golden nuggets of knowledge. 

   All this goes back to something Sihing Cosgrove said to my wife just after she got her Black Belt a while ago, "welcome to the new white belt". This couldn't have been more true. There is still so much to learn, it is infinite. And just when I think I understand one of these concepts, bam, something new comes up that compliments this knowledge with not just a cherry on top but a whole smorgasbord full of individual trays with every type of self exploration that you could imaging, all waiting to be savored and mixed together to make a new you. 

   So I must constantly feast on the well of knowledge available to me, there is no end to it. I have my plate out, I am ready, "please sir, my I have some more?".

 

 

I think I was hungry when I wrote this blog, lots of food references.😏